As the Trump administration begins to take shape before it comes into office in just a few days, even before it takes over, the chasms between different clans of supporters are becoming public and acrimonious. In addition, the bases of the ideas of Elon Musk, the Trump whisperer, deserve serious examination.
Less than two weeks prior to being sworn in as president , Donald Trump held what he called a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Throughout that hour, he rolled out all his usual, splenetic grievances and imaginary slights — about the judicial system, his persecution by an independent prosecutor, the unfairness of the media, and the so-called idiocies of his soon-to-be presidential predecessor. This, of course, is well-ploughed, often imaginary but malign material collectively comprising chunks of the red meat flung to his fervent supporters. No surprises there.
That day too, Trump also called up to the dais a friendly Emirati businessman who says he plans to make a major infrastructure investment in the US, as well as the man who will be Trump’s Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who announced that a hostage deal in Gaza is inching closer. (Witkoff has been a backbench observer to ongoing negotiations by the Biden team.) The goals for these announcements were designed to impart the illusion that Trump was the de facto, if not the de jure, president.
However, what attracted the most attention, puzzlement, and consternation, was Trump’s ever-expanding basilisk focus on gaining control — somehow in ways he wouldn’t reveal — over the giant island of Greenland (part of the Kingdom of Denmark for many hundreds of years), regaining control of the Panama Canal (transferred by treaty to Panama since 1979), and, even more quixotically, annexing the neighbouring nation of Canada.
Cynics (or maybe they are realists) are suggesting these statements and others like them are really crafted to deflect attention away from the national and international outpouring of sympathies and emotion over the passing — at age 100 — of former President Jimmy Carter, and whose official funeral took place on Thursday, 9 January 2025. Trump has already complained that the 30-day period of national mourning proclaimed by President Biden and national flags at half mast at all official sites would be raining on his, Trump’s, metaphorical and tangible parade as the new president.
Musk and technocracy
In this, the most recent burlesque that took place at Mar-a-Lago, the virtual absence of Elon Musk (or his sidekick, Vivek Ramaswamy), seemed notable, even though there is no evidence of a split between the two great minds. In the absence of such a split, it is important to examine the way Musk views progress.
Read more: Field guide to the universe of Elon Musk: the ‘risk-seeking man-child who resists potty training’
But the ascent of Musk as a Trump whisperer makes a deeper examination of his ideas, as well as the conflict with Magaite ideas important.
We begin with an unusual place, but one that helps in our understanding of those ideas. Given Elon Musk’s massive wealth and propinquity to power, we can begin with the man being tagged by some as Donald Trump’s co-president.
Back when Musk was in high school in Pretoria, South Africa, he was a computer games and engineering nerd. Naturally he was also a voracious consumer of science fiction stories. Inevitably he would have read stories by one of the leading science fiction writers, Robert Heinlein. One such story almost certainly would have been Heinlein’s 1940 classic, The Roads Must Roll.
That story draws on the ideological tenets of “technocracy”, an American political movement of the 1920s and 30s that came to prominence amid the economic disruptions of the Great Depression and the evident inability of politicians to deal with those challenges.
Advocates of technocracy argued that decision-makers should be selected on the basis of their specialised knowledge — rather than political affiliations, parliamentary skills, or popularity. William H Smyth, a California engineer, credited with inventing the term, “technocracy”, described it as “the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers”.
The core of the story concerns engineers running the moving roadways spanning the continent, connecting America’s cities. The engineers’ plan is to seize the country from those feckless politicians — given their mastery of technology.
While the engineers’ skills are beyond partisan politics and elections, the rebellion eventually comes to naught. But doesn’t this world view have a familiar ring to the words of Musk; or, perhaps, could it also be read as a cautionary tale about the limits on Elon Musk and the rest of the Silicon Valley bros’ mastery of things?
It does not take a vast imagination to see Elon Musk’s political and economic thinking as spinning out from the ideas of the technocracy movement (in tandem with that potent, high tech “bro” fraternity). And so here we find a part of Elon Musk’s ideas about the primacy of the members of the technocratic elite such as himself.
Financial kingpin
Beyond being a financial kingpin in the American election in support of Donald Trump’s victory, and not content with merely setting an agenda for America, Musk is now trying to dictate how both the British and German political systems should move towards his views. There are his promises of support for the Reform UK party in Britain (albeit no longer for the party’s founder, Nigel Farage), and his even more perplexing public support of the Putin-favouring, Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. And there are rumours of Musk backing a rightwing political faction opposing Emmanuel Macron’s party in France’s next election.
We need to acknowledge that Musk — and his views — seem firmly attached to the ear of the incoming American president and thus the power that comes with such proximity. It seems this pairing will continue until those two massive egos come into conflict over whose ideas will prevail over some future issue.
Key elements of the Muskian ideology include an absolute dedication to his definition of meritocracy and his insistence his teams must be prepared to labour 24/7 on his projects. (With Elon Musk’s personal fortune worth more than $400-billion, in his outlook it is possible to see a soupçon of pre-destination and how earthly success is proof of being the recipient of divine providence.)
A further element of Muskian thinking is an obsession with the idea America is hurtling down the slope towards being overwhelmed by mediocrity and ill-trained, ill-educated hordes. Bridging those two ideas is the belief it must be people like him who are preordained to save humanity — and, if necessary, to colonise Mars as the lifeboat for the time when the Earth becomes uninhabitable.
The immigration issue
However, despite supporting the president-elect, Musk’s ideas are in sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s Maga (Make America great again) supporters and likeminded appointees for his incoming administration. In particular, they conflict with the views of the tech bros regarding the hot button issue of immigration. After all, in the months leading up to the election, immigration — from anywhere other than Norway, per Donald Trump — was why America was travelling in that fast lane on the highway to perdition.
Further, a major “No!” to immigration was central to the winning formula of Donald Trump’s victory in the November election, including a promise to forcibly deport millions of undocumented/illegal aliens. In that election, Trump tapped into voter fears, labelling immigrants as those responsible for stealing jobs and housing from real Americans — in addition to labels of criminals, murderers, rapists, drug dealers, mental patients, and sex traffickers.
The problem is that Trump’s argument about immigration and the beliefs of the Magaites runs crossgrain to the interests of the Silicon Valley, high-tech bro crowd in gaining immigrants for their industry under H1B visa provisions for highly skilled immigrants. This argument has already turned vicious, even before Trump’s inauguration.
As the Economist noted: “In recent days Elon Musk and other tech tycoons have traded insults with the Maga crowd over highly skilled migration. What seems like a petty spat over visas is, in fact, a sign of a much deeper rift. For the first time, tech is coming to Washington — and its worldview is strikingly at odds with the Maga movement. The ways in which these tensions are resolved, and who gains the upper hand, will profoundly affect America’s economy and its financial markets over the next four years.”
And as the New York Times reported: “Apart from Ms. (Laurie) Loomer, high-profile conservatives including Charlie Kirk and Stephen K. Bannon have started speaking out against Mr. Musk or his policy positions. Batya Ungar-Sargon, the conservative opinion editor of Newsweek, recently called Mr. Musk a ‘shill' who censors opponents (such as barring some Magaites from the X site). Mike Davis, a lawyer close to Mr. Trump, told Mr. Musk on social media to ‘stay in your lane’. ”
Moreover, the president-elect has put together another node of policy differences that, according to the Economist, includes:
This time, though, there is a new faction that makes the mix more volatile still: the tech bros from Silicon Valley.
“…an economic-policy team with disparate, sometimes contradictory goals. The Maga diehards, such as Stephen Miller, Mr Trump’s choice for deputy chief of staff, are anti-trade, anti-immigration and anti-regulation, and are supported by an energetic base. The Republican mainstreamers, such as Scott Bessent, Mr Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, and Kevin Hassett, the head of the National Economic Council, are primarily low-tax, small-government enthusiasts. This time, though, there is a new faction that makes the mix more volatile still: the tech bros from Silicon Valley.”
The paper added that now the influence of the tech brotherhood “goes beyond tech policy and Musk. Mr Musk has been tasked with running the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (doge). Marc Andreessen, a renowned venture capitalist, says he has been spending about half his time at Mar-a-Lago as a ‘volunteer'… For years Washington was a place for tech bosses to avoid, unless summoned by Congress for a scolding. Now tech sees government as something to influence and disrupt. In theory this could bring benefits for America…”
When the new administration takes office, such diametrically opposing ideas will become real policy disputes over real outcomes. While the Maga faction sees immigrants as job stealers (at best), the tech bros want to expand the pool of immigrants entering the US under H1B visas for people with special skills — and especially those who are good fits with the brave new world of Silicon Valley. Moreover, the two factions have very different views on another Trump patented nostrum — a vast new tariff wall around the US.
The tariffs issue
On those tariffs, the Economist notes yet another area of contestation, arguing: “The tech contingent could also let itself down. It sees shrinking the state as an engineering problem… Worse, having won the president’s ear, the tech tycoons may be tempted to seek cronyist favours. That is what investors expect.”
However, there is also a third faction, one not moored to either the tech bros or the Magaites — and one largely populated by those being appointed to foreign policy and international security positions. That latter group will have serious differences with both the incoming president’s Magaites — and probably the tech bro cohort, too. It consists of older-style conservative internationalists led by the rather surprising nomination of Florida Senator Marco Rubio to be secretary of state. Given his history and style, Rubio is unlikely to echo Trump-style truculence towards all and sundry (except for Vladimir Putin, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Kim Jong-un). Rubio will probably be more inclined to work the diplomatic levers than to issue threats from the White House’s bully pulpit — and to try to modulate the simmering disputes Trump is busy creating with Canada, Denmark, Panama, and Nato.
Or, as Steven Walt of Harvard, writing in Foreign Policy argued: “The problem is, alas, that real life isn’t a book or a Hollywood movie. Indeed, 2024 has been a damn good year for bullies. Russian President Vladimir Putin is winning in Ukraine, albeit at a frightful cost. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s illiberal brand of populism is on a roll in Europe. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still in power in Israel, despite exposing his country to Hamas’s attack in October 2023, presiding over a genocidal campaign that has taken tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives, and an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. And US President-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House, with the world’s richest bully — Elon Musk — at his side (for now).
“Trump, Musk, and their minions appear to be convinced that they can bully the entire world. He hasn’t even been sworn in, and he’s already threatening foreign countries with tariffs and other sanctions if they don’t give him whatever he demands. He’s threatening to sue newspapers who criticise him and punish corporate leaders who don’t fall into line. Trump’s nominee to head the FBI and some Republican lawmakers seem eager to go after his political opponents. This approach goes well beyond quid-pro-quo transactionalism; it’s a blatant attempt to blackmail, bully, and cow others into preemptive concessions, based on their fear of what Trump might do to hurt them.
“It’s not surprising that Trump thinks this approach will work. The Republican Party to which I once belonged has been exposed as a sorry collection of unprincipled opportunists with the collective backbone of a bowl of Jell-O…”
Policy incoherence on the horizon
Collectively, these very different points of view will be spawning a landscape of policy incoherence and vicious administrative infighting over both rhetoric and actual policy choices, as well as confusion among allies and antagonists both. Will all of this be interpreted as a cunning effort at strategic ambiguity, or, rather, will it be a landscape where those factions attempt to manage the crazy uncle let out from the attic — even as they are staging their own wicked food fight in government offices and on social media?
Analysts in foreign capitals (and lobbyists in Washington) are already working to tease out deeper meanings in any statements, and off-the-cuff comments, along with backgrounders and leaks, as their governments are desperate for clarifications. Just for starters, there is the possibility that Trump’s reluctance to support Ukraine may give Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping the sense that American resolve no longer extends to backing Ukraine — or, ominously, Taiwan as well.
The bottom line is that the Trump administration may not be able to deliver policy coherence, given the deep differences among his supporters. That, in turn, will generate unending (maybe unresolvable) confusion among those supporters. Regardless, the Trump administration will need to get its policy ducks in order quickly, lest the current set of global conflicts and issues overwhelm Washington’s newest set of powerful men and women. DM