Elon Musk: as business fortunes dip, he starts a war with the media

Once upon a time Elon Musk was our era's real-life Tony Stark, a billionaire Iron Man streaking across the sky with technology to save the planet and take us to Mars. Reusable rockets, electric cars, solar power, he did them all, taking time out to advise Robert Downey Jr on how to play the Marvel superhero on a trajectory seemingly forever up, up, up. Now Musk, 46, is literally and figuratively in a long, dark hole. He is tunneling beneath Los Angeles to create a prototype underground transit network which, he says, can save the city from traffic congestion. But a recently released video of the tunnel plus a map of potential lines coincided with a dark turn in Musk's fortunes and reputation, creating the impression of a man in a labyrinth of his own making.