Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery gave us a lot of rich characters to hate, characters who had power in politics, characters who had power within the media, and characters who streamed to the masses from their mum’s garage, but none were quite as rage-inducing as the billionaire “tech mogul” Miles Bron played by Edward Norton. The character pulled inspiration from a number of sources but one particular pose had a very specific origin.
Many watching Glass Onion may have immediately compared Norton’s character with Elon Musk, but it goes a lot broader than that. Miles Bron is a billionaire tech genius who “wants to be remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa,” egocentric much? He has no real skills other than being able to manipulate those around him and place them in positions of power which only further elevates his own status.
It ties into so many stories we have heard about billionaires, like Musk, who at first appear to be radical thinkers and “genius” before we realize that maybe we gave them too much credit. Though Musk may be the main comparison we make for Miles Bron, the character is a combination of many “billionaire geniuses'” with many direct references made.
One of these was a parody of Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Theranos Inc. who is currently set to start 11 years and three months of prison this April due to her entire pharmaceutical empire being a scam.
Wearing the somewhat uniform required of billionaire geniuses, the long-sleeved black polo neck, Holmes stares, somewhat cross-eyed as Norton puts it, at her “miracle pill.” Norton, as Bron, does the same looking at the napkin he claims shows he was the sole originator of Alpha Industries. Just as the pill was a scam, so too was the napkin, which was actually a stolen idea from his business partner, Andi, whom he pushed out and then murdered when he discovered that she had found the original napkin.
Both are false idols worshipped by the masses before their respective industries came tumbling down around them when people discovered that what they pedaled was nothing but a con. In the case of Glass Onion, Miles was trying to push Klear, his hydrogen-based fuel that wasn’t fully tested and would actually turn every house into a Hindenburg waiting to happen (google it), not fun at all.
What is fun though is this interaction between a fan and Norton, with the actor going so far as to give the exact image of Holmes the film recreated. The film, and Norton’s performance, are brilliant and well worth a watch over on Netflix.