“I think you’ve seen that what the big tech companies have spent decades worrying about, which is moderating or editing speech at this crazy level, that’s not the problem,” said Magalhaes. “That’s his chance.”
Since the election, Musk has not hidden from the shadows, the content of backroom meetings and subtle influence. Instead, he joined calls with foreign leaders, pondered the new administration’s personnel choices, and threatened to use the America PAC to fund primary challenges against lawmakers who don’t support Trump’s (and his) agenda.
In November, Trump announced that Musk would form a new advisory committee called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE, like memecoin), which is responsible for cutting $2 billion from the federal budget. (Ending all discretionary government spending, including defense, will not accomplish this goal.) The committee does not yet exist, but Musk has already used his presence in X and this new government—a close, if absurd, position to set policy. Perhaps coincidentally, on paper, his estimated $170 billion fortune is reported to have increased by billions of dollars following the election.
“He is disabled [his ownership of X] in a government position where his power to influence policy that affects all his business interests is greatest. And that can pay huge financial dividends,” said Phil Napoli, a professor of public policy at Duke University. “I think that would be the most frightening thing that could happen, if more of these platforms take this signal from Musk.”
Early returns suggest other tech leaders may follow suit. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos visited Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring. Meta officials say Zuckerberg wants to take an “active role” in helping shape the Trump administration’s technology policies.
“Every time there is a new government, big capitalism, big money, tries to position itself to benefit from it. And I think that’s what they’re doing,” said Magalhaes. And Musk’s use of iX for clearly political purposes could entice the Trump administration to expect similar behavior from other companies, he said. “I think in that sense it’s a blueprint.”
Musk’s ambitions are clearly not limited to the US. Since the election he has visited the UK to meet with politicians from far away and there he has written about his support for the far-right German party, Alternative for Germany. Earlier this year, he tried to defy a court order in Brazil that required X to remove certain accounts that directly addressed the court, saying they undermined the integrity of the country’s elections.
All of this means that Musk’s political dominance is not just a matter of his closeness to Trump. Even if the two titanic egos can have a very predictable explosion, Musk’s influence will be felt in the new relationship between Silicon Valley and the MAGA organization, and in whatever parts of the world he chooses to look.
In a way, it’s a return to normalcy. Even before buying Twitter in 2022, Musk was a big user, one of the most followed people on the site. His Tweets can affect the stock prices of his other companies, especially Tesla, and his favorite memecoin, Dogecoin. Trump, similarly, was an active Twitter user before he became president, and during his first presidency he was known for tweeting policy. Now it seems that the next four years, at least, could see more dominance by social media posts – now with a different shitposter.
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