SpaceX boss sees govts as service providers, to him
Much has been written about Elon Musk, the world’s only trillionaire, but, what exactly does Muskism entail? To understand, one has to look at what kind of society Musk’s version of political economy produces, as he goes about diluting, dismantling, or evading laws and regulations that limit his freedom to accumulate, say authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.
The book examines how apartheid South Africa in 1970s, his Silicon Valley early fortune, SpaceX, Tesla, AI businesses, built Muskism. It’s a mistake, says co-author and professor of international history at Boston University, Quinn Slobodian, to think that Muskism wants to shrink the state. On the contrary, Slobodian and co-author Ben Tarnoff, argue that Musk has always partnered with the state, using its resources to his advantage.
The South Africa of Musk’s childhood, a white supremacist state built as a technopolitical project, was in some respects, “like its partner state Israel, a precursor to our own time”, write the authors. “Its model of militarised, modernising isolation fits more comfortably in today’s world of export controls, trade wars, rearmament, and reshoring.” Apartheid South Africa was Muskism’s cradle – that tech can strengthen self-reliance in a hostile world. When Musk left for Canada in 1989, “apartheid South Africa came along like a spore in his luggage.”
This idea of “fortress futurism” shapes his single promise – “sovereignty through tech” – evident in his businesses in internet, space, energy, cyber, AI. All of it was built on foundational tech govt built. So, Muskism sees “sovereignty as a service”. The state was something to be instrumentalised as a source of power and profit. Govt builds the fundamental tech – Darpa to Nasa to Washington’s “energy independence”, or green capitalism. Public money finances moonshot projects. Govt becomes customer. Not state exit, but “state symbiosis”. This isn’t simply about govt contracting to private sector to achieve strategic goals, but govt ceding control over production and design.
How? By changing the contracting paradigm, from a cost-plus (where govt covered a company’s cost+assured profit), to fixed-price that sees companies on “relentless cost reduction”, alongside a much lighter regulatory burden. “If the rules are such that you can’t make progress, then you have to fight the rules,” the book quotes the man whose official title at Tesla is Technoking. Muskism’s goal is to “vassalize it (govt), such that it can only exercise its authority by purchasing services from a monopoly provider.” Thus, SpaceX, which started as a military contractor, was responsible for 95% of all US orbital launches and more than half of all launches globally in 2025. “Trying to unplug from Musk, you realise he owns the socket.”
Integral to Muskism is what the authors call “financial fabulism” (a literary genre that mixes fantasy and realism), an unshakeable belief in the future, and a talent for making others believe in it too. His language, of crisis and emergency, visualises a future where ‘human’ is merged with ‘machine’. He acquired Twitter to undo the platform that had “turned woke”, and propelled Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, MeToo. He replaced it with X, to harness social media outrage, tailor the narrative to his view of the world as rulers & the ruled, where white fertility needed protection. Musk understood “social media as a cybernetic collective that was helping humanity evolve into something posthuman.” If humans become deeply connected with machines, the book explains Musk’s view, almost every part of life could be programmed. And if everything can be programmed, then even govts could be reprogrammed by those who control the tech. Voila.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
