Dear Friends,

There’s a weird thing we do with successful people: we assume their talents are universal. Elon Musk builds rockets and EVs, so naturally he must be great at… governing the U.S. nuclear arsenal?

I wrote about this in Bloomberg Opinion, using Musk’s misadventures with DOGE as a case study in what I call the “omnigenius” myth—the belief that brilliance in one area means brilliance in all areas.

Why do we fall for it? Blame something called the halo effect. It’s a well-documented cognitive bias that leads us to project someone’s success in one area onto everything else they do. If someone’s smart or accomplished or just looks the part, we tend to assume they’re good at everything—whether or not there’s any evidence.

It’s how CEOs become foreign policy commentators, actors become health experts, and tech founders end up overseeing government agencies they don’t understand.

Take what happened when DOGE cut staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Turns out, firing the people who manage nuclear weapons isn’t a great idea. The government had to walk it back within 48 hours. Same with healthcare for 9/11 responders. Same with cuts to Social Security offices.

None of this is about Elon specifically—he’s done things that genuinely changed the world. But success is never context-free. What worked at SpaceX doesn’t automatically work in Washington.

And it’s not just tech bros. The halo effect is everywhere. We assume a hedge fund manager must understand global diplomacy. Or a celebrity must know something about medicine. Or a guy who sold a lot of soda can run a computer company (looking at you, John Sculley).

Context matters. A lot. In fact, it’s often the thing that makes someone great. Strip it away, and all that’s left is the illusion of omnigenius.

So here’s my question: Who have we handed too much credibility to, just because they crushed it somewhere? And what’s the cost of letting them keep it?

As always, I’d love to hear your feedback on my Bloomberg column and I welcome and ideas you’d like to share!

-Gautam

Discussing Elon Musk’s “Omnigenius” on CNBC

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