We need to calm down about Elon Musk - he's not the first billionaire to play politician
It's as if Hunter S. Thompson had a premonition of Elon Musk when he wrote: "There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
Star Trek, famous for its positive look at the future, was more generous in 2017 when it cited Musk alongside the Wright brothers as part of its future history.
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Hide AdThe real question is whether Musk is the risk-to-life democracy nihilist he is now being painted as or a business-as-usual billionaire who is getting more column inches (ahem) than he deserves.
Sir Keir Starmer has been embroiled in a war of words with the tech giant. The conflict broke out after Musk criticised the Labour government for rejecting a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal.


The British prime minister hit out at Musk for "spreading misinformation" after he launched into a tirade on social media and accused home office minister Jess Phillips of being a "rape genocide apologist" who "deserves to be in prison".
As reactionary as he's become, as awful as his comments, Musk is just another run-of-the-mill billionaire mischief-maker with political pretensions.
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Hide AdNorthwestern University researchers analysed the political participation of more than 2,000 individuals on the Forbes World's Billionaires List. Over a tenth of the world's richest people have held or aspire to political office. They also discovered that tycoons concentrate their political goals on powerful positions, have a strong track record of winning elections, and tend to lean ideologically to the right.
Daniel Krcmaric, an associate professor of political science, said: "While billionaires informally wield influence 'behind the scenes' via campaign contributions, media manipulation and social ties with politicians, it's striking how many billionaires themselves seek and hold formal political offices."
Musk's appointment as co-chair in President-elect Donald Trump's proposed U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) is far removed from the catastrophic rhetoric suggesting that money and power have reached a new nexus low.
The Northwestern team also found that a country's preponderance of billionaire politicians is related to its form of government. The rate of billionaire political participation across all autocracies is 29 per cent, while the rate in all democracies is approximately 5 per cent.
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Hide AdMusk, in short, is nothing new, certainly not when compared to his new boss. If the condemnation is that he is a person of profound influence, consider every millionaire celebrity and Tinseltown endorsement from musicians, actors, and authors in the 2024 presidential elections, particularly as part of Vice President Kamala Harris' failed campaign.
The specific objection, however, is that Musk owns Twitter (now X) and is now arbitrarily picking and choosing, on a global scale, what issues governments are now forced to respond to. In the UK, he has put the issue of grooming gangs, far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and even called for a change in leadership away from Nigel Farage for Reform (rumours abound that a significant cash donation was due to them. Again, no different to significant campaign donations from other high worth individuals to mainstream political parties).
Foreign political donations are banned in the UK, but foreign money can enter UK politics. The government has said it will review donation rules. Musk has, once more, done nothing but tantalise an action and draw attention to existing laws and loopholes.
Anyone of wealth and means has been setting the news agenda in the Western world for centuries, whether it's John D. Rockefeller or Rupert Murdoch. Musk's business ventures with Tesla, SpaceX, and other eclectic ventures place him more in the 'Spruce Goose' class of Howard Hughes, the pioneering American Aviator.
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Hide AdBefore Musk - and arguably still the case - media conglomerates and press barons dictate the day's news or certainly set the agenda and ideological lean. When Churchill suffered a debilitating stroke in 1953, there was a "conspiracy of silence" to keep a lid on whether the prime minister could continue running the country.
Those with an aversion to the idea that Musk is in government should look no further than the UK. This era's most notable press owners included Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook. His power base was the Daily Express, which had the largest circulation newspaper in the world at the time. His close association with Churchill was famous and profound.
During the Second World War, Beaverbrook entered government and was significant in mobilising industrial resources as Winston Churchill's Minister of Aircraft Production, later Minister of Supply, Minister of War Production and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.
Any suggestion that Musk is doing something new is utterly absurd. In many ways, the intersection of X and Musk's political position is less dangerous than his billionaire predecessors because his capricious Catherine Wheel opinions are not masquerading as news or packaging information up with an ideological bow. He speaks as he likes.
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Hide AdThe real issue is who the British public trusts, not whether Musk is unique. The UK media was the least trusted out of 28 countries surveyed for the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer. The UK fell to the bottom of the ranking, with 31 per cent of people saying they trusted the media—a drop of six percentage points since the 2023 Trust Barometer.
Facebook, like X, has announced that it is relaxing its content moderation policy. Community Notes relies on crowdsourcing to flag potentially misleading content. Verified information or misinformation is now what the majority decide it is (or isn't). Free speech, inflammatory or otherwise, has effectively been made democratic.
Musk is a gonzo punk who sees himself as a Borghese Gladiator. The West has bigger questions about where it gets its information and who validates it. Meanwhile, we need to cool it — Musk is not the first billionaire to play politician.
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