Earlier this year, Newsmax columnist Dennis Kneale published a book titled “The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk,” published by Broadside Books, the right-wing imprint of HarperCollins. Around the same time the book came out, Kneale wrote a Jan. 30 column gushing over Musk in a way that we can presume is the tone of his book:
Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneurs and raconteurs of our time. He achieves the seemingly impossible on so many different fronts it seems beyond human capability.
Yet he also is one of the more reviled figures of our time, attacked by Democrats, regulators, liberal NGOs, and other critics—and he fights back without a flinch.
How does Elon do it? How does he thrive in myriad fields, and what can we take from him and apply it to our own merelymortal lives? Therein lies the mission of my new book, The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk, published by HarperCollins on Tuesday of this week.
It carries a back-cover blurb from Chris Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax Media, who writes: “(Musk) is a force of nature, and this book’s eleven lessons reveal how you can tap into the power of Elon Musk.”
Of course Ruddy would blurb a book written by one of his columnists.
Fast forward a few months, however, and Kneale is upset with Musk for feuding with President Trump over his bloated budget bill (in no small part because, we presume, such a feud impacts sales of his book to his fellow right-wingers). So Kneale wrote a July 1 column demanding that Musk properly apologize:
Following a whirlwind tour of 130 days as chief budget-cutter in the government, Elon Musk has gotten back to the nitty-gritty — with a vengeance. His comparatively recent posts on X show this.
But . . . there he goes again, Elon Musk has been on the warpath against “The Big Beautiful Bill,” championed by President Donald Trump. In repsonse, Trump has hit back hard.
(Note to Elon: Can you please stop this and get back to real business?)
[…]But Elon Musk has some important unfinished business he should address: making a full-throated apology to the President of the United States.
Not all that long ago, Musk went on a tirade in front of his 221 million followers on X, the premiere media platform that he controls.
He deplored Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill as a “disgusting abomination” that will increase the government debt that Musk had tried to reduce.
Far worse, Elon personally insulted the president, getting angrier as Trump dared to smack back. And then, at 3 o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, June 11, Elon Musk issued his version of a heartfelt apology:
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.” “Some”?!
Forty million people saw this post, and here’s the rub: it is insufficient. It lacks two key words that are mission-critical anytime you have to tell someone you are sorry, “I apologize.”
What is it with people (and companies) and their aversion to apologizing?
Musk was right on the facts, but he was wrong on style and protocol, which hold more sway in these precious, oversensitive times, when so many people are shopping for umbrage.
[…]Delivered in the right way, a good apology can quell controversy and make both sides feel better. It can even lead to a better relationship brought closer by the brouhaha, and this is true in business and in life.
More of us should just take the hit and do it well.
It’s only in the bio that it’s disclosed Kneale wrote a book praising Musk.