Bloomberg/Getty; Jeremy Strong/Sony Pictures; Finn Gomez/Getty; Tyler Le/BI

The 'Big Bad' Theory

Hollywood's uncanny evolution of evil tech bros, from "The Spy Who Loved Me" to "Musk."

Bloomberg/Getty; Jeremy Strong/Sony Pictures; Finn Gomez/Getty; Tyler Le/BI

Writing villains is supposed to be hard. No grand, world-dominating plan ever really makes sense in a story. Soon after "The Dark Knight" came out, David Goyer, its writer, told me the Joker had been a real relief. "Blessedly, because of who the Joker is, we just said, 'fuck the plan. We don't have to do it. He's the Joker. He's the anti-plan,'" Goyer said. "Trying to take over the world is such an impossible, stupid idea — as if anyone could do it with a single act, you know?"

Yet now very real people seem to try just that, on the regular. Except if you believe Hollywood, they're not insane clowns. They're billionaire tech bros.…