How to understand Elon Musk

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":7.97,"text":"There must be easier ways to achieve government capture. "},{"start":11.212,"text":"Elon Musk’s head-on assault on the US federal government, via his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), has produced a display of frenetic energy, boundless ambition and willingness to embrace chaos we have come to expect from the most prominent techno-industrialist of the age. "}],[{"start":26.84,"text":"This is not how oligarchs hoping to bend government to their will normally go about things. "},{"start":31.619,"text":"But for the irrepressible Musk — who also made time for a near-$100bn unsolicited bid for OpenAI — it has been just another week’s work. "}],[{"start":40.480000000000004,"text":"Understanding what lies behind his frantic offensive is essential to assessing how far Musk’s zealotry will carry him and what will be left when Doge mania has finally run its course. "}],[{"start":49.92,"text":"One obvious starting point is self-interest. "},{"start":52.637,"text":"Certainly, Musk’s wide range of businesses — from electric cars to space rockets and AI — gives him an unusually broad interest in how government functions. "}],[{"start":62.09,"text":"Yet this hardly requires an attack on the apparatus of government itself. "},{"start":66.169,"text":"SpaceX already dominates the US space sector and thrived under the last Democratic administration. "},{"start":71.73700000000001,"text":"Nor does Musk’s unconventional stint of government service look likely to bring much meaningful advantage for Tesla. "},{"start":77.367,"text":"Donald Trump has shown no inclination to reverse his policy bias against renewable energy and electric vehicles. "}],[{"start":83.85000000000001,"text":"Another potential explanation is that Musk’s assault is part of a powerful cultural backlash. "},{"start":89.01700000000001,"text":"The man himself has claimed that the gender transition of one of his own children has driven him to try to “destroy the woke mind virus”. "}],[{"start":96.00000000000001,"text":"Attacks on liberal causes like diversity, equity and inclusion have certainly stirred up support for taking apart the wider government machinery. "},{"start":103.61700000000002,"text":"But the actual amounts of money at stake with DEI are peanuts compared with overall spending. "}],[{"start":109.61000000000001,"text":"To listen to Musk himself, cutting government down to size is an economic necessity. "},{"start":114.65200000000002,"text":"Yet it is questionable how much he is driven by something as abstract as balancing the budget. "}],[{"start":119.70000000000002,"text":"Instead, his onslaught has felt visceral, informed by his own encounters with government. "},{"start":125.09200000000001,"text":"From his running battle with US securities regulators to the probing of Tesla’s driverless car software, Musk seems to regard government as an oppositional force holding him back from inventing the future. "}],[{"start":136.10000000000002,"text":"It also appears to be deeply personal. "},{"start":138.62900000000002,"text":"When, in 2022, Musk switched from voting Democrat to Republican, he complained about “unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX”. "}],[{"start":149.72000000000003,"text":"There is a strong techno-libertarian impulse at work. "},{"start":153.07400000000004,"text":"In common with other tech figures who backed Trump, Musk believes the new president is less likely to impede transformative technologies like AI and cryptocurrency. "}],[{"start":161.90000000000003,"text":"But he has never been as ideologically coherent as libertarian investor Peter Thiel. "},{"start":166.70400000000004,"text":"Soon after the financial crisis, Thiel wrote that freedom was incompatible with democracy and the only escape was into new realms invented by technology, whether cyber space or Mars. "}],[{"start":176.79000000000002,"text":"If Musk feels the same, he has not said so. "},{"start":180.05700000000002,"text":"Rather, he is intent on bending government towards a technocratic vision of the future — something he argued in the Oval Office this week would bring a truer expression of democracy. "}],[{"start":189.8,"text":"He has brought a familiar Silicon Valley blend of impatience, intellectual arrogance, self-interest and naive-sounding idealism to the job. "},{"start":197.679,"text":"It is an attitude informed by what he regards as an engineering mindset that values starting at first principles and considering even the most radical options. "},{"start":205.484,"text":"To acknowledge limits is to accept defeat. "},{"start":207.964,"text":"Subversive or outlandish ideas are hailed as marks of intellectual daring and vision. "}],[{"start":213.54000000000002,"text":"No one who witnessed Musk’s willingness to take cost-cutting to near destruction after his takeover of Twitter will be shocked to see the same idea now applied to government. "}],[{"start":222.02,"text":"It should also be no surprise that this unconstrained Silicon Valley sensibility yields results that can seem both blind to the realities of government and hopelessly naive. "},{"start":230.812,"text":"To acknowledge nuance, though, would be to invite doubt — and one of Musk’s superpowers has been to never exhibit the slightest shred of self-doubt. "}],[{"start":238.88,"text":"The political costs of Doge may force the White House to backtrack. "},{"start":242.74699999999999,"text":"Courts could challenge its power to hack away at government bureaucracy and limit spending. "},{"start":247.114,"text":"But until either of those points is reached, it is hard to see what can stop Musk’s zealotry from running amok. "}],[{"start":252.57,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftmailbox.cn/album/192960-1739615301.mp3"}