The Political Transformation of Elon Musk

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News media outlets are stunned and confused as to how a man like Elon Musk could suddenly transform into another figurehead of the Alt Right. Believe it or not, that transformation was not overnight. It was always there since 20 years ago when Cyberlibertarianism became mainstream in Silicon Valley and the origins of THAT can be traced back to a time when Ronald Reagan was governor of California.

Who on God's green earth is surprised that Elon Musk is a conservative reactionary?:

• Generational beneficiary of Apartheid
• "Apolitical"= "I am okay with the status quo; any movement to the left will make me an open conservative"
• Self-important billionaire
• Cishet white dude (IDC if you don't like that word, it's just what he is)

Hell, what did people think his politics were? Are we still living in a world where we assume someone can't be conservative if they occasionally ruffle the feathers of Evangelicals?

What's surprising about Elon Musk's hard right turn is that Musk is the CEO of Tesla, a company that makes electric cars, a product that appeals primarily to left-of-center folks.

So it seems to me that Elon's hard right turn has alienated his own customer base. Most buyers of new electric cars now prefer brands other than Tesla, for political reasons, and many Tesla owners now have bumper stickers saying things like "I bought this before Elon went crazy."

I doubt that Elon's hard right turn has won Tesla very many right wing customers, given that most right wingers have little or no interest in electric cars in the first place. After all, most right wingers live in rural or suburban areas, many of which have highly unreliable electrical grids.

Elon also owns SpaceX, which gets a lot of its money from government contracts. Seems to me it's in the longterm best interests of government contractors to have an inoffensive politically-neutral public image while engaging in low-key lobbying. Elon's very public hard right stance implies that if/when Democrats ever get back in power, SpaceX will no longer be favored for government contracts.

He's actually smart enough to make me wonder about 5D chess stuff, like whether he actually bought Twitter on a whim, or did he have a plan to seize a major source of political power and use it to help elect an easily influenced president that he can schmooze for influence. The idea that he's "far right" is laughable though, he's like an edgy Clinton Democrat from the 90s, but with memes.

The latter is quite likely. However ....


What is or is not "far right" is relative to the standards of a given time, place, culture, and group of people. What matters here, and what is likely to hurt Elon financially, to at least some extent, is that he is "far right" by the standards of a significant portion of the kinds of people who prefer electric cars in today's world.

Is it just me, or is Musk the real life equivalent of Ozymandias from Watchmen?

Yes, or the closest thing in my lifetime to the protagonist of an Ayn Rand novel. I'm not one of those people who worships him, I've seen him do plenty of things that strike me as bone headed or petty, but his business track record is too insane to put down to luck, and somehow he manages to run all of his companies, sh*tpost constantly on his own social network, impregnate an impressive number of women, become an internationally ranked Diablo player, and run a pretty good campaign operation. I don't know how he finds the energy, I'd love to know his drug regimen.

He's literally at his richest point ever right now, I don't think he cares if some dumb liberals don't buy his cars because they can't separate his personal (moderate center right) politics from the products his companies produce. Incidentally, conservatives can do this just fine, since it's just a given that the vast majority of celebrities are liberals and trying to boycott them all is neither possible nor practical, we just learn to shrug it off and buy the best products available. It also kinda says something about the commitments of said dumb liberals if they place ideological purity ahead of saving the planet, or whatever it is they claim to be motivated by, Tesla has done more for electric vehicles than the rest of the industry combined, so what if the CEO is annoying online?

I drive a hybrid myself, not because I care about climate change but because the numbers penciled out for me, and the model I chose had that Goldilocks balance between performance and fuel economy, and I didn't even bother to check what the politics of the company who made it were.

Alt-Right is probably not the best description of Musk’s political views but as a top confident of Trump you can’t go wrong with MAGA.

I think the motive is personal. He is freaked out that his child is trans.

I can’t say I am surprised. I was did not buy into his I am just for free speech claims a few years back and suspected this was where it was headed.

Do you follow him on X? He's much more libertarian than MAGA, I thinks he's just smart enough to know what to say in order to stay friendly with El Donald.

In another way he reminds me of Thomas Edison. He takes credit for the accomplishments of actual inventors and people of science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv7UL5WATNs

Elon Musk Drug Use Concerns Business Leaders, on the YouTube channel of Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, Jan 9, 2024:

"Personal" politics? Musk's politics are much more than merely "personal," given the huge amount of money he has spent on his politics.


As noted above, he is much more than just "annoying online."

Fortunately, Tesla Motors is no longer the sole maker of electric vehicles.

Elon Musk has great wisdom and common sense.

He was left wing but now saidto be right...

Now as anyone knows, left wingers go round in circles, and so do right, but Elon, with wings on both sides has learned how to fly!

So before one criticized Elon, remember he has an overview, as only those with two wings can reach heights to experience this!

So listen to Elon. He is one who has experience. He stands for the freedoms of you and I.

And remember. It takes two wings to fly! (Stupid people who don't know this expect one can have left wing ideaology without the right! One needs BOTH wings working TOGETHER to keep a country from falling!
(And no... Middle of the road politics end up as a speed bump for all to trample on with no wings to fly... So that is not the answer. We need all of the views of politics to lift a country into the sky!)

Which is different than all the left wing billionaires funding NGOs and buying initiatives how? Or just the general insertion of politics into places it has no business being, such as every corporation draping itself in rainbow flags one month out of the year?



And yet, he's still the one creating the infrastructure and pushing the technology forward.

BS. The Far Right should not be catered to. Anyone who spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories and decides people who cannot make it on their own are better off dead are not worth the time of day. Actively despising those on every spectrum of sexual orientation outside of hetero sexuality. He stands for no freedom for anyone except for those at the very top. When the rich have all the freedom, you'll find that just like money, that doesn't trickle down either.