Our world is shaped by eccentric men who are known by single names. Jobs made the iPhone. Extreme convenience culture was created by Bezos. Musk (instantly recognisable by either first or second name, a maternity-ward marketing-coup by his parent company) made electric vehicles popular. Modern music production has been shaped by Kanye, who also dabbles in fashion and antisemitism. Many books and thousands more opinion pieces have been written about each of them. Amongst the damning criticism and the full-contact brown-nosing, they are referred to as “flawed geniuses”.

In the 20th Century, mononymic cultural titans came in many different flavours: Lennon the flawed genius musician, Churchill the flawed genius politician, Maradona the flawed genius sportsman. In the 21st century they’re all flawed genius entrepreneurs. Even flawed genius musician Kanye West is an entrepreneur in this LinkedIn-fected hellscape that respects hustle and grind above all else. The world is now a giant season of The Apprentice, full of hapless business twats lining up to become the next big flawed genius entrepreneur.

We love demagogues. We love hard workers. We love innovators. Sure they’re flawed, but that’s just makes them more relatable, it makes their success more achievable. Alongside the Big Mac, Coca Cola, and various coups, America has successfully exported its dream.

When we funnel praise and adoration into a single person, we inadvertently excuse and glorify their flaws. Those flaws are only useful as emotional story beats in the inevitable biopic, which is why the phrase “flawed genius” is itself flawed. Those flaws seem insignificant because “flawed” is a fleeting adjective used to describe the immovable and unchanging noun “genius”. So what should we call them?

“Brainy maniac” is satisfying but a bit too Beano-esque.

“Successful twerp” is fun because the word “twerp” is always fun, but it’s not descriptive enough.

The answer came, as they never do, from The Daily Star. They enjoy calling all scientists / eggheads / brainiacs "boffins". The scientists in question aren’t too keen on the monniker, so I think it’s ripe for reclamation. “Money boffin” is an appropriately derisive name for Bez-Musk et al. Yes, they’re clever: they’re boffins. But they’re silly: they’re boffins. And, while “entrepreneur” has highfalutin connotations of ingenuity, reducing it to “money” makes their motivations transparent.

This won’t catch on and it won’t make any difference, but maybe next time Elon Musk appears on your screen you’ll find some satisfaction in thinking: "who do you think you’re kidding? You’re just a money boffin".