Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed

In this searing analysis of Elon Musk, historian Slobodian (Hayek’s Bastards) and tech journalist Tarnoff (Internet for the People) argue that, just as Fordism “was the operating system” of the 20th century, “Muskism” is that of the 21st. While Henry Ford sold the promise of “rising living standards for all,” Musk sells “sovereignty through technology,” according to the authors, a vision of “a purified community defined by cultural and genetic membership in a white, European West, garrisoned by superior technology” and maintained through “purged social networks, ideologically cleansed AI models, and mass deportation of ethnic outsiders.” Slobodian and Tarnoff track the “feedback loop of man and moment” that shaped Musk, following him from apartheid-era South Africa, where he learned “the lesson of fortress futurism” and militarized isolationism; to 1990s Silicon Valley, where techno-utopianism mingled with reactionary politics, particularly in the thinking of Musk’s PayPal cofounder, Peter Thiel, who espoused that “extreme concentrations of power benefit humanity”; to SpaceX and Tesla, where “war-on-terror” era military-industrial contracts fueled plans for “tactical satellites” and energy storage systems that promised autonomy and sovereignty for both the nation but also for individuals; and finally to the second Trump administration and DOGE, a kind of end-stage of Muskism, wherein “the hunt for ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ blurred seamlessly into the hunt for illegitimate people.” Muskism, the authors unsettlingly conclude, is ultimately about “purging those deemed out of place.” Impressive and unrelenting, this grapples with a destructive ideology that seems poised to consume everything. (Apr.)