Elon Musk and the entanglement of money, politics and power

In the loud and dissonant debates around political parties and their flag bearers, there is one thing everyone seems to agree on — the pernicious influence of private money as it moves greedily from special interest groups to grease the cogs and wheels of political life — the representatives and candidates, the fixers and lobbyists, the whisperers and influencers.   

It has always been so, to a greater or lesser extent — we have a long history of entanglement between the lubricant of raw money and the levers of national power. History abounds with this narrative.  

In the past, secrecy reigned. Donations and their quid pro quos were negotiated in backrooms. The donors, often well-heeled companies and billionaires with business interests, were not eager for their political affiliations to be revealed, lest the voting public of the opposing persuasion decide not to buy their products. Companies want as many buyers as possible, they don’t want to get into a political argy-bargy with anyone. These money matters were conducted quietly out of the public eye.  

Not any more. The super-rich are now proudly displaying their allegiances and their donations. Musk, Theil, Andreessen and Horowitz have all publicly nailed their colours to Trump’s mast. Zuckerberg, Cuban and others tilt to the left.  

This seems to be a trend, especially amongst the tech-bro super-rich. Any pretence of centrism is crumbling, in line with the increasing polarisation of politics everywhere. The right ends up complaining about the influence of donations from the left, and the left complains about the influence of donations from the right.  

Of course, they both have a case to make.  

On a recent episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast, the US political commentator Cenk Uygur makes a case for reshaping the framework of political analysis. He describes the communism-capitalism spectrum (or its gentler proxy, liberalism vs conservatism) as a blunt tool, effectively useless in a world where political views are often more multi-hued than binary. He suggests a third axis, another “c” orthogonal to the others — “corporatism”.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtPROVsePk

Corporatism refers to the shameless stepping out of the closet of big money, the financial elites which now make no secret of their aspiration to run the country rather than quietly influencing its direction — a government by another name. Uygur goes through the evidence on the podcast and concludes with an alarming statistic. He reflects on the answer to a question that might legitimately be asked by the average citizen — what percentage of a politician’s policies are determined by corporate campaign funders? You might say 20% or 30%, perhaps even 50%. 

Not even close, he avers. According to his logic, 95% of all decisions in all houses of government are entirely parroted from corporate sponsor scripts. Why? Because (at least within the US electoral system) it is now impossible to get elected or re-elected without mountains of cash, and there is only one source big enough to supply them. 

Everyone knows this. Cash-poor political candidates with great ideas, competence, integrity, backbone, vision and elan are destined for careers other than politics — most will not be elected. Furthermore, once a politician has been forced to sell his soul, it is sold forever; re-election is impossible for those who do not toe the line and there are few politicians who are not interested in re-election. Uygur concludes that politicians are now mere mouthpieces with little agency. 

Uygur paints an even darker picture — DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), minimum wage, parental care and a slew of other social initiatives are no more than an amusing distraction for corporatists. 

Such policies may provide a “pressure release valve”; so, while it makes sense to let a few slip through from time to time (he cites Obamacare as an example), the promises politicians make on the campaign trail are simply vote-getting exercises. Their usefulness is carefully vetted by corporate paymasters and they are excised at will if they threaten profits. (To be fair, he excuses a small cohort of incorruptible politicians, but he is sceptical about their longevity.) 

So, where does the richest man in the world fit in this narrative of corporatism? Well, Elon Musk has become its most effective practitioner and most vocal flag bearer.  

His acquisition of Twitter/X and his, er, forceful personality have given him the world’s largest and loudest bullhorn, surely the envy of any politician anywhere. He used it sparingly at first but any filter is long gone. He tweets somewhere between 30 and 50 times a day (one estimate has him reading, tweeting, liking and sharing about four hours every day; one wonders where he finds the time to run his companies).  

He has been vocal about the Kamala Harris ticket, going as far as to share tweets implying that she is a “communist” (which is utterly laughable because she is, on close inspection, also a corporatist) and telling his readers to vote for Donald Trump to protect themselves against the myriad horrors that a Democratic administration would bring (also laughable).  

Last week, Trump announced publicly that he had tagged Musk for a government role, heading a commission on “government efficiency”. Sounds innocent, even compelling, right? After all, Musk built two of the most efficient and disruptive companies in recent history.  

It is unlikely that the commission will turn out to be innocent or objective — intersections of corporate and government interests are just too appetising for all parties to believe that it would be conflict-free. Given that Trump is looking for “drastic reforms” from him, Musk will have a vast remit to suggest amendments to rules that will probably be advantageous to his companies. 

Musk is not alone in having discovered the ease with which a multibillionaire can influence national and global events (the current Musk-Brazil imbroglio is a perfect example), but he is certainly the loudest and most voluble. Once you have combined the power of social media, misinformation, the ability to censor and an endless supply of financial incentives to tilt the scales, it is a fairly simple project.  

Yes (I hear you say), but money and politics have been cynical bedfellows forever. Yet Uygur paints a truly dystopian picture of the rest of us in chains to corporate will, with politicians mere supplicant employees (or, in his more colourful words, people who need to “fellate their donors” regularly).  

How much of this is mere alarmism? 

Some of it, I submit, but not all. The relationship between money and politics may be old news but it is truly flagrant and stark now, with individual and corporate coffers full-to-overflowing, and the technological tools to shape opinion unlike anything we have ever seen.   

It is not entirely clear how we can fight back, given that the ballot box is not what it used to be. DM  

Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at JBS, University of Johannesburg. His new book, “It’s Mine: How the Crypto Industry is Redefining Ownership”, is published by Maverick451 in SA and Legend Times Group in the UK/EU. It’s available now.