Is Anyone a Genius?

Honestly with Bari Weiss

The Free Press

News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 7.8K Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2025

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Love him or hate him, many consider Elon Musk to be a modern-day genius. He co-founded PayPal, which transformed how people purchase things. He became the CEO of Tesla, which revolutionized electric vehicles—and made it cool to drive them. He founded SpaceX, accomplishing what only superpower nation-states have previously. And he is working to make our species interplanetary—maybe in a few years, we’ll be doing this podcast on Mars. To many, these acts make Elon Musk a genius, perhaps the most important genius in history. But it’s worth asking: What exactly makes him a genius? Is it a particular set of qualities, or is Elon Musk just particularly adept at playing the role of genius? Or at least what we’ve come to expect of geniuses? Is his offensive behavior excused by his genius, or the result of it? And why do human beings value genius, even to the point of deifying it? All of these questions are raised in Helen Lewis’s new book, The Genius Myth. And not just with regard to Musk, but to so many of the figures our culture venerates as geniuses: Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs. Lewis asks: Were these people actually geniuses? Or was their genius based on a myth? And more importantly, how does our perception of “genius” confuse and distort our understanding of success—and how we value, or don’t value, other human beings? Today on Honestly, Bari asks Helen Lewis if some people belong to a special and superior class, what it means to be a genius, and if she believes in geniuses at all. Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and unlock world-wide perspectives on today’s biggest news stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, everyone. Barry here with a really exciting announcement I want to share with you. From now until July 8th, we have a special offer over at the free press for honestly listeners and for our readers. You can get $17.76 off an annual FP subscription by going right now to thefp.com slash subscribe. It's perfect timing because leading
0:24.9	up to the 250th birthday of the United States, one year from this July 4th, we are bringing
0:31.7	free pressers a year of events, live streams, debates, subscriber meetups, and so much more. We're calling it America at
0:39.7	250. Here's just some of what you can look forward to. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney-Barrant
0:45.9	will join me in New York City on September 4th. The next month, I'll be on stage with tech
0:51.5	pioneer Palmer Lucky to hear about how he is building America
0:56.2	to secure itself for the 21st century. And to top it off, we're going to do a meetup in New York
1:02.1	City in early August for all of our subscribers under 30. You can find out all of this and so much
1:08.9	more by going to thefp.com slash America to learn more.
1:14.2	Paid subscribers to the free press are going to get the best of everything, the first go at event
1:18.8	tickets, exclusive access to our live streams, and the opportunity to connect with other
1:23.4	free pressers. You really will not want to miss this. To get in on the celebration and to become a
1:28.3	subscriber today with this limited deal, go to thefp.com slash subscribe. Happy Independence Day,
1:35.8	and can't wait to see you there. From the free press, this is honestly and I'm Barry Weiss.
1:42.9	Love him or hate him, many consider Elon Musk to be a modern-day genius.
1:48.7	He co-founded PayPal, which transformed how people purchase things.
1:52.0	He became the CEO of Tesla, which revolutionized electric vehicles and made it cool to drive an EV.
1:58.5	He founded SpaceX, which has accomplished only what superpower nation states have done in the past
2:04.2	and is now working to make our species intergalactic.
2:07.7	Maybe in a few years I'll be doing this podcast on Mars.
2:10.7	To many, these acts and more make Elon Musk a genius, perhaps the most important genius in
2:17.3	the world today.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Free Press, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Free Press and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.