Musk grew impatient with the speed and quality of the roofing installation at SolarCity, which had been acquired by Tesla. He tore into the engineers, criticizing them for every detail, and told them that they should install roofs themselves so that they would recognize when their designs failed. He pushed them to install roofs faster and cut costs. He summoned one of the employees, Brian Dow, to fly out to Boca Chica. Dow did so, even though it was his birthday. Together, Dow and Musk brainstormed plans to cut costs and Musk grilled Dow on details. However, Musk decided that Dow was not up to his standards, so he fired him.

Elon and Kimbal were upset that Burning Man, the festival in the Nevada desert, was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19. They organized an unauthorized event called “Renegade Burn” at the same desert site.

Grimes and Elon broke up in 2021, but their relationship “became a roller coaster of companionship, co-parenting, loneliness avoidance, boundary setting, estrangement, blocking, ghosting, and re-embracing” (380). They attended the 2021 Met Gala together.