My headcanon for this is that the events between the early 21st century and the show’s time, given they were full of some rather devastating wars, led to the true history of what he actually was like getting largely forgotten, leaving his pr campaigns the main source of information history has to go on him, and this leaving the people of the future with an idea of who he was that is much nicer than reality.
You don’t even really have to headcanon it! The Voyager episode 11:59 touched on this, with Janeway’s ancestor being very different in reality than what spotty records had led her family to believe for generations.
For example, In The Motion Picture, there’s a ship named after Christopher Columbus. We know now what kind of person he was and that he doesn’t deserve to be honored. But in a universe where from the 1990s it was one war leading to another which lead to the big one that almost wiped out humanity, Columbus is still known as the pioneer who put the Americas on the map.
This is also the reason for a lot of other little historical blind spots that are part of Trek canon.
In the case of Elon Musk, I don’t think Trek’s 21st century would have allowed him to rise to power (or even become famous) in the first place.
My headcanon for this is that the events between the early 21st century and the show’s time, given they were full of some rather devastating wars, led to the true history of what he actually was like getting largely forgotten, leaving his pr campaigns the main source of information history has to go on him, and this leaving the people of the future with an idea of who he was that is much nicer than reality.
You don’t even really have to headcanon it! The Voyager episode 11:59 touched on this, with Janeway’s ancestor being very different in reality than what spotty records had led her family to believe for generations.
For example, In The Motion Picture, there’s a ship named after Christopher Columbus. We know now what kind of person he was and that he doesn’t deserve to be honored. But in a universe where from the 1990s it was one war leading to another which lead to the big one that almost wiped out humanity, Columbus is still known as the pioneer who put the Americas on the map.
This is also the reason for a lot of other little historical blind spots that are part of Trek canon.
In the case of Elon Musk, I don’t think Trek’s 21st century would have allowed him to rise to power (or even become famous) in the first place.