Google opened an R&D division called X, whose aim is “to solve some of the world’s hardest problems.” Tech companies started talking about their mission, and their mission was always magnificently inflated: transforming the future of work, connecting all of humanity, making the world a better place, saving the entire planet. As the gap between the rich and the poor grew wider and wider, the claims of Silicon Valley start-ups became more and more grandiose. program at Stanford to start his first company and then his second, X.com. Muskism has origins in Silicon Valley of the 1990s, when Mr. Billionaires, having read stories of world-building as boys, are now rich enough, as men, to build worlds. Bezos was obsessed with as a kid last month, he sent William Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk in the original series, into space. There’s a version of it, the holodeck, in the “Star Trek” franchise, which Mr. Metaverse, the term, comes from a 1992 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson, but the idea is much older. But from missions to Mars and the moon to the metaverse, it’s all Muskism: extreme, extraterrestrial capitalism, where stock prices are driven less by earnings than by fantasies from science fiction. Musk, who likes to troll his rivals, mocked Mr. The world’s techno-billionaires are forging a new kind of capitalism: Muskism. The metaverse is at once an illustration of and a distraction from a broader and more troubling turn in the history of capitalism. Gates’s party, he announced his plan for the metaverse, a virtual reality where, wearing a headset and gear that closes out the actual world, you can spend your day as an avatar doing things like going to parties on remote Aegean islands or boarding a yacht or flying in a rocket, as if you were obscenely rich. Mark Zuckerberg (net worth: $119 billion) wasn’t there, either, but the day after Mr. He was most likely in Texas, where his company SpaceX was preparing for a rocket launch. The world’s richest person, Elon Musk (net worth: $317 billion), did not attend. Guests, according to local reports, included Jeff Bezos (net worth: $197 billion), who after the party flew back to his own yacht, not to be confused with the “superyacht” he is building at a cost of more than $500 million. The last week of October, Bill Gates ( net worth: $138 billion) celebrated his 66th birthday in a cove off the coast of Turkey, ferrying guests from his rented yacht to a beach resort by private helicopter. Here's how Lepore starts off (and then keeps going):