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Elon Musk: American Oligarch
Cartoonist: Darryl Cunningham
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Release date: September 9th, 2025
Elon Musk’s story has the twists and turns of a life commonly associated with supervillainy. Publicly, he starts out as a kind of ally that wants nothing less than to revive space travel to bring humanity closer to Mars while also making “environmentally conscious” cars for the greater good. Stephen Colbert even had him over for the second episode of his Late Night run back in September 2015 to ask him whether he was a superhero or a supervillain at a time when his big plans for SpaceX and Tesla framed him as a visionary, not entirely aware of how defining the question would turn out to be.
For a moment, things skewed towards flawed super heroism. And then, a switch. Suddenly, it was made clear that he was a supervillain, masked as a realist, that didn’t mind taking taxpayer money to fund his self-aggrandizing ideas.
Cartoonist Darryl Cunningham has experience giving people like Musk the comics treatment to explain the root, development, and rise of their troubling ways with books like Putin’s Russia and Billionaires: The Lives of The Rich and Powerful. His latest book, Elon Musk: American Oligarch, feels like the natural next step in his trajectory as a creator of non-fiction comics. It’s a story about predatory progress and how one man can dictate so much simply by having access to money.
Elon Musk follows the titular figure from his childhood days to his recent fallout with the second Trump administration after his work as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) ended in controversy, and a suspicious black eye.
This last part is more an epilogue to the book’s larger narrative, which focuses on Musk’s overblown aspirations and his push for authority and standing among the elite. In doing so it explores his dealings with billionaire Peter Thiel, his desperate attempts at keeping SpaceX alive in the company’s early years, and his contentious takeover of Tesla through strategic shareholding practices.
Cunningham is known for injecting a bit of dry humor into the precise examinations of the subjects he settles on, mostly to accentuate the ridiculousness inherent in the pursuit of power. It works well in bolstering his pointed criticism of Musk’s moral character and the unethical views here, especially regarding what the future should look like and whether rich and influential people should disregard the law to achieve it.
The cartoonist’s signature linework and use of solid colors keeps the visuals light on detail so that the text-heavy pages flow with more ease. It also lets readers fill in the panels with their own images of Musk and the other figures he deals with. There’s an abundance of these pictures online, most notably in the form of memes and reels. It’s pretty hard not to come across this man’s face on social media or any other type of visual media. As such, the art invites just enough interpretation as the narrative unfolds so we can fit our own appreciation of Musk as we read.
Cunnigham does latch on to a particular component of the story that veers the experience into deeply unsettling territory: Musk’s use and abuse of taxpayer money. A lot of this comes into play in the parts of the book that deal more directly with SpaceX and Tesla. For being such an ardent supporter of the private sector’s ability to accelerate and further develop space travel and energy efficient transportation, Musk sought government funds on a regular basis to keep its projects afloat.
It all fell into a pattern. Musk would raise funds from private interests, blow the money on rushed prototypes and startups already burdened by strict production deadlines, and then seek refuge in the government’s coffers for continued financial support.
It was difficult not to become enraged while reading these sections. In the span of two or three pages at a time, Cunnigham would show how quickly tax money disappeared into poorly thought-out plans that would’ve had a better chance at success had ego not played such a big part in the early stages of each project. In the face of our current economy and what awaits us in the coming year, it boggles the mind and generates a lot of frustration.
Sitting down with a Darryl Cunningham book is like strapping yourself in to watch one of those classic documentaries (an Errol Morris or an Alex Gibney one) that change the way you look at the present soon after the credits roll. With Elon Musk, Cunnigham gives readers an urgent warning on the perils of giving a single person so much societal and corporate currency. It’s a book that can help us better understand what we’re heading into in 2026, which makes it an essential read that should be considered required reading for those looking to untangle the most baffling behaviors of one of the richest men in the world.
English (US)