From Elon Musk to Billie Eilish, the geniuses who live with superpowers from autism to ADHD
WHEN billionaire Elon Musk revealed he has autism on prime-time American TV, it was as if he was ripping off his shirt to reveal his personal superpower.
Musk, the eccentric CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, said: “I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL (Saturday Night Live).”
Far from being a condition to be pitied or considered a burden, Asperger’s, a form of autism, can bestow exactly the super-skills — original thinking, attention to detail and plain speaking — needed to thrive in business or science.
And as the second-richest person in the world, boy, has Musk thrived. This superpower can be the same for other conditions that are thought of as disabilities: ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, dyspraxia and dyslexia.
Differences in the brain might make everyday life more challenging but they can also enable a person to excel.
Billie Eilish, voted Best International Female at this week’s Brit Awards, has Tourette’s syndrome, Will Smith has ADHD and Richard Branson is dyslexic.
All have credited having a brain that works differently, or the life it has led them to lead, for their spectacular achievements.
Autism: 1.5% adult population
Elon Musk, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo, Jerry Seinfeld
TRAITS: Difficulties with social communication and interaction, can mean learning difficulties, non-verbal behaviour, highly focused interests. Autism is a spectrum condition.
SUPERPOWERS: Way above average memory, thinking outside the box, paying attention to detail and other “specialist individual skills” including reading, drawing, music and maths.
Branson says: “Virgin, which now employs 90,000 people, would not be successful if I hadn’t been dyslexic.
“It helps people. The great thing about being dyslexic is you concentrate on things you are good at and excel at those.”
A BBC survey found that 40 per cent of entrepreneurs in the UK were likely to have dyslexia, partly because traditional education routes do not work.
The Mosquito Coast actor Justin Theroux co-wrote films Tropic Thunder and Iron Man 2.
He says of his ADHD: “It made school harder. You become sort of a loser because you can’t excel.
“But [ADHD] gave me other tools, because I would listen instead of read.
“I was able to hear the musicality of conversations. That’s helped me write dialogue.”
Tourette's syndrome: 1% of adult population
Billie Eilish, Mozart, Howard Hughes, Dr Samuel Johnson, Dan Aykroyd
TRAITS: Physical or verbal tics, involuntary movement and noises.
SUPERPOWERS: Strong verbal skills, tenacity, creativity, empathy and hyper focus.
Billie Eilish’s Tourette’s takes the form of physical tics — involuntary movements — when she is feeling stressed.
She says: “My Tourette’s makes easy things a lot harder. Certain things increase and/or trigger the intensity of the tics.”
Billie’s condition is one of the reasons her parents chose to home-school her and her pop producer brother Finneas.
Billie says home-schooling allowed them to indulge their creative sides.
Most of these diagnoses were discovered in the second half of the 20th Century and were considered debilitating.
For many individuals, particularly with autism and Tourette’s, they can be. The idea they could be a strength is relatively recent.
The concept of “neurodiversity” was conceived in 1988 when sociologist Judy Singer realised brain differences are just that: Differences.
They are not “abnormal” or in need of a cure, they are simply variations of the human brain.
Neurotypical people tend to be able to put their hands to most things quite well.
Dyspraxia: 1.5% of adult population
Cara Delevingne, Florence Welch, David Bailey
TRAITS: Lack of co-ordination between mental intentions and ability to get your body to carry out those intentions.
SUPERPOWER: Can mean high verbal comprehension.
Neurodivergent people tend to have large disparities between what they do well and what they struggle with.
This makes them specialists, masters of some but not all.
PayPal founder Peter Thiel says that in Silicon Valley, where originality is everything, Asperger’s gives entrepreneurs a considerable advantage.
Asperger’s is a form of autism. It’s not used as a medical diagnosis any more because Austrian Hans Asperger, who discovered it, also collaborated in the Nazis’ murder of children with disabilities under the Third Reich.
In a way it is typical of Elon Musk to use the un-PC term. He does not care what other people think and that can be an autistic trait.
Autism affects the way a person experiences their environment and therefore also the way they communicate.
But associated skills include honesty, direct communication, attention to detail, an ability to find or create patterns, processing information and memory.
There are rumours some of the world’s best known tech tycoons might have the condition, including the late Steve Jobs, the original genius behind Apple.
ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder): 4% of adult population
Will Smith, Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake, Justin Theroux, Adrian Chiles, Richard Bacon
TRAITS: Inattentiveness, impulsiveness, inability to sit still or concentrate, excessive talking.
SUPERPOWERS: Hyper focus when applied, energy and high levels of creativity and passion.
Vice Admiral Nick Hine, one of the Royal Navy’s most senior officers, says autism makes him better at his job and believes we will not win future wars unless we are able to “think differently”.
And scientist and prize-winning author Camilla Pang has spoken about how her autism is helping her look for a cure for Covid.
Historians now believe there is evidence geniuses like Mozart, Michelangelo, Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton were neurodiverse.
However, only 16 per cent of adults with autism are in full-time employment in the UK.
One third of unemployed people are dyslexic and so are a quarter of the prison population.
But things are changing. Employers are increasingly recognising that the strengths of these diagnoses can outweigh the difficulties.
GCHQ actively recruits neurodiverse individuals.
Israeli forces have a specific unit for young adults with autism.
The soldiers perform analytical intelligence work, visually analysing aerial surveillance imagery.
Dyslexia: 10% of adult population
Richard Branson, Steven Spielberg, Noel Gallagher, Jamie Oliver
TRAITS: Difficulty reading, problems spelling, problematic word recall.
SUPERPOWERS: A high degree of creativity and storytelling skills.
Recruitment companies that specialise in neurodiversity are thriving. Occupational psychologist Nancy Doyle, who has ADHD, runs Genius Within, which works with companies to employ people who are neuro- diverse.
She says: “It annoys me when brilliant people aren’t doing brilliant things. It’s inefficient. We are defining people by what they CAN’T do.
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“We treat neurodiverse people as “abnormal” so their self-esteem disappears and they aren’t reaching their incredible potential. If ten per cent of the population is dyslexic it can’t be all bad. We should be thinking, ‘What can this ten per cent be useful for?’.”
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The next tech billionaire perhaps? As Steve Jobs said in 1997: “Here’s to the misfits, the round pegs in the square holes . . . the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules . . . they push the human race forward.”
“And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.”
A gift and a curse
By Adrian Chiles
I’VE no idea whether my ADHD was the making of me or not, but I can hardly say my life’s turned out too badly.
I’ve managed to direct the often frantic energy my condition has given me to earn myself a living and generally do less harm than good.
Getting diagnosed with it, at the ripe old age of 52, was certainly a relief. I understand myself a lot better now.
I can see how it’s been a benefit to me, but also how it’s made my life harder.
Fifty years of having thousands of good and bad thoughts and ideas rattling around in my head like pinballs can’t have been healthy for me or those around me. The stress has often been heart-stopping.
I can’t really say it’s an affliction – something I suffer from. But neither can I call it a gift. Perhaps it’s both an affliction and a gift. I don’t know. It’s complicated.
But what I do know is that, as with all these things, how much of a positive or negative it is for you depends to a huge extent on correct diagnosis and appropriate care and treatment.
I cannot stress enough how appalling I find it that if I hadn’t been able to afford to pay for diagnosis and treatment, I wouldn’t have got it.
Yes, depending on the severity of your condition, it can be dealt with, and even turned into a positive.
But the key to that door is diagnosis and treatment. The consequences of that door remaining quite firmly closed to so many people are grave.
The percentage of the prison population with ADHD, for example, is frighteningly high. We need to start putting this right.