The story of Elon Musk, the way it's often told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero – or, especially lately, a supervillain. As the world's richest man, the US President’s right-hand man, and the owner of X, he’s possibly the world’s most powerful man. 

Musk wants to build robots and colonise Mars and appears to be dismantling sizable parts of the US government. His vision of the future seems to stem from the science fiction that has fueled his imagination since he was a boy. But what's the real story, the true history, behind Musk’s sense of destiny? 

Back in 2021 Harvard history professor and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question. So she made a podcast that tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with. A lot has happened in the four years since. So she’s gone back in to bring the story up to date.

“X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story” is a production of the BBC and distributed by Pushkin Industries.