How Elon Musk pivoted from once backing Democrats to putting all his might to get Trump elected is a question many have pondered. The closest explanation so far has been: “In the summer of 2021, President Joe Biden hosted a summit at the White House for manufacturers of electric vehicles. Executives from Ford and General Motors were there, companies that sell only a tiny percentage of electric cars. Tesla however, by far the biggest producer of EVs in the world, was conspicuously absent from the invite list. Elon had been snubbed.”
However, this piece gives a much grander explanation. Gabriel Gatehouse, a former editor at the BBC and author of ‘The Coming Storm: A Journey into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine’ writes that it comes from the need for reducing the role of the state which has been a hinderance for technology to take humanity to new frontiers.
“…Doge — the acronym for the proposed Department of Government Efficiency. Musk, who is to head the new department, has promised to cut $2tn worth of spending (a little under a third of the total federal budget)….Musk will face significant administrative and legislative hurdles. But the biggest obstacle to success might be maintaining his reformist zeal. The business of government is mind-numbingly dull compared to launching rockets, a not insignificant consideration for a man who hates bureaucracy and has a famously short attention span. Still, if anyone can do it, perhaps it’s Elon. In 2017, after a series of statewide power failures in South Australia, Musk swooped in saying his electric car company Tesla could solve the problem by building the world’s largest lithium-ion battery. If the job wasn’t done within 100 days, he pledged, Tesla would do the work for free. He comfortably beat his own deadline — in 63 days.”
The author takes us back to Elon’s troubled childhood and his early exposure to German philosophy and science fiction, which influenced his thinking much like the group of Silicon valley anarcho-capitalists from the late 1980s called Extropians.
“…extropianism was techno-optimism on steroids…They believed humanity was on the cusp of a new technological revolution, driven by advances in computer technology, that would radically change human existence for the better. What is still holding humanity back? Why regulation, of course. Government.
…Never large in numbers, the extropians had an outsized influence on the culture of Silicon Valley. They included pioneers in artificial intelligence such as Marvin Minsky, and science fiction writers such as Vernor Vinge, who posited a technological singularity, the point at which machines would become more intelligent than humans. Along with space colonisation and AI, their interests included cryptocurrencies (they were figuring out how to create digital money a decade and a half before Bitcoin appeared), transhumanism (merging humans with machines), and radical life extension. The extropians wanted to turn science fiction into science fact, and they believed that progress was best achieved through the mechanism of pure market forces unencumbered by government.”
Whilst the author isn’t sure if Musk was influenced by extropianism, many in the Silicon valley including Musk’s former Paypal colleague Peter Thiel, share a similar belief about technology and the not the state is better positioned to take humanity forward. Cryptocurrencies, decentralised finance (DeFi) and the network state are some of their ideas.
“Musk has become the ultimate embodiment of extropianism: SpaceX to take us to Mars; Neuralink to implant chips in our brains; xAI to develop superintelligence. Through a combination of ruthless” business acumen and maniacal urgency, Musk and a handful of other tech entrepreneurs have pushed technology to a point where some of the sci-fi dreams of their childhood look almost possible. What, in their view, is still holding humanity back? Why regulation, of course. Government. Enter Musk with his porcelain basin and his mandate to radically reduce the size of government. Let that sink in.”
If this ends up as just another conspiracy theory, at the very least, deregulation could just enrich him:
“Musk could strip away the “Kafkaesque” government regulations he says are holding his businesses back. SpaceX already has contracts worth billions of dollars with Nasa and the Pentagon. No one will be surprised if he gets a lot more business from the federal government in the next four years. Compared with all the sci-fi weirdness, there is something reassuringly transactional about all this. Donald Trump, long an implacable opponent of electric vehicles, has recently changed his tune. “I’m for electric cars,” he said at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, in August, adding with exemplary candour: “I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly, so I have no choice.” Well, if you spend $200mn on a candidate’s campaign you’re going to expect some return on your investment.”
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