We’re in the midst of a storm of articles – variously encomiums, valedictories, friendly morality tales – about Elon Musk’s purported departure from service in the federal government. I’m going to note a couple quite unflattering pieces in a moment. But for now I want to focus on the bulk of them which tend to portray Musk as someone who tried to tame government spending but was simply over-matched by ‘Washington’s ways’ and he finally failed. You get the image of a guy who is chastened, heading back to his regular life, no match for Sodom anymore than most of us would be.