Elon, Autism and a raft of misconceptions
As Weird Al said, everything you know is wrong...
Today’s topic is a departure from my usual (don’t worry, I have some great art-focused articles on the way), but given that April is Autism month and recent events have brought autism into the limelight, or into disrepute as the case may be, it seem appropriate to address some of the things currently being said on the topic, and some long held beliefs and misconceptions.
This article was inspired by a series of conversations taking place on social media where I saw the most surprising statement being bandied about. It was in a discussion about current events in the U.S. involving the inimitable Elon Musk, and paraphrased it went something like this:
It’s well known that Elon is autistic, and that’s why he should never have been let anywhere near government.
There wasn’t any further reasoning given for this statement, it was apparently supposed to be self-evident was to why exactly being an autistic should disqualify someone from a position of influence. More surprisingly though was that no-one was openly challenging this view, it seemed to be accepted.
I spent a lot of time thinking about what exactly was being said here and, at its core, it appears to be about certain claims that have been made about autistic people over the years that remain lodged in the public consciousness. It’s about empathy, and rigidity and social awkwardness. It’s about the somewhat uncomfortable feeling you can get sometimes when talking with an neurodiverse person, a feeling that something isn’t quite right, the uncanny valley.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence currently that Mr. Musk lacks somewhat in the empathy department. His actions, along with DOGE as a whole, towards federal employees and aid recipients have not just been destructive, but carried out with an unnecessary level of cruelty and apparent glee that reminds one of children pulling the wings off a fly.
Musk even went so far as to say it outright in an interview:
Empathy is the fundamental weakness in western civilization. The empathy exploit.
Elon Musk, on the Joe Rogan Experience
Elon claims to have empathy for “human civilization” rather than individuals. Though I don’t necessarily doubt his commitment to what he sees as the betterment of humanity, his near-obsession with making us a multi-planetary species would likely bring more benefits to humanity than his detractors would like to credit him with (if he could successfully achieve it, anyway), his recent behaviour does speak to a lack of understanding as to what exactly empathy is, and certainly gives credence to those of his critics who claim he lacks it. Even his brother has been quoted as saying Elon “lacks the empathy gene.”
A better question however is whether this lack of empathy is related to autism as some of his apologists claim. Many certainly think so, which is part of the problem when a high-profile person openly identifies with a group of people (neurodiverse autistics in this case) and just as openly displays the very trait they are most famous for possessing - a lack of empathy. Supporters of Musk have trumpeted his autism as an excuse for everything from his strange behaviour on stage and in interviews to the now infamous “roman salutes” he decided to demonstrate to his adoring public.
Many people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been pushing back on unfair characterisations of them since the initial research saddled them with this “empathy deficit” label. It is difficult to correct misconceptions when Autism is caught up in so much controversy and misinformation. Whether it is apologists trying to excuse Elon’s behaviour, anti-vaccination activists attempting to scare parents with pseudo-science, or organisations such as Autism Speaks who claim to advocate for autistic people but are wholeheartedly rejected by that community for their toxic views of the very people they claim to support. Sadly, many people have little experience with autistic people (or rather, don’t realise how much experience they have had…) and with so much misinformation around, it can be difficult to know what to believe.
So today I hope to help. We’re going to delve into a few of the most common misconceptions around Autism and empathy, leadership abilities and morality, take a look at some of the challenges autistic people face in the modern world, and some of the unique strengths they bring to it.
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A bit about me
Before we leap into talking about misconceptions, I should address the obvious concern; who exactly am I to be talking about autism? I am about to argue, after all, that many of the things we think we know about autism may well be the result of judgements made by neurotypical people who were fundamentally unable to understand the people they were trying to study. Several times in my research I have seen good science marred by exceptionally poor conclusions, a result of cognitive bias brought on by the lens in which the academics writing the paper saw the world.
I am an autistic man. More, I am a late diagnosis autistic who wasn’t diagnosed until quite recently, in his forties. There is a lot of baggage, a lot of trauma that goes along with late diagnosis, particularly from someone who, like me, grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s far from anything resembling an understanding of neurodiversity and its challenges. Since my diagnosis I have done a lot of soul searching and a lot of research in an attempt to come to terms with this and what it means.
What it means for you, dear reader, is that the opinions I am about to share are educated ones born of research in which I have a vested interest in knowing the truth. Not necessarily a comforting truth; I know all too well the challenges that I have had to face throughout my life, and the challenges those close to me have likewise had to struggle with, and I am not about to romanticise any of this. These opinions are also based not only on research papers and articles, of which I have consumed many, but also my own lived experience.
Enough about me, however. Let’s turn our attention to why exactly some among us believe autistics are unsuited to positions of influence, power and leadership.
A quick note on terminology
I will refer throughout this article to “autistics” and “autistic people”, meaning people who fall somewhere on what is known as the “Autism Spectrum”. This is a wide spectrum and there is significant variation in severity of symptoms along the length of the spectrum.
Additionally, Autism often presents alongside a variety of comorbidities which can include intellectual disabilities and a variety of mental disorders. All of this can and does muddy the water significantly as to what symptoms are “caused” by autism, and which are comorbid.
If you spend some time researching autism or some of the higher-profile people who have openly talked about having it, such as Elon Musk, you may also come across the term “Aspergers Syndrome". Previously this was a standalone diagnosis particularly in the later half of the 20th century and some older people diagnosed as children or young adults may have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. In the current fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the core book used by psychiatrists and mental health professionals around the world, Aspergers syndrome has been folded into the Autism Spectrum Disorder umbrella, and now constitutes a diagnosis of ASD. When I use the term Autistic in this article, I am referring to both those diagnosed with ASD and those with an earlier diagnosis of Aspergers.
The Key Misconceptions
There are many misconceptions about Autism but when it comes to considering autistics unfit for leadership and high-profile positions, there are three that crop up again and again. These are:
Deficits in empathy
This is the big one, the unshakeable one, and in my view the most significantly damaging misconception to autistics as a group. Early research into autism came to the conclusion that autistic people on the whole were unable to feel empathy for others, or felt considerably less empathy, and were generally unable to “put themselves in the shoes” of other people and see the world from their point of view. This view of autistics has persisted to the present day even amongst some academics and researchers in the field.
Unsuitable for leadership roles
Another fact that is “well-known” about autistic people is that they struggle with social communication. They seem awkward and stand-offish. They are inflexible. Our traditional model of leadership lauds charisma, social fluency, confidence and charm, which are not traits traditionally associated with autistic people.
Rigidity and moral blind spots
Along with social awkwardness and a lack of empathy, the final thing most commonly believed about autistic people is that they are rigid, unable to adapt to change and require routine and predictability in their lives in order to function. Not traits that lend themselves to the high-pressure world of big business, let alone politics, one would think.
When that anonymous social media poster said with utter certainty that autistic people shouldn’t be near positions of power, it seems likely to me that these are the traits they had in mind. To be fair to them, were these things all completely true in the way they understood them, they may even have had a point. Lets break them down in more details.
Autism and Empathy
This, I think, is the most damaging stereotype that exists about autistic people. If I manage to change anyone’s mind about anything in this article, I hope it is about this. Ever since the original research was carried out decades ago there has been an impression of autistic people as robotic, uncaring, unemotional and overly logical. Spock, with his human side suppressed.
The real problem historically however has been that research into empathy has traditionally been carried out in ways that disadvantage autistic people and lead to skewed results; skewed conclusions in any case. This was not intentional, but a result of the inability of a neurotypical research to, ironically, fully empathise with the autistic people being studied. Much as early IQ tests were written by white people and full of cultural assumptions that were unfamiliar to members of other races; causing an artificially low score when taken by non-whites, a fact used by racists of the time as justification for their twisted beliefs; so have “empathy tests” been written primarily by neurotypical people with their own set of unchallenged assumptions, and disadvantaged neurodiverse people taking the tests.
The primary result of this research was the initial, and still sadly common, pathological view of autism. Autism, in this view, is a disease, a disorder, that requires a cure. Differences on empathy tests (and other tests) were indicative of “deficits” in autistic people that needed to be remedied. This, in turn, led to behaviour modification therapies, still touted by many, and a great deal of trauma dealt out to autistics in the name of making them “like the rest of us.”
Many autistics learn to “mask” their symptoms, either naturally as a reaction to the way they are treated by others or in a forced way through behaviour modification. Nearly all undiagnosed autistics learn this early as a matter of survival and it is almost certain that most people reading this will have spent time interacting with a person on the spectrum, perhaps working alongside them, without ever realising there was any difference. Masking however comes at significant mental cost to the autistics themselves, despite the increased comfort it gives neurotypical people around them. A paper release in 2019 estimates that autistic people suffer mental illness at 3-4 times the rate of the general population, with the high cost of masking considered a major contributing factor.
Recently research into empathy in autistic people has started to suggest some rather different interpretations however. A study in 2022 by Chapple et al. “Challenging Empathic Deficit Models of Autism Through Responses to Serious Literature” developed a new, unique method of testing empathy that sought to eliminate the factors that disadvantaged autistic people in earlier tests. This test showed that there was no deficit in empathy between the autistic and non-autistic groups, and indeed those with autism showed signs of enhanced socio-empathic understanding of others.
Other studies focusing on the lived experiences of autistic people related that over 78% reported having dealt with episodes, at some point in their lives, of hyper-empathy. An emotional response so powerful and uncontrollable it causes severe distress. This was reported most often occurring with people close to them or with animals, findings that are repeated in other studies.
Damian Milton, an autistic autism researcher, first coined the term “Double Empathy problem” in 2012 as an attempt to explain why the earlier research had so mischaracterised autistic people as empathy deficit.
These characterisations, according to this theory, are actually the result of two groups of people with significantly different ways of seeing the world failing to understand each other. In this view, rather than a deficit on one side of the equation with autistic people either missing or possessing a reduced level of empathy, both neurodiverse and neurotypical people are failing to understand and empathise with each other. (Hence, double empathy problem).
More recent studies have lent some support to this way of looking at the issue by suggesting that the “empathic deficit” that was detected in earlier studies is either entirely absent or greatly reduced with two neurodivergent people interact with each other. A systematic review of 54 papers in 2024 found that most autistic people have generally positive interpersonal and communication experiences, including empathic connection, when interacting with other autistic people. This challenges the view that autistics are somehow lacking in this area.
This also suggests that if it were neurodivergents designing the original experiments rather than neurotypical researchers, we might currently be talking about the empathy deficit in neurotypical people. Perspective makes a difference.
Autistic Leaders
The topic of Autistic leaders is close to my heart, having been one for many years in the tech industry. I am well aware of the additional costs an autistic has to pay in order to lead in a traditional business environment, and the unexpected benefits as well.
We will begin by addressing the disadvantages an autistic person is thought to face in leadership, many of which are quite true.
As mentioned earlier, traditional leadership models disadvantage autistic people right off the bat by fetishising, for right or wrong, the view of a leader as a charismatic, charming and, overwhelmingly, social creature is one that is an ill-fit for many autistic people who often trend more introverted, pay a much higher cost for socialising (due to the high mental cost of masking), and who can often have difficulties with social communication.
Much as in the general population, the severity and type of challenges any specific autistic person might have in these areas varies widely and one of the problems with this universal view of autistic people is that many are perfectly social, charming and charismatic, with the primary difference being the high masking cost they pay in order to keep others around them comfortable.
The double-empathy problem raises its head here too however, with “deficits” in social behaviour often being viewed as one-sided, with the emphasis on the autistic to “correct” their behaviour in order that others should be more comfortable, with little thought or care given to the comfort of the autistic person. It is unfortunately quite true that without significant support, rarely available, autistic people can struggle with maintaining relationships with coworkers and navigating office politics.
Meta-analysis research carried out in 2024 also supports the assertion that many people with autism suffer from reduced cognitive flexibility. That is to say they find change more painful and difficult than non-autistic colleagues which can make it difficult to adapt, particularly in fast-moving industries or under periods of organisational change. Autistic leaders pay a significant mental cost due to this fact, as change (anticipating, reacting to unexpected obstacles etc) are a key part of leadership.
Autistic people have also been shown to suffer from sensory sensitivities as well, being more affected by loud noises, bright lights, texture and taste, and other similar issues. This is an additional cost to all autistic employees, whether in leadership or not, as the lack of control of the environment in the workplace (and the rarity of any sort of support or consideration for those with neurodiverse needs, the expectation that they will instead conform) is a significant challenge. This seems unlikely to be an additional problem for leaders however, as the other barriers in place that prevent autistic people from rising to leadership positions ensure that only those able to mask convincingly and hide their discomfit are likely to reach that position.
Despite these additional challenges both internally and imposed by others, autistic people have a great deal to offer in the field of leadership. The alternative cognition possessed by an autistic person creates a uniquely distinct perspective and contributes to innovation and problem solving by opening up avenues often missed by others. Autistic people often excel in focus, attention to detail, excellent pattern matching and strong analytical skills, traits which can enable them to excel at team organisation, strategy, problem solving and innovation.
Additionally, the behaviour commonly viewed as a “deficit” in cognitive flexibility often seen as rigidity can also be viewed as consistency. The preference for stability and predictability can lead to stability within the team as an autistic leader is viewed as reliable. Autistic leaders build trust within their teams through consistency, honesty and reliability, and can come to be a source of stability and comfort for those that report to them, particularly during periods of stress and organisational change.
As will be discussed more fully in the next section, studies additionally show that autistic people are far less likely to be affected by social pressures. This, combined with moral frameworks that lean towards justice and fairness, makes autistic leaders more likely to stand up for their team and act as their advocate when necessary, despite potential personal cost. This leads us nicely into the final of the three big misconceptions.
A Question of Morality
For better or worse, the common conception of autistic people is as a rule follower. The stereotype has some truth to it, as stereotypes often do, with some research showing that, for example, in cases of pro-social behaviour both autistics and non-autistics show a higher incidence of acting in “pro-social” ways (helping, giving up a seat, etc) when the social rules are clearly defined and understood, but the effect is more pronounced in autistic people.
This is however another area in which neurotypical bias has crept in with another version of the double empathy problem, and there are a number of otherwise interesting studies marred by conclusions that show an inability for the researchers to consider alternatives to the “deficit” model that, to a fellow autistic, seem obvious. Despite research as recent as 2021 continuing to conclude (wrongly, in my opinion) that their experiments showed a failure for autistic people to understand the mentality of others, other studies have concluded the opposite.
A 2024 study by Hartman found that autistic people show a lower level of moral disengagement than the general population. In practical terms, “moral disengagement” is used to describe a common phenomenon in which people are able to rationalise their own poor behaviour to themselves. Much as a key insight from novelists and playwrights is that every villain is the hero of his own story, so to are we compelled to explain our own behaviour to ourselves in a light compatible with our own self-image.
Autistic people have reduced level of moral disengagement and so are far less likely to rationalise away their behaviour. This isn’t to say they are incapable of unethical acts, but that they are more likely to accept internally that they chose to do something without comforting rationalisations. The same study found that autistic people are less susceptible to false beliefs about influence as well. This is a psychological phenomenon where a person is swayed by social pressure (either knowingly or unconsciously) into a particular choice or course of action, however later convinces themselves (the false belief) that the choice was entirely theirs and no influence took place.
These two traits of autistic people combine to create other interesting follow-on effects. Multiple studies have shown that autistic people are far less susceptible to social pressure in general, less concerned about social reputation when determining the correct course of action, and are both less likely to act in ways they would consider unethical and more likely to intervene when witnessing dysfunction or misconduct. This is aided by the fact that autistics appear to be less susceptible to the bystander effect; a psychological phenomenon whereby as the number of people witnessing an act grows, the less likely any of them are to intervene due to a diffusion of responsibility and the social expectation that “if others aren’t intervening, I don’t have to.”. Autistic resistance to this effect would appear to be a knock-on effect of their resistance to social pressure in general.
These traits, taken together, make autistic people far more likely to embody the archetype of “positive nonconformity”, a person willing to deviate from social expectations and norms and speak out when there is considerable social pressure to maintain the status quo. This allows them to act as agents of change in toxic cultures or during problematic ethical landscapes. The power of this cannot be understated, as research into conformity has shown that witnessing a single person refuse to conform in a problematic situation increases the likelihood that others will as well, a requirement for positive transformational change.
What does this mean for organisations?
Rather than fearing autistic people being “near the levers of power”, we should perhaps be encouraging them. Studies have consistently suggested that people with autism are more reliable, less prone to group-think and social pressure to conform, and more likely to hold to their own ethical codes even against pressure and their own self-interest.
Many of the criticisms too depend on perspective and may be more indicative of the double empathy problem than the deficit model they are traditionally depicted as. A claim, whether from researcher or manager, that an autistic person “shows black and white thinking” and “fails to understand nuance” may quite easily instead be a failure on the part of the neurotypical person to recognise different value structures. The implication of “does not understand nuance” is to say that if the autistic person properly understood the nuance, they would have made a decision or judgement that more closely matched the neurotypical response. Rather than an indication of a deficit on the part of the autistic, this could just as easily represent an inability then of the neurotypical person to understand that the autistic person, whom studies suggest is perfectly capable of understand nuance, simply judged the situation differently and placed higher value on different variables.
This difference in cognition can be a positive boon for organisations, providing them with valuable diversity of opinion and analysis, but this is only possible if an organisation provides support for neurodivergence and works against these attitudes that cause their contributions to be undervalued, unrecognised or dismissed.
A neuroscience paper from 2021 examining ethical behaviour between autistics and neurotypicals (referred to in the paper as “Healthy Controls”, in case any clue as to which model of autism the researchers favour is required) serves both as an excellent example of the problem with a lack of perspective caused by the double empathy problem, the lengths of logic people will go to in order to avoid questioning their base assumptions, and as a warning to us all to try and consider each other with greater empathy and the understanding that we do not all think the same way.
In this paper it was observed that while autistic and non-autistic people performed similarly in ethical test cases when the decision they were making would be observed by others (social pressure), when given the opportunity to enrich themselves by acting unethically when they were not being observed an autistic person was far more likely to refuse the unethical offer than a non-autistic person.
In conclusions the researchers determined that this was indicative of “a failure in autistic people to put themselves in the place of the watchers, and understand the effect of social reputation” which then led to them acting the same regardless of whether or not they were observed.
This rather tortuous conclusion would support the earlier “deficit” research carried out and apparently satisfied the researchers and their assumptions. It’s not evident that any consideration was given to the rather simpler explanation - that the two groups of people both profess to believe a set of ethical guidelines, but when unobserved one group was simply more likely to follow the guidelines they said they would follow, even at cost to themselves. As with the earlier example - not a failure to understand, but a calculation that simply arrives at a different answer given the same inputs, due to a different cognitive and value structure.
Who hasn’t the old saw that “ethical behaviour is what you do when no-one is watching”? The idea that a group of people being more likely to live up to that ideal than the general population should be considered somehow “deficit” should serve as a poignant example of the difficulties autistic people face on a daily basis should they wish to be accepted simply as they are.
But what about Elon?
I can’t leave this essay without returning briefly to where we began, Elon Musk and his apparent lack of empathy. As we’ve discussed, rather than living up to the stereotype of being deficit in empathy autistics are just as empathic as the general population, and some research suggests they understand and feel empathy at a higher level than the general population.
One psychological disorder that does count an extreme lack of empathy as one of its symptoms is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The DSM-5 lists the following possible diagnosis criteria for NPD:
A grandiose sense of self-importance
Preoccupation with fantasies of success, power, etc
Belief in being “special” and that they cannot be understood by “lessers”.
Demanding excessive admiration.
Sense of entitlement.
Lack of empathy
Exploitative behaviours.
Envy towards others and belief others are envious of them.
Arrogance, haughty behaviours and attitudes.
Now it’s impossible to diagnose someone with any psychological condition without extensive personal consultation with a psychiatrist trained in the diagnosis. It’s an interesting thought however. People with NPD become hostile when they don’t receive the special treatment they believe they deserve, have trouble dealing with anything perceived as criticism, are easily slighted, and react with rage, belittling others to appear superior.
Elon is hardly the only person on the public stage to show these sorts of behaviours recently (not even close), but he did tweet in 2018:
“If I am a narcissist (which might be true), at least I am a useful one.”
Elon Musk, X, Jul 9 2018
Regardless of whether he is or not, there are alternative explanations that do not necessarily involve his autism diagnosis. I think I can speak for many autistic people when I say, regardless of what you think of Elon and the current political climate, we’d rather not have our cognitive challenges interpreted as “unable to understand why a salute bearing a remarkable resemblance to that favoured by a group responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century might make some people upset.”
There might be reasonable explanations for what he did, but that one is something of a stretch and doesn’t do the autistic community any favours.
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