In Elon Musk’s imaginative and prescient of human historical past, Donald Trump is the singularity. If Musk can propel Trump again to the White Home, it would mark the second that his personal superintelligence merges with probably the most highly effective equipment on the planet, the American authorities—to not point out the enterprise alternative of the century.
Many different titans of Silicon Valley have tethered themselves to Trump. However Musk is the one poised to stay out the final word techno-authoritarian fantasy. Together with his affect, he stands to seize the state, not simply to complement himself. His entanglement with Trump shall be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life, as a result of Trump has explicitly invited Musk into the federal government to play the function of the grasp engineer, who redesigns the American state—and due to this fact American life—in his personal picture.
Musk’s pursuit of this dream clearly transcends billionaire hobbyism. Take into account the non-public consideration and monetary assets that he’s pouring into the previous president’s marketing campaign. Based on The New York Occasions, Musk has relocated to Pennsylvania to supervise Trump’s floor sport there. That’s, he’s working the infrastructure that may convey voters to the polls. In service of this trigger, he’s imported prime expertise from his corporations, and he reportedly plans on spending $500 million on it. That doesn’t start to account for the worth of Musk’s superstar shilling, and the way in which he has turned X into a casual organ of the marketing campaign.
Musk started as a Trump skeptic—a supporter of Ron DeSantis, in truth. Solely steadily did he develop into an avowed, rhapsodic MAGA believer. His angle towards Trump appears to parallel his view of synthetic intelligence. On the one hand, AI may culminate within the destruction of humanity. Alternatively, it’s inevitable, and if harnessed by an excellent engineer, it has superb, perhaps even salvific potential.
Musk’s public affection for Trump begins, virtually definitely, together with his savvy understanding of financial pursuits—specifically, his personal. Like so many different billionaire exponents of libertarianism, he has turned the federal government right into a spectacular revenue middle. His firm SpaceX depends on contracts with three-letter businesses and the Pentagon. It has subsumed a few of NASA’s core capabilities. Tesla thrives on authorities tax credit for electrical automobiles and subsidies for its community of charging stations. By Politico’s tabulation, each corporations have received $15 billion in federal contracts. However that’s simply his marketing strategy in beta type. Based on The Wall Road Journal, SpaceX is designing a slew of recent merchandise with “nationwide safety prospects in thoughts.”
Musk has solely begun to faucet the pecuniary potential of the federal government, and Trump is the dream. He rewards loyalists, whether or not they’re international leaders who genuflect earlier than him or supplicants who host occasions at his resorts. The place different presidents may be restrained by norms, Trump shrugs. Throughout his first time period, he found that his occasion was by no means going to punish him for his transgressions.
Within the evolving topography of Trumpland, none of his supporters or cronies could have chits to match with Musk’s. If Trump wins, it would possible be by a slim margin that may be attributed to turnout. Musk can tout himself as the only variable of success.
It’s not exhausting to think about how the mogul will exploit this alliance. Trump has already introduced that he’ll place him answerable for a government-efficiency fee. Or, within the Trumpian vernacular, Musk would be the “secretary of cost-cutting.” SpaceX is the implied template: Musk will advocate for privatizing the federal government, outsourcing the political views to nimble entrepreneurs and adroit technologists. Which means there shall be much more alternatives for his corporations to attain gargantuan contracts. So when Trump brags that Musk will ship a rocket to Mars throughout his administration, he’s not imagining a reprise of the Apollo program. He’s envisioning reducing SpaceX one of many largest checks that the U.S. authorities has ever written. He’s speaking about making the richest man on this planet even richer.
In fact, this may very well be bluster. However it’s totally in line with the remainder of the precise’s program for Trump’s second time period, which entails dismantling the federal authorities—eliminating swaths of the politically impartial civil service and whole Cupboard departments and businesses. It’s precisely the sort of sweeping change that fits Musk’s grandiose sense of his personal place in human historical past.
This isn’t a standard-issue case of oligarchy. It’s an apotheosis of the egotism and social Darwinism embedded in Silicon Valley’s pursuit of monopoly—the sense that focus of energy within the palms of geniuses is probably the most fascinating social association. As Peter Thiel as soon as put it, “Competitors is for losers.” (He additionally bluntly admitted, “I not consider that freedom and democracy are suitable.”) On this worldview, restraints on energy are for losers, too.
Together with his authorities contracts—and his insider affect—Musk will develop into additional ensconced within the national-security state. (He already has a $1.8 billion categorised contract, possible with the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace, and, by way of a division of SpaceX referred to as Starshield, provides communications networks for the navy.) At a second when the federal government is confronting essential selections about the way forward for AI and the commercialization of area, his beliefs will maintain sway.
At Tesla, Musk assigned himself the title of “technoking.” That moniker, which sits on the road between jokiness and monomania, captures the hazard. Following the instance set by Trump, he wouldn’t have to divest himself from his companies, not even his social-media firm. In an administration that brashly disrespects its critics, he wouldn’t have to worry congressional oversight and will brush apart any American who dares to query his function. Of all of the dangers posed by a second Trump time period, this may be one of the crucial terrifying.