Elon Musk Is Not Special, Yet He Has Special Power. This Is Incredibly Dangerous.
Free-use image from Unsplash of a SpaceX launch of Starlink satellites
The increasingly controversial Elon Musk owns some of the most valuable companies in the world. His recent turn toward misinformation propagandist and Donald Trump cheerleader, among other things, ought to raise questions about his competency and give Americans pause about the power he holds in our political climate.
A look back into mid-2010s The New York Times pieces will give readers a view of billionaire tech investor Elon Musk as a real-life Tony Stark, a man who is “about as close as we have … to early industry titans like Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller”. However, as of late, the front pages of publications such as Rolling Stone, The Independent, The Guardian and, of course, The New York Times, will feature headlines which seem to signal opposite sentiments. They accuse Musk of spreading misinformation on social media, point out irresponsible management of his businesses, spotlight his poorly-received posts, report on the declining value of X (formerly Twitter), and call the billionaire “[d]angerous”. A poll done in October 2024 by NBC News found Musk to have an approval rating similar to “a typical national Republican politician”.
The difference in perception is striking, but explainable: Musk’s recent behavior has left those early praises ringing false. This ought to be of concern, as the billionaire has been handed the effective keys to “so many parts of American society”, from the private life of its citizens to its government.
In May 2022, Musk publicly announced his intent to change his party affiliation to Republican after years of being a registered Democrat. He made the change amidst his purchase of X, which began earlier that year. During his party switch and social media takeover, Musk began a controversial streak of posts, questioning the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, the legitimacy of elections, and undocumented immigration, often using racially inflammatory rhetoric. While expressing these viewpoints, there were numerous instances where Musk used veritably false information, knowingly or not.
Historically, Musk’s public political activity has been balanced with a tilt toward Democrats. In 2004, he donated small amounts to both the George Bush and John Kerry campaigns. He contributed to the Hillary Clinton primary campaign in 2008 and gave a much greater contribution of $100,000 to the Barack Obama campaign in 2012. His former tilt towards Democrats is easy to understand—Musk has been a thought leader on addressing climate change, even distancing himself from Donald Trump in 2017 after the President left the Paris Climate Agreement.
However, it seems Musk has abandoned environmentalism amidst his political metamorphosis. During the 2024 Republican primaries, he voiced his support for Vivek Ramaswamy, who has called climate change a “hoax”. In an interview with Donald Trump this past August, Musk claimed it would be a bad idea to “vilify the oil and gas industry” and downplayed the urgency of transitioning to sustainable energy.
It’s worth noting that Musk likely wasn’t vocal about climate change solely out of the goodness of his heart. As the CEO of Tesla, it was in his business interest to support policies which increased demand for electric vehicles, such as the subsidies which Trump plans to eliminate. Now, he has voiced public opposition to these subsidies even though Tesla has received up to $9 billion from similar pro-EV policies since 2018, including $890 million in the second quarter of 2024. His activities on X could also harm Tesla by decreasing public confidence in his ability to act as chief executive—and thus damaging the stock price for a corporation which is more elastic to hype than most. There’s evidence to suggest this is the case.
Musk’s conduct in these past few years suggests he is either gullible, irrational, or both. The mainstream media’s presentation of him shifted for good reason: he has shown us who he really is. Elon Musk is either a man who will believe anything he hears or he is a man who has chosen to throw his support behind a party directly opposed to what has been his life’s work. A rational actor would prioritize Tesla, where he owns shares which make up a majority of his net worth, over a social media platform which lost around 70% of its value in just over a year after he acquired it. Not only is he investing his time and effort into the wrong company, he has managed to still lose money on X while doing so.
Despite apparent cracks in his perceived competence and overall image, Musk still finds unprecedented power at his fingertips. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Musk promised to provide Ukrainian forces with access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, and this proved to be crucial for their defensive effort. However, when the cost of providing the service rose to the hundreds of millions, Musk got cold feet. He reportedly began meeting with the Kremlin and expressing support for a peace deal, even posting his own idea for a deal on X featuring heavy Ukrainian concessions.
The issue with giving Musk this responsibility and power is that nearly the entire communications network of Ukraine relied on a handshake deal. There was no formal contract, meaning he could single-handedly cripple the war effort with a phone call. As it turns out, he almost did. In September 2022, Ukraine requested Starlink service in an attack on the Russian navy off the southwest coast of Crimea. Musk refused. The next month, during land offensives into Russian territories, Ukraine experienced blackouts into their Starlink access. Although not confirmed, multiple American and Ukrainian officials suspected a purposeful shutdown by SpaceX. According to senior U.S. defense officials, Musk disclosed he held conversations with Putin which gave him pause over Starlink technology use in the war.
The reach of the danger Musk presents is not limited to his involvement in international affairs, his incompetence has tangible effects on other areas as well. Since his right-wing pivot, Tesla’s sales have declined. Despite this slump for which Musk is at least partially responsible, he demanded (and received) a nearly $50 million payment package from the board. The company makes up over half the market share for electric vehicles. Thus, a decline in popularity for Tesla harms the economic viability of the entire industry as a path toward reducing carbon emissions. If we look to X, Musk’s fingers leave another trail of mismanagement. In late 2024, X—without any public announcement—updated its terms and conditions to allow for third parties to pay to collect user personal data to train their learning language models. This type of monetization of data mining and distribution is akin to what landed Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms in hot water with the European Union earlier this year. X’s new personal data policy represents a serious violation of consumer privacy for its hundreds of millions of users.
Your data is not the only cost of using the platform. Musk uses X as a tool for mass election disinformation. He consistently leverages his power to amplify his own reposts which endorse veritably false information, drowning out experts and voices of reason who aim to debunk these lies. Again, Elon Musk is using his platform to expose hundreds of millions of people to false information about our elections. Subscription to these lies has tangible effects on people’s behavior, from provoking arson of ballot boxes to placing the livelihoods of poll workers in danger.
Musk isn’t a superhero. There is no profound genius in his movements. He’s just a person, a flawed one at that. The only difference between him and anybody else is he has the opportunity to change the world with a snap of his fingers. In other words, this man is not special, but he is treated like he is. Instead of gleefully speculating on his plans for Mars or deifying him as a savior of free speech, Americans ought to interrogate what it means for our country, that a man like Elon Musk has this power.
Musk has been given unprecedented control and leverage in multiple crucial industries which turn the gears of the American machine. What happens if he breaks it?