The Tech Right has failed. Credit: UnHerd
I once believed that the rise of the Tech Right was going to make conservatism smarter, orienting the Right toward a future of innovation and free-market dynamism. The movement wields great influence on the second Trump administration, most notably in the form of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. The policy implications have been a mixed bag. But one thing we can say for certain is that having some of the most accomplished people in business come into the tent has somehow made the Right much dumber.
No one embodies this paradox better than the world’s richest man.
He who controls Twitter, now X, exercises a vast power over the culture, and the website is now the personal playground of Musk. As a prolific tweeter with some 219 million followers, Musk would have a powerful voice if he were just a regular user who could amplify certain accounts. As it is, he has also changed the tone and ideological tilt of the public square toward his preferred direction through measures like revenue sharing and the algorithmic derogation of links (meaning, if you share a link in an X post, far fewer people are likely to see it).
To say Musk is biased in his posts or that he shows a disregard for the truth doesn’t come close to capturing the constant stream of nonsense he blasts out to the world. This isn’t a matter of being biased or getting things wrong like CNN occasionally does. His feed is more in the neighbourhood of InfoWars, where Alex Jones will typically point to a document that actually exists to make wild extrapolations about what Democrats or “globalists” are up to. Musk is somehow more reckless: the things he regularly promotes lack even that kind of nexus to something based in reality.
He approvingly retweeted a tweet about a story pertaining to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants being on the voter rolls in California, yet the link in the original post he himself shared was to a Snopes article debunking the claim. Musk has also falsely asserted that federal disaster-relief funds meant to help Americans were redirected towards housing illegal immigrants, even though the two are completely different programmes. When a pro-Russian account claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a 4% approval rating in Ukraine — in contradiction to all reputable polling — he was fact-checked via a community note, which caused Musk to flip out and charge that the system was being gamed. These aren’t isolated instances. Things like this happen all the time.
It might be reasonable to suspect that someone as successful as he is must just be playing dumb online, while displaying a hidden command when it comes to policy. Yet even if you are sympathetic to his goal of reducing the size and scope of government — as I am — focusing on firing federal employees is just about the worst possible way to achieve that end. Fewer people working at the Food and Drug Administration, for example, doesn’t mean regulators getting off the backs of pharmaceutical companies trying to bring drugs to market. Instead, it makes drug-approval processes longer and more arduous. Or consider: Republicans have tended to oppose student-loan forgiveness, but now cuts at the Department of Education may lead to there not being enough workers to collect debt. Put another way: Muskian methods may be enacting a de facto version of former President Joe Biden’s policies.
Federal employees are a small part of the budget, and Musk’s assertions that huge savings might come from uncovering waste, fraud, and abuse is not taken seriously by anyone who has looked into the issue. He has spread false claims about dead people collecting Social Security that were based on a misunderstanding of a government database. All of this is even before getting to the question of how much of what he has been doing will hold up in court, with many of his moves already facing legal setbacks.
Musk is not alone. Other members of the tech oligarchy close to the administration have regularly spread false or misleading information, albeit on a much smaller scale. The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen went on the Joe Rogan podcast a few months ago and made claims that were somewhere between vastly exaggerated and completely false about the Biden administration “debanking” its enemies. During election season, a prominent VC investor asserted that there was massive voter fraud going on in California based solely on a text message someone sent him.
All of this means that even for those of us who are true believers in the capitalist system, it has become clear that the traits that make one successful in business do not necessarily transfer into governance. Nor do they equate to having sensible, or even reality-based, views on policy.
Sure, successful entrepreneurs must have a high level of intelligence and a decent work ethic. But if Musk and other tech titans who have come close to the Trump administration are any indication, they seem to have other traits that imply they should be kept as far away from political power as possible.
What is going on here?
In a well-functioning market economy — assuming we are not talking about an exceptional case like a firm that peddles a highly addictive or otherwise harmful product — profit tends to be straightforwardly related to improving social welfare. People pay because they want a good or service, given conditions of scarcity and their own subjective preferences. Markets also take into account how workers are treated, the well-being of suppliers a business deals with, and an endless number of factors and interests that influence how capital and resources are allocated.
Government, in contrast, doesn’t have a similarly crisp measure of success. Sure, there are some metrics that guide policy makers, such as GDP and the unemployment rate. Yet leaders are expected to consider the long-term health and well-being of a society. They are supposed to respect rights and uphold fundamental values, even if we often disagree about what those values are.
As Musk goes on a firing spree and seeks programmes he can kill, we see that, in the absence of a widely agreed upon metric for success, he has decided to choose ones that will serve his private purpose. The fewer government employees and the less money government is spending, the better he thinks he’s doing. Again, even if you are a libertarian, this is a dumb way to go about achieving libertarian goals. DOGE has the word “efficiency” in its name, but efficiency is hard to define and measure, so employees fired and money saved have served as lousy proxies. Note also his influence on the latest congressional budget process, which was focused on reducing the page count in the legislation.
Of course, even in terms of Musk’s chosen metrics, success has been limited, as a government official, even a high-placed one, lacks the freedom of a CEO. Congress won’t let Musk touch the true drivers of government spending — namely, entitlements and defence. Musk appears to know this, but doesn’t seem to care when he is making exaggerated claims about what DOGE can and has accomplished. Grasping for metrics that are as useful as profits and losses in business has clearly led him astray. Note also that even when he finally acknowledged recently how much of government spending goes to entitlements, he felt the need to lie about these programmes and say that they are there so the Left can attract illegal immigrants to the country.
Compounding the problem is the information bubble in which Musk has imprisoned himself. On X, his engagement is overwhelmingly with con artists, conspiracy theorists, and grifters. He now follows Catturd, a man who believes in every conspiracy theory from anti-vax to chemtrails, and whose ignorance and sycophancy towards Trump are legendary among regular X users. When the Trump administration tried to stir up social-media influencers by giving them the “Epstein files”, the results were so ridiculous that even many MAGAs felt compelled to say so. Yet Musk was still spreading the narrative that the deep state was thwarting Trump’s attempts to get to the bottom of the issue. Understand that there is a hierarchy in terms of how insane MAGA influencers are, and even among them, Musk pushes narratives that only appeal to the worst.
There is no indication in his prodigious tweeting that he relies on any newspapers, serious books, or credible sources of information. When a data scientist at X once told Musk that he had fallen for a conspiracy theory that would only appeal to a person at the tenth percentile of gullibility, Musk cursed at him. The man seems to have a deep lack of intellectual curiosity not only about the arguments of his political opponents, but even those of informed observers who would be inclined to support his project.
Again, having a kind of tunnel vision actually works well in business. An entrepreneur can afford to ignore the business press and what is happening in other industries and simply go about pursuing his vision of change. Yet a political actor can’t completely discount the views and opinions of those he disagrees with, because they are going to be part of the landscape going forward. And wise leadership requires a broad perspective on legal, economic and political affairs that raw genius can’t compensate for. Having a policy idea, for example, requires not only knowing whether it will work in the narrow sense, but also whether it can get through the courts and the legislative branch. This doesn’t mean that it would be a good use of his time for Musk to be reading case law, as no one can be an expert in everything, but it is necessary to have a grasp of reliable sources of information.
This leads to perhaps a more important difference between business and political success, which comes down to the ability to negotiate with and placate one’s enemies. An entrepreneur or CEO can act like a conqueror, provided his product is innovative enough or his market power overwhelming enough. If he builds a better, cheaper, faster product, society benefits, and he conquers his sector — or even creates an entirely new market. He never has to even be in contact with his competitors, who are free to do something else if they are less talented or lucky.
In contrast, the fundamental question of democratic politics is how to peacefully settle disputes between individuals and parties that disagree with one another. Healthy democracies celebrate leaders who bring us together, or at least take actions that are conducive to long-term peace and stability. Musk regularly spreads completely fabricated conspiracy theories about his political opponents, has repeatedly implied that those he disagrees or has disputes with are sympathetic towards pedophilia, when not referring to them as pedophiles themselves, and recently called Sen. Mark Kelly a traitor after he posted his support for Ukraine. Mean words directed at a business rival hurt feelings but have little social significance. In politics, however, fortunes reverse quickly, and today’s defeated opposition could be tomorrow’s governing party primed for payback. Moreover, truly lasting change is usually a product of bipartisan efforts.
Finally, successful capitalists often have superhuman levels of optimism. The upside of such an outlook can be huge, and there is nothing wrong with this. If they fail, they simply lose money and distress their investors, who knowingly took on the risk. But public responsibility requires an appreciation for life’s tragic dimension and for the possibility that careless action, combined with bad fortune, can wreck society and millions of lives.
Musk’s reliance on sycophants like Catturd seems related to his overwhelming optimism. There’s little in his past to indicate he has ever sought out people who challenge him intellectually. Again, this trait may not matter in business, where so much depends on taking innovations that exist and bringing them to market. Drive and the ability to inspire a team can be what make the difference between success and failure.
But again, public life is different. Foolish wars are often started because leaders think they’re going to be easy — think George W. Bush’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein or Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Say what you will about communist regimes, one thing they have never lacked is optimism about how their plans will turn out.
To be sure, this analysis doesn’t explain everything about Musk’s recent behaviour. There may be other dimensions. I recently listened to a podcast he did in 2021 on the history of technology in warfare in which he seemed like a completely different man. He displayed not only knowledge in engineering, but history, including strategy and tactics in the Second World War. This supports the theory that something in this man’s brain broke around 2022, whether it was from drug use, social-media addiction, a combination of both, or something else. It’s possible that all his business ventures begin to fail from now, which would indicate a more general decline in his cognition and ability to regulate his emotions. Much reporting has been done on Musk’s drug use, which has been serious enough to worry many around him.
Yet if Musk continues to succeed as a businessman while being this dumb about everything related to public policy, he will end up having given us what was by far history’s greatest demonstration of the non-transferability of insight and skill across domains where wise leadership is necessary for human flourishing.
Richard Hanania is the president of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and blogs at Substack.
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SubscribeI gave up with this.
First of all, if what Musk is doing with/on X bothers you, get off it. Some of us live quite happily without engaging with it.
Secondly, I don’t doubt the assertion that some on the right are spreading false or dodgy information. But this doesn’t have anywhere near the level of impact on me that it should: we’re coming off 10 years of being told that men can turn into women because they say so, that Joe Biden was “as sharp as a tack” when he was obviously senile, that lockdowns were the only way of handling the pandemic…so really, the idea that claims of debanking might be wrong just bounce right off me. I’d sooner have false information right out there where it can be criticised rather than have the info I have available to me curated by shady actors with an agenda. Freedom is a much better sanitiser than censorship.
Thirdly – about those debanking claims. Unless the author has cast iron proof that the debanking claims are wrong (which I very much doubt because you’d have to have unprecedented access to multiple banks’ internal records and the people involved in the relevant decisions – who are bound by strict banking secrecy rules) then whinging about Marc Andreessen making those claims is a pointless waste of time. I’m not interested.
Elon Musk is a very special character and one who seems able to develop long range perspectives and scenarios using logic. That’s why he’s sitting atop a company that trades off of belief in the future. What Musk tends to forget is the way that humans are governed by emotions as well as logic and that the emotions and hysteria triggered by what he might see as entirely rational actions to reach a desirable future outcome could very well derail him.
Good comment though X is a fabulous news and entertainment source. My favourite. Musk hasn’t forgotten about emotions, he simply doesn’t experience or understand them in the same way as ‘normal’ people…
“I’d sooner have false information right out there where it can be criticised rather than have the info I have available to me curated by shady actors with an agenda”. Sounds reasonable, however we can’t ignore the fact that information sources such as X are doing exactly that. The algorithms choose what is “put out there for debate”. They minimize the critical posts and make the false information the norm.
That’s only a problem if X is your only news source. Which for most people it obviously isn’t. And if it is then it’s your problem not ours.
“What Musk tends to forget is the way that humans are governed by emotions as well as logic”. Likely to do with his Asperger’s syndrome, which the author conspicuously fails to mention.
Indeed. Much of what the author criticizes makes a lot more sense when considered in the context of the disorder, though as someone who has the disorder, I have to also say he’s going out on quite a narrow limb. He has to know he doesn’t have the skills to navigate social interactions the way his boss does, but he’s attempting to do so anyway. He’s going well beyond what most people with the disorder would even dare to attempt, but then most of us haven’t been nearly as successful as he has in other endeavors either.
Well stated. I have the same disorder Musk claims to have and I have to believe he is venturing into dangerous waters that he’s ill suited to navigate. He’s probably trying to imitate Trump does, but he’s not Trump. He probably doesn’t have normal social skills to understand what Trump does and how to react the same way. Further, I’m not even sure how much of what Trump does is intentional on his part and how much is just him being a temperamental jack ass or tweeting whatever random thought runs through his head at three in the morning.
The disorder does give certain advantages in terms of logic and reasoning. Because we aren’t personally emotionally invested in social group dynamics to the same extent, we can indeed see social trends and political patterns that others would not, and Musk has certainly profited from such in the past, notably by building an EV company, just at the right time to take advantage of massive tax breaks and subsidies for EVs when the larger automakers were too busy trying to avoid bankruptcy.
That, though, was simply a matter of understanding political and social trends and positioning himself to take financial advantage of political goals. What he’s doing now in trying to shape the narrative personally is far more difficult. Moreover, it’s not clear what financial play he’s even making. He’s certainly not making Twitter more popular than it was. He’s alienating the liberals and climate concerned people who form Tesla’s customer base, risking a boycott that cuts into sales. Budweiser had to learn the hard way the importance of knowing who actually buys the product.
Does he have some plan to profit from populism that isn’t publicly known? That’s possible. Maybe he has some investment in fossil fuels, domestic rare earth mines, or something else that will directly profit from the deglobalization and instability he and his boss are promoting? Perhaps he knows his companies can’t compete with subsidized Chinese industries and he’s simply leaning into making sure the world gets divided into blocs that make direct competition a matter of government spending on military technology and basic research, much as happened during the first Cold War. There are a number of possibilities for how one might invest profitably in a deglobalizing world, and Elon has enough fingers in enough economic pies that I doubt even the media knows about all of them.
Whatever his goal might be, it’s not clear to me how his engaging in twitter antics the way the President does, but less effectively, helps him at all. I think Elon’s success may have led him to have too much self confidence and too much faith in his own skill and judgement. He would be wise to remember that while he may be immune to many of the social forces that lead to grievous errors in normal people, he is more vulnerable to others, hubris being the most relevant. When one does not feel social pressure, one is apt to trust one’s own judgement and ability to a greater degree, particularly when coupled with such success as Elon has had in the past.
Musk is the first Autistic person to have the World’s attention at his fingertips. The Neurodivergent was supposed to be considered an extremely oppressed class but Musk transcended the prohibition against attacking the Neurodivergent by working with Republicans.
Neither party has a monopoly on Conspiracy Theorizing. Musk absolutely reposts nonsense because he thinks it’s directionally correct. Most people think directionally not with precision. You don’t have time. The Congressional Democrats are some of the most imprecise politicians in history but the mainstream media doesn’t feel it necessary to fact check them.
Why does “Fact-Checking” only go in one direction? Fine, call out Trump and Musk but call out Schumer, Pelosi and the entire group of hyperbolic conspiracists on the Democrat side. Everyone is being directional not precise. It’s completely fine to check Elon or whoever but let’s not act like speculating or distorting facts are mutually exclusive.
Musk has been subject to community notes (fact checking) on X and is fine with it.
No Musk is not “fine with it”. He has shut down the function on posts of his that were subject to damning community notes.
No one else within the government is doing it at the same scale, with the possible exception of Trump. Or perhaps you can name lies Pelosi or Schumer or Schiff or whomever have promoted with the same combination or shamelessness and irresponsibility.
You’ve predetermined the correct direction for our country and there’s just about nothing associated with Trump you won’t defend or remain silent about now. Correct?
As soon as someone or something gets sucked into the Trump orbit you’re onboard, it seems. I strongly suspect you have more nuanced private views—like you did about a year ago when you thought DeSantis could win the White House, or perhaps that Trump’s act had played out after 1/6/21–but you defend or overlook even total folly and blatant lies that bend in the “direction” you see as correct. Perhaps some this is unfair, but I am not trying to exaggerate or insult you. I’m genuinely curious to see whether you will call out any of this administrations missteps, or if that is an off-limits direction for you now.
Is a chainsaw a symbol of common sense? How about tariff tantrums. Or picking international friends and enemies according to personal impulse, favoring Putin and endangering Zelenskyy because the Ukrainian wouldn’t do Trump’s dirty work against the Bidens for him.
Does anyone know how the Pelosi creature became so fabulously rich?
Surely the US Government doesn’t pay THAT well?
tucker had a guy on who developed an app that tracks politicans investments, the guy is not political, but he just tracks their investments on both sides
Pelosi was apparently very lucky mutlple time in making the right investments in companies, that amazingly where about to get a boost from some new goverment incentive
Not Pelosi , but there was an instance where a state was going to mandate water meters or something, and the major water meter company for that state, lol and behold, many state politicans invested in it just before the announcement
If you know what horse is going to win before the race, it’s very easy to make a lot of money
Thank you so much.
’We’ used to hang people for less.
Well her husband—the one some deranged Trump fan bludgeoned with a hammer—is a successful venture capitalist who runs a major company. She’s also the daughter of a congressman. So there’s plenty of access, but no proof of UNUSUAL greed or corruption. Not that I’ve heard, and I’m pretty sure any credible case would be all over MAGA-leaning media, including FOX News and these comment boards.
The guy who bludgeoned Pelosi’s husband had severe mental health issues. His social media feed was politically incoherent, like you would expect, and certainly not pro Trump.
Maybe that’s a sloppy shorthand on my part. He is known to have embraced Trump’s claims of a stolen election, and QAnon and Pizza-gate. And Trump himself chimed in to claim it was a “false flag” crime. What part of that do you dispute, or how are you certain he didn’t support Trump?
Not disputing any of that. Just saying he was all over the map politically.
Perhaps a little ‘waterboarding’ is in order? After all it’s not torture.
Yeah. Do you think Musk or Trump will agree to go through the process?
No, I doubt it because both are probably a little squeamish.
True. Who wouldn’t be, whatever the state of his conscience or definition of torture?
Training is available or certainly used to be.
I do get a kick out of your dark humour sometimes. No need to remind me that some of it comes from your real experience.
If we’re agreeing that the greed, corruption, and deception are not unusual, then why should we expect any better from one side or the other? The fallacy is to believe one side is good and the other evil, truth and untruth, righteousness and wickedness. The reality is that we’re all human and none of us can say with any certainty which is objectively which, or that there even is such a thing. The reality is that both sides have their own goals and one side is my ally and the other my enemy. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. Facts and lies have very little to do with it.
The source of both much of Trump’s appeal, and most of the major complaints against him, is that he has the audacity to do authentically and openly what other politicians try to hide and sweep under the rug. Should he be praised for it? No. Should he be condemned for it? Again, no. He should be assessed as any other politician or leader, by his policies and what they accomplish, for good or for ill, whichever history decides that it is, and as I often say, history’s judgement usually has more to do with who wins than who was right.
It is what it is. You were completely right when you said above that T Bone was equivocating and excusing Trump because they agree on their basic goals. He was, and so are you, and so does everybody else. At the end of the day, that’s all it’s ever about for any side. There’s ‘us’ and there’s ‘them’, my friend and my enemy. That’s tribalism, and it is part of what makes humans what they are and not some other kind of creature. Take it from someone who actually doesn’t see the world like this. Normal humans will never escape this and cannot avoid it. Any attempt to do so is doomed to fail and likely to cause worse problems. See globalism in general and the state of the world at present, closer to WWIII than we’ve probably ever been since 1963 at least. Trying to get rid of tribalism, racism, sexism, or any of the other isms that so cloud our judgement is a fools errand.
All one can do is try to eliminate these vices within oneself and one’s direct vicinity through their words and actions. I cannot prevent people from being tribal. I have no hope of doing so. I can understand the errors of logic that tribalism creates and try to help others see them as well, but I can’t fix the world or make it a better place any more than that. The moment it becomes a political or moral ’cause’, it inevitably takes on all those aspects it would strive to prevent, and there’s no way around that.
I’ve seen you make a version of this argument many times. I’m not saying there’s no validity to it. But at the level of insistence and intensity that you use, it becomes a cynical or defeatist perspective, in my view.
Matters of degree matter. Everyone has lied; not everyone is a shameless Liar with a capital L. All have biases and blind spots, but leaning into them or pretending they are a feature and not a bug is another level of beclouded thinking, one that is to some extent voluntary, and to a degree correctable.
Of course we can only best work on ourselves, but persuasion and misdirection exist, and social norms and standards matter for how we speak to and act toward one another. It’s true I’m not a model for consistently civil speech—and never will be unless life is 1000 years long—but I am working on it.
Far from opposing it in a way that, I admit, would be at some level futile and counterproductive, I see you advocating or celebrating tribalism of late. I know you have an atypical perspective, often an insightful and valuable one. But I think you’re profoundly mistaken to endorse nationalism and tribal sympathies run amok—of course you’d not use that language; I’m expressing my sincere opinion.
I don’t agree that my defense of the center and center-left is as onesided, unyielding, and tribal as T Bone’s right now. I don’t think it’s even close. In NYT comment boards I tend to defend the center and center-right. I am a very moody person who likes to see balance and cooperation, but lively and rigorous debate too. Then again, we all have some measure of self-serving bias, and tend to view ourselves in a far more nuanced and forgiving light than we shine on others.
Tribal loyalty and love of country CAN go in a noble direction. I agree that, to some extent, they are both natural and inevitable. But they should be tempered. We need to keep our natural and inner eyes on potentially destructive forces within ourselves and societies.
Or else declare a nihilistic free-for-all in which any pretense or what is moral or good is abandoned for fear of becoming self-righteous crusaders, every move toward group (or even personal) improvement tainted or doomed to failure. To such familiar arguments I respond: Some things are not a matter of debate or mere preference, and such moves are not doomed to TOTAL failure.
It’s not allowing my initial response to you from earlier.
You’re absolutely correct that I am biased towards Republicans right now. I’ve also voted Republican all but twice in my life. I’ve put that out there to let you know I’m considering my bias when evaluating.
I genuinely think from top to bottom Republicans are a superior party to the Democrats right now. I also don’t think they’ve reached their popular ceiling yet nor have the Democrats reached their floor. You seem to think there’s going to be some moment where Trump supporters realize their folly. I’m trying to explain why that’s unlikely. Comparative Analysis.
Just because Democrats are “out of power” doesn’t mean their actions are irrelevant. They’ve been in power for the vast majority of the last 16 years. You are focused on Trump and Musk. That’s fine but you appear to be completely ignoring how bad the Democrats are right now. I again ask you to watch the 6.5 hour DNC Chair Election. Just scroll through it. It is lunacy from start to finish.
I am doing comparative analysis between the two parties. To me you’re alnost exclusively analyzing two people (Musk and Trump). If you put a microscope on anybody for long enough they will give you a highlight real of stupidity. With the Democrats you don’t need to do that. You can literally just watch basic interactions and interviews to see how out of touch they are.
I am focusing on Trump and Musk—the two most powerful people in America—largely below articles that are focused on one or both of them. Of course you’re entitled to prefer Republicans, with rare exceptions, over your lifetime. That’s fine, and no surprise. In part, I think that reflects your background and upbringing, as does my reverse tendency. Not that either of us are in blind lockstep, but influences matter.
What I don’t accept as a fact is the way you treat your strong partisan opinion as a self-evident truth, or “settled science”, or something. The Republicans are more popular at present, but not by a landslide. And stronger, but largely in a bad way. They are almost totally sold out to Trump, which is a kind of servile unity even if it seems undeniably bent in the correct direction to you.
To me the notion the baseless accusations of pedophilia could be “directionally correct” is totally twisted. As bad and mistaken as when some people claimed Jussie Smollett’s hoax pointed to a “larger truth”. I’ll call out lies and shams on both sides. Not with the exact same tone and frequency, but with some balance.
I’ll take your word on the DNC election, since I’m not gonna sit through 6.5 of lunacy that probably isn’t entertaining or enlightening unless you are doing oppo research as you are. (Send me clips or excerpts if you want; I could share plenty of madness from your side). But I’ll continue to insist that such proceedings, like Party Platforms, have little to do with how most in a party think, or govern. And the current RNC Whately is a prominent election denier.
I really don’t like the current crop of Democrats overall. As I’ve often said, I’d like to see a viable, less sold out third party emerge. But I absolutely think the current Republicans are more reckless and sold out than even this batch of Democrats. I know you sharply disagree, but I’d just ask you to consider that the case may not nearly as one-sided as you think.
I’ll be following along with you, from a mostly divergent perspective, as Trump’s still-early term plays out. I’m curious to see how insistently you will play your tune when Trump’s White House goes haywire again. If it does, that is.
It must pay well because Joe Biden has been in congress since 1974 and now he is a billionaire!
No wonder he had to ‘dish out’ so many pardons!
This rather reminds me of the famous quote of King George II when informed that General Wolfe*was mad.
The King responded with:” Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other Generals”.
*Conqueror of Canada, 1759.
Very good.
Musk, or someone like him, might be seen as a blunt but necessary instrument to begin the process of countering the decades of progressive influence on our way of life. Would someone who cares for ‘nuance’ have any effect at all? A kind of battering-ram then, like the start of a medieval seige to begin to break down the entrenched defences of the opposition.
This is how Trump is using him. Once sufficient headway has been made, he can be flattered (perhaps) with having done the job but then sidelined.
Am reflecting…. Generally from what I’ve witnessed, this level of vitriol towards Trump and Musk indicates either stupidity or fear that a snout is fearing removal from the trough.
Trump himself playing the battering-ram in geopolitics, which has proven extremely effective in getting the two sides in the proxy war talking to each other again. Scarcely believable that the Biden administration refused all high-level political and military contacts with Russia for three years. The risks of that policy towards a nuclear-armed rival cannot be overstated.
It’s no secret that federal employees strongly resisted the agenda of a democratically elected president from 2016-2020. Several hundred of them actively participated in schemes to have him impeached, from Russian collusion to fabricated rape cases to his business dealings years ago, and most of them make no secret of supporting his opponents, even in their official capacities.
Federal agencies also frittered away billions on utterly unnecessary things like “climate justice,” DEI, and bizarre study grants for such things as transgendered mice. Billions more were stolen, from COVID relief funds to foreign aid, with little or no apparent oversight.
Hanania can’t deny this – our government was, clearly, extremely irresponsible with taxpayer funds. There have been no tangible improvements in most people’s everyday lives, and in fact things like law enforcement, infrastructure, education, and health care became worse, despite enormous levels of taxing, borrowing, and spending.
Our government does not exist for its own benefit. It exists to benefit the public, which it seems to view with disdain, as Hanania does. Credentials aren’t guarantees of successful or sensible policies, and experienced, supposedly knowledgeable people, in what were once well respected institutions, are perfectly susceptible to foolishness and failure.
In reality, we hardly need the guidance of these supposed “experts,” when these experts turn out to be, routinely, both very wrong and very self serving.
It is true that Elon can be an odd character. He does on occasion make unusual and sometimes insensitive remarks. He can be arrogant, as many people with high IQs or extraordinary amounts of wealth can be, and is a contrarían, which is often unpopular. He also spent billions on a social media platform solely, it seems, to disseminate dissenting, sometimes offensive, and occasionally prevaricating views.
I don’t particularly care. I pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to the federal government, and see very little in return. I also directly see the results of wildly irresponsible policies, such as inflation, crime, immigration levels that nearly resemble an invasion, and winking sympathies for despicable groups like Antifa or Hamas. Like most people, I dislike seeing public funds spent on terrible policies, with predictably terrible results.
We can easily reduce federal employment by significant amounts, without any harm to people who truly need help. Practically anyone whose worked with our government would have a difficult time denying this. We can also return prosperity, growth, power, and freedom to the private sector. Ridding ourselves of unelected, unaccountable, unnecessary bureaucrats should be step one.
If a few tall tales from Catturd or a Joe Rogan guest are repeated and believed, that’s a small price to pay.
The federal bureaucracy is effectively a fourth branch of the U.S. government. There’s no constitutional basis for it, and it’s unelected and therefore not answerable to the citizenry. Many people have come to realize and resent it deeply, therefore they’re willing to risk change, but it can’t be achieved by baby steps.
Fabricated rape cases?
Meh. Standard liberal talking points you can find anytime on CNN or MSNBC. Many of Hanania’s criticisms are valid. Musk, like Trump, needs to STFU sometimes.
Despite his flaws, Musk rescued Twitter from the censorious thugs who used to run the joint. He’s certainly not the free speech absolutist he claimed to be. Musk routinely depresses tweets promoting anything on Substack, where Hanania writes prolifically. Despite this, twitter is infinitely more open than it ever was.
Hanania fundamentally misunderstands the importance of cutting the bureaucracy. Musk isn’t stupid. He knows that you won’t balance the budget by cutting jobs. The point is to wrestle control of govt away from unelected bureaucrats. This reality is well understood in Britain.
I love this quote. Hanania is engaging in the very same hyperbolic conjecture that he accuses Musk of doing; “Republicans have tended to oppose student-loan forgiveness, but now cuts at the Department of Education may lead to there not being enough workers to collect debt. Put another way: Muskian methods may be enacting a de facto version of former President Joe Biden’s policies.”
Ultimately, Trump and Musk will be judged by their results – and the jury is very much out. There have been some early successes – reducing illegal immigration to a trickle, tackling the oppressive regulatory regime, dismantling DEI etc.
But this might be wiped out by Trump’s apparent obsession with tariffs. Voters elected him to tackle inflation and grow the economy. Tariffs don’t do any of that. If Trump’s policies make people poorer, or less safe, the GOP will be punished for it by voters.
Although I don’t take issue with much of this essay, a lot of it is just more noise. We get enough of that from Trump.
Trump and Musk are fundamentally different though. Trump is an elected politician, and barring death or serious disability, remains in the White House for his whole term. Musk isn’t like that. Him wearing a DOGE hat is at the whim of Trump, and he could be gone from that role by lunchtime tomorrow. Ok, Musk would still have his businesses, but unfortunately for him, he has set about damaging Tesla, his biggest business, by his DOGE actions. Because that business sells largely to individuals, it is uniquely susceptible to boycotts, as Musk is now discovering.
He doesn’t claim to be a politician. He is a person employed by a president for however long. Musk is not essentially driven by money.
No, he is driven by a self-important belief that he alone can save humanity and society. And when that doesn’t work, he can upload his giant brain to the cloud or flee to Mars with a handful of others.
I read (can’t supply a reference – sorry!) that Musk recently visited a Japanese car maker who claims to have produced a very low emission internal combustion engine (ICE).
Given this and the obvious differences between Mr Trump’s agenda and the electric car culture it’s just about conceivable that Tesla will morph into an ICE based car maker. Musk is both technically savvy and strategic.
I think the best guide to Musk is Musk himself. Why not take the man at his word? Listen to him on Rogan because he explains his reasoning behind things.
He does appear to be genuinely concerned about the future of humanity and existential risk, particularly from AI (he gives it a 20% chance of causing human extinction) and asteroid impact. He genuinely believes in colonising Mars.
Like many of the other tech bros though, he is also a transhumanist (liberal eugenicist?).
The jury’s out on whether he should be classed as an ‘effective altruist’ but he is certainly a longtermist and a consequentialist.
His consequentialism, however, can descend into crude instrumentalism.
‘Destroy the woke mind virus’ -> Buy Twitter and get a president elected who will legislate against it.
‘Defeat excessive regulation’ -> Buy Twitter and get a president elected who will legislate against it.
All justified by the overarching:
‘Save humanity’ -> Manipulate the economy, politics and society to achieve this goal.
Musk believes he is the man for the job.
But he has clocked what many (most?) others seems not to have. Which is that the US debt, if left to increase at current rate, will become in the not too distant future, an existential threat to the republic. And he seems to have persuaded Trump, if any persuasion was needed, that addressing the causes of the debt ought to be a priority.
At considerable personal cost to himself (as he has admitted, perhaps even his life if the death threats are to be taken seriously) and to his businesses.
If he is successful, and DOGE does its work, then history will judge him kindly.
That Joe Rogan interview is a must watch.
That shakily founded belief and 300-plus billion dollars will get you an unelected position at the heart of government.
Who the hell ever thought Musk would be perfect? This article smacks of blind derangement. The fool who wrote it should stay off Twitter for a month and see if his brain can heal.
If you want to write something credible, conceal your hatred until at least the middle of the essay when you have had the chance to make some actual points..
“This isn’t a matter of being biased or getting things wrong like CNN occasionally does.”
Hahaha, ‘occasionally ‘! I stop reading after this sentence. Obviously a hit piece.
Musk says some stupid shit, can be very cringe, and is a very weird dude. But I also believe he saves the free world from terminal globalised managed decline with his purchase of twitter and his backing of Trump, so he’ll always have a hall pass from me.
*Musk wasn’t hired to practice politics. He was hired to go over the heads of the politicians and bureaucrats who have allied to steal the country from its citizens. Going to be a bit messy for some time, I’m afraid. Like D-Day.
Bit drastic Daniel:
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied forces suffered approximately 10,000 casualties, with around 4,414 confirmed dead, including 2,499 Americans and 1,915 other Allied nationalities.
That seems a very high ‘kill to wounded’ ratio?
Normally one would expect at least three to one.
In an amphibious landing being incapacitated in the water would likely be fatal, unlike on land.
Good point, thank you.
And c 35000 French citizens.
Surely not on DAY 1?
Once the Americans wake up this board will be full of complaints raging that somebody has dared to criticise somebody involved with Trump
Boring hit piece with inaccuracies. For example the concern is that fraudulent social security numbers is a vehicle to getting money from other sources.
Oh I see! Some guy I’ve never heard of, who works for a think tank I’ve never heard of is cleverer and understands politics and business better than the world’s richest man. Got it.
The examples regarding voter roles and DHS money are false. Illegals are on viter roles and DHS wasted money on illegals that should have been available for disaster relief.
Thanks all for the comments (which is where I turned to instead of reading the article).
A very well thought out and wise assessment of Elon Musk. At least I think so!
Why don’t you just write “I hate Elon Musk” and save yourself the time? Because reading this article is…. a waste of time.
I stick this in Grok “What is the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology” and got this back (I summarised a lot of it):
“The Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) is a think tank focused on examining how ideology and government policy shape societal outcomes, particularly in areas like scientific progress, technological innovation, and social trends. It positions itself as a research-driven outfit, funding studies and producing reports on topics such as institutional dysfunction, political polarization, and biases in academia, media, and science—often with an emphasis on how these affect conservative perspectives. CSPI argues that modern institutions, bogged down by bureaucracy and politicization, fail to foster genuine innovation or address pressing issues effectively.
Founded by Richard Hanania, a political science researcher with a controversial past, CSPI operates as a nonprofit and has gained attention in certain circles for its critiques of progressive trends, like what it calls the “Great Awokening,” as well as its skepticism of policies such as COVID-19 lockdowns. Hanania’s leadership and writings have drawn scrutiny, particularly for his earlier associations with alt-right platforms under a pseudonym, which he later disavowed.
Richard Hanania, …has a controversial past tied to his earlier writings. From around 2008 to the early 2010s, he wrote under the pseudonym “Richard Hoste” for various alt-right and white supremacist outlets, including sites like AlternativeRight.com, The Occidental Observer, and VDare. His pseudonymous work promoted explicitly racist and eugenicist views—think advocating for forced sterilization of people with IQs below 90, opposing “race-mixing,” and claiming Black people were inherently unfit to govern themselves.
Hanania’s defenders—like some conservative commentators—say he’s genuinely moved away from that past and deserves credit for owning up to it. They argue his current focus on anti-woke critiques and institutional reform isn’t inherently tied to his old extremism. But the revelations did cost him ties with places like the University of Texas’s Salem Center, and they’ve fueled ongoing debates about whether his past disqualifies his present influence in right-leaning intellectual circles. It’s a messy story—plenty of people see it as a redemption arc, while others smell a lingering agenda…”.
That agenda shining through in this article…
I’ve got to get out more!
I’ll tell you who is really losing the plot. Unherd.
This author is typical of the Left. Calling Musk “Dumb” is dumb. And ascribing mental failure to him by implying drug use is as intellectually vapid as the barmy ruminations of James Carville on Trump. It’s so boring and predictable.
Dehumanizing others and destroying their reputation is all the Left has to offer. Tear down, never build up.
Plus this writer doesn’t need to be on X, get off it if you don’t align with it. What, you’re compelled to be on it?
.
The question is whether Elon Musk is crazy or crazy like a fox. Experts are divided.
Experts can’t even decide whether he is South African or not.
Foxes are cunning, not crazy
As is so typical of the envious European pundits, it is YOU who have lost the plot. Elon is not in politics. Like his boss, The Orange Man, he is sacrificing everything personally in order to serve a higher purpose: saving his country. Politics plays no role; only duty. Perhaps a good lesson to others.
Eeeeh Hanania is American. And your sycophancy is off the charts.
We need to be very honest with the convergence of events now facing us all. There is no DOGE without AI. Twitter first and now the Federal Government. How does an entity rid itself of headcount as fast as possible and what’s the impact? It’s a huge experiment that wouldn’t have been remotely possible if our institutions weren’t already severely suspect from corruption and degradation. How many rockets did Elon crash before he finally got one to launch? Countries aren’t that easy to rebuild. That’s probably the entire point.
Not at all. Crashing the Dept of Education or the EPA or USAID with a hatchet are inconsequential and won’t crash the USA. The more important segments like DoD and NIH are getting a scalpel treatment. This will work out fine if the flibbertigibbets on the left and in the MSM can contain themselves. Judge Musk by his results not his words, and certainly not 6 weeks into the job.
I found this a very persuasive article. Amusing but not very informative to see the various ways in which the Musk Fanboys try to discount/attack his arguments.
I will always applaud Musk and Thiel while being dismayed that there is any Labour connection with the Trump administration, observing the recent interview with the socialist Labour peer.
There’s a reason why Bannon was sidelined. MAGA prioritises a fair market, cultural balance and domestic security first.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t campaign vehemently for a substantial universal basic income when these boys launch their mass robo-workforces.
It’s perfectly possible to be highly intelligent and hold utterly barmy ideas and opinions. Elon Musk is a perfect example and an even better one is given in the opening pages of David Robson’s book The Intelligence Trap.
Why is he so successful if he has barmy ideas?
Hardly one of the great inventors, iron masters and engineers, that kick started the most momentous event in human history, the Industrial Revolution, attended either Oxford or Cambridge. Sheer brilliance was all that was required.
Mr Musk seems to be following in their footsteps, as you so rightly say.
All political figures lie. The Left lies in different ways and exerts influence through not reporting information that contradicts its narrative. At least the Right is entertaining. A political system that can present Barak Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the leaders people need is doing so in order to feather its own nest. At least Trump and Musk aren’t doing that to any such degree. They really do want to benefit the ordinary citizen. Yet another pseudo-intellectual word salad.
I left Facebook in 2009 and have never had a twatter account or any of the other myriad anti-social platforms. Happiness.
Is the author among the people participating in the scam known as USAID or has a new condition emerged – MDS, perhaps to rival TDS in its ability to turn otherwise semi-rational people into caricatures of humanity.
How ironic that this author would mention ‘foolish wars’ but skip over how the last administration and most of Europe wanted more of it while the new team wants the killing to end.
Just a really bad pretentious hit piece by an author who seems out of touch. I am ecstatic that Musk is not a politician, that is what is needed to clean the sewer of what DC has become. It is not the hard-working GS’s, it the middle-level GS14’s and 15′ plus almost the entire cadre of the SES that need to go. Start over, and while I would have liked a more measured approach, he is the man to do it. A lot of keyboard courage from Mr. Hanania. Just exactly what have you accomplished sir?
Given that Musk has admitted he has Asperger’s syndrome, it’s risky to evaluate him in the same way we would a normal human being. As someone with Asperger’s, I can say quite frankly that many of the normal rules of human behavior do not apply. Expecting someone with Asperger’s to react like a normal person in all cases isn’t reasonable. I won’t launch into a whole litany of those differences, but let it suffice to say that much of the author’s criticism might be related to the differences between normal people and the high functioning autistics like Musk and myself.
The question one has to ask of Musk is how much of what he says can be believed? Does he actually have a disorder or is it an act? It’s actually highly unusual for someone with that disorder to be so successful in business, where relationship building is so critical these days. We tend to be awful at that, no matter our level of intelligence. It’s also highly unusual for someone with an autism spectrum disorder to be so visible in the public. There have been other successful people who were autistic, such as Temple Grandin, but they didn’t draw nearly so much attention so purposefully as Musk does.
On the other hand, normal people tend not to admit they have mental disorders. Musk did, but might not see a problem because he has no real sense of social perception. For myself, I understand intellectually that people with mental disorders are often stigmatized, but I don’t understand it and I can’t really feel it myself. I generally don’t even notice if people react to me differently unless I’m paying close attention, which I rarely do. Further, Musk displays the disregard for emotional context and social cues that are typical for the disorder. Further, he engages mostly through the medium of the Internet, to the extent that he arguably bought Twitter as a means to express himself and wield his power as the world’s richest man in a way that was possible for him. Musk’s leadership style is similar to what I might expect from myself if I were in his position. He leads by authoritarian means and has complete and utter confidence in his own judgement. He decides what counts as ‘evidence’ and establishes his personal beliefs just as a normal person does. The difference between people with this disorder and others is that differing opinions have no emotional impact. It doesn’t matter to him how many people or who disagrees with him. He may or may not have specific individuals whose opinion has an effect on him, but people on the Internet might as well be AI bots for all he cares.
If you follow my comments, you may notice that I don’t display such a pointed disregard for dissenting opinions. That, though, has less to do with the disorder and more to do with how I try to practice such virtues as I was taught, notably humility and compassion. Moreover, I have had far less life success than Musk, and thus have no rational grounds to have that level of self-confidence. Musk has billions of reasons to attest to his own intelligence and ability. Most who have the disorder are not so fortunate.
At whatever level of success, we tend to develop ways to compensate for our deficits, much as a blind man learns to use a cane or even crude echolocation. Some of those are in the form of habits, such as my practicing humility, self-examination, and good manners. Some take the form of mental rules about behavior in certain situations. Some are based on observational skills. Others are less positive. Notably, many of us, myself included, learn ways to use accumulated knowledge, observations, and an understanding of basic psychology to manipulate normal humans in a manner similar to psychopaths and sociopaths, though with considerably less skill. Then, of course, most of us take medications for our condition or some of the many common accompanying conditions such as anxiety, depression, and such. Those who can’t afford prescription drugs and/or lack access to proper heath care may self medicate through various illegal drugs. Someone like Musk, who has supreme self-confidence justified by real success, might simply take over his own medication using his own judgement.
Given the totality of the evidence, I think it’s likelier than not that Musk does have Asperger’s, but I can’t rule out the possibility it’s some kind of front, possibly for some other disorder or just as a play for sympathy. Further, two things can be true. Musk can have the disorder AND be deliberately misleading the public in any number of ways. As I said before, the methods people with Asperger’s and other forms of high functioning autism use to ‘fake normal’ can allow us to manipulate people with varying degrees of skill, and Musk is likely among the most intellectually gifted, so there’s no telling what he’s capable of.
Let’s keep in mind that Musk made a substantial part of his fortune from Tesla, a company that benefited vastly from EV subsidies much like the Chinese EV makers who are by some accounts building superior products. He’s been taking advantage of social and political trends since well before 2016. We know now he never had any loyalty to Democrats or climate change activists, who used to believe he was ‘one of them’. He simply noticed a business opportunity, took it, and took further opportunities to profit from his status as a celebrity known for EVs, a pet cause of liberals. He’s doing the same thing today. He just noticed which way the wind was blowing and decided it would be advantageous to switch sides, so he did. Because he sees populism winning over the long term, he turned coat to be on the right side of history. Only history will show whether that was the right choice or whether it helped him any
He may or may not have any moral compunction one way or the other. He may believe, as I do, that very little of what happens on the level of whole civilizations is within anyone’s influence or control and nothing he says or does makes that much difference in the grand scheme of things, but could make a big difference for him, his family, and his personal goals. What his actual personal views are I can’t say, but he seems to be a believer in technology, innovation, and human expansion in a general sense. I’m near certain that his real views have nothing to do with the nonsense he puts on Twitter/X. Honestly, that looks more like he’s an Asperger’s person trying to imitate Donald Trump. Why he feels he needs to do that is beyond me. I know why Trump, as a politician, would engage with social media and promote himself outside the traditional media. I just have no idea how much of it was intentional strategy on Trump’s part and how much was dumb luck. With Elon I strongly suspect he’s doing it very intentionally and has a clear purpose in mind, but I have no idea what that actually is.
I don’t know what is going on with Unherd.
Is it purely contrarian.
Only interested in confounding stereotypes.
Getting tiresome
Elon Musk’s electric carmaker Tesla has warned it and other US exporters could be harmed by countries retaliating to Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
In an unsigned letter addressed to the US trade representative, Tesla said while it “supports” fair trade it was concerned US exporters were “exposed to disproportionate impacts” if other countries retaliated to tariffs.
The letter was dated the same day that Trump hosted an event at the White House, where he promised to buy a Tesla in a show of support for Musk.
It is unclear who at Tesla wrote the letter as it is unsigned, or if Musk was aware of it.
Tesla’s share price has dropped 40% since the start of the year.
Well, when you name your department after DogeCoin, a comic meme-coin intended to parody BitCoin, it’s not surprising that the outcomes of your efforts turn out to be a parody of reform.
Great article Richard, but unfortunately we are a long way from Trump fans being honest with themselves about what is happening before their eyes. The number of outright mistruths in the comments suggests most are still deep in their information bubble.
The man has likely taken enough ketamine to lobotomise an entire herd of wild horses by this point. It feels almost cruel to laugh at him.
Strangely, I find his ketamine use to be the only humanising thing about him.
Always my drug of choice at V Festival
I don’t know who said it. I’ve heard it attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
I was told that was Mark Twain, but he seems a bit like Churchill in that all kinds of quotes that were not his get attributed to him.
Derek Rayner, former joint Managing Director at Marks and Spencer, joined Margaret Thatcher’s government within days of the 3 May 1979 general election, in order to spearhead the new Conservative Government’s drive against waste and inefficiency. Rayner’s role as head of the Efficiency Unit was to bring this about in the UK’s civil service.
Sound familiar?
While there was some success, Rayner’s major stumbling block was the high intellectual calibre of the senior civil servants, many Oxbridge graduates, whose ’empires’ he was tasked to emasculate. And these were the people who would compose and justify the what, when, why and how of government policy.
And the longer term outcome?
As of September 2024, the UK civil service had 515,085 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, representing a growth of 3.8% over the previous year, marking the largest civil service since March 2007.
As Musk and Trump are discovering, it easy to sack staff and close entire departments, but somewhat more difficult to produce the briefs needed by senior government staff as they head into major negotiations with all and sundry.
And a not unexpected response to Musk’s over-confidence, some would say arrogance:
Tesla Sites Firebombed, X Hit with Major Cyberattack as Musk Aims to Cut Wasteful Gov’t Spending
https://cbn.com/news/us/tesla-sites-firebombed-x-hit-major-cyberattack-musk-aims-cut-wasteful-govt-spending
I’m pretty certain I know what Arnaud AMALRIC, former Papal Legate, Inquisitor, and Abbot successively of Poblet, Grandselve, and Cîteaux*, would have to say about that.
*All Cistercian.
Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
“Kill them, for the Lord knows those that are His”.
Bit drastic, if that’s what you meant.
“Needs must when the Devil drives”.
Superb. Nail on the Head!!
And then to combine with another Captain of Industry (albeit much less successful) with similar character traits our Don J. Jeez you couldn’t make it up.
‘Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris’ – Thucydides
He’d rather go after the “entitlements” of people who’ve mostly paid into the system for decades, while receiving federal welfare on a massive scale.
Perhaps the answer is that Musk’s brilliance in all things managerial and political did not inexplicably desert him in 2022 (talent tends to be a sticky thing after all), but rather that a brain even as big as Musk’s would struggle to come to terms with the developments that occurred at or around the turn of that year.