The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow has a long, must- read examination of the rather frightening hold Elon Musk has over critical aspects of our institutions. A small snippet introducing Musk's reach:
...In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’ ”
Musk’s power continues to grow. His takeover of Twitter, which he has rebranded “X,” gives him a critical forum for political discourse ahead of the next Presidential election. He recently launched an artificial-intelligence company, a move that follows years of involvement in the technology...
Farrow goes deep into Musk's increasingly erratic behavior, his alarming power, and his newest pet project, artificial intelligence -- somewhat ironic, considering his own father has called him a "moron." In fact, we are seemingly in an age of megalomaniacal morons wielding power far beyond their abilities (see: the Malignant Loser). The combination of power and ignorance has already taken a toll in this country. We succeeded in voting out our megalomaniacal moron, who is still creating chaos and rot in our polity and may do so well into the future. An unelected megalomaniacal moron like Musk is another matter altogether, even though he seems determined to scuttle some of his enterprises all on his own (see: Twitter/X and his exploding car company). Of course, there's little chance that he will cease being the erratic, destructive, neo- fascist "Chief Twit" that he is as long as he has his billions to cushion him.
