"Muskism"

[MsAmerica]

From a review of a new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff (review by Jennifer Szalai), which I found interesting.

How ‘Muskism’ Is Changing the Way America Works
In a new book, Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff argue that Elon Musk’s disruptive approach to business is transforming both politics and the economy.

The ensuing cycle is virtuous for Musk and vicious for almost everyone else. If your self-reliance requires a Tesla charger or Starlink access, you have to plug into infrastructures that Musk owns. Other tech billionaires may want consumers to become entirely reliant on their products, but Musk has been operating on a different scale, helping to sell the idea that the public good is so degraded that consumers can count only on him. Slobodian, a historian, and Tarnoff, a technology writer, note that one of Muskism’s defining traits is this paradox of autonomy and dependency...

He settled in North America but, the authors write, “apartheid South Africa came along like a spore in his luggage.”...

A striking turn in “Muskism” takes place right here, at the part of the book where the authors discuss Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. They show how bothered he was by Twitter’s track record of galvanizing egalitarian social movements. Hashtags like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter took off on the platform. “Muskism had always been committed to a vigorous defense of hierarchy,” Slobodian and Tarnoff write. Musk, who gave himself the title of Technoking at Tesla, turned Twitter, now X, into a platform “that would reaffirm the power of the boss.”

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/books/review/muskism-quinn-slobodian-ben-tarnoff.html

I don’t understand the hate for Musk, nor how it spilled over against Teslas.

Musk, the man, the myth, the ego? A self made man (who worships his creator), who's Tesla and SpaceX were subsidized to the tune of $38 billion by the US government. He's been promising humanoid robots for five years, and has them up to dancing on stage (instead of the human actors in robot costumes he used to employ), but not yet doing real work. Looking on the bright side, robot cars have only killed a few people. With SpaceX he plans to build data centers in space. His main problems will be dissipating heat in a vacuum, and the cost of transporting hardware into orbit (which he hopes to reduce by using mostly recyclable rockets). With the early hype a lot of investors in SPCX might have made money, but those who held the IPO shares now see the price languishing well below their initial value.
Outside of business his behaviour is strange, to say the least. (Perhaps behind closed doors he's like that at work too?)
He challenging Zuckerberg to a cage fight. Boys will be boys.
He smoked marijuana during a live podcast with Joe Rogan in 2018, an unconventional look for a CEO to give to investors.
His record at DOGE, sowing chaos to drive efficiency, was, shall we say, a little patchy. He managed to sack many government employees. There are a few ongoing lawsuits.
He predicted a civil war in the UK.
An interesting character, but it's a no from me Mr Musk; I'd rather invest my money in a boring business with a proven track record of making consistent profits.

I can't remember who said what I am about to post, and I am paraphrasing, but this rings very true to me.

I Heard Musk talk about self driving cars, and I know nothing about self driving cars. So I accepted it when he said he was an expert on them. I heard him talk about spaceships, and I know nothing about spaceships. And when he said he was an expert on spaceships, I accepted it. Then I heard him talking about coding, and how he says he is an expert at coding. But I am an expert coder, and take it from me, he knows near nothing about coding.

When you take the above, and listen to him speak about a subject you do know about, what he actually says is just rubbish. But the problem is that what he actually says is filtered by the popular press, so a casual news reader can't pick up that most of what he says is rubbish.

Yup. He is a master of vaporware.

Well, the hatred for Musk is easy to explore, if you have a little time to Google. And it's natural, and reasonable, that if you think a person or corporation is deplorable, you would avoid their products.

Great post, thanks.

I've wondered if Musk himself is really a competent creator, or if he is more of a promoter/beneficiary of other people's work.

Nice. That's the kind of thing that has me wondering whether he's really a creator/inventor, or just a great PR guy. By contrast, my sense is that Steve Jobs really was crucial to the inventing/developing of products.

Yes, I’m not that bothered.
Just seems to be the fashion to hate Musk and Israel.
People are weak minded.

I think he is a really good salesman, of vaporware, and he is good at making money for himself, as in taking money from other people.

Tesla he bought into. Just at the right time as EVs were about to explode. He pushed/ wrangled the other people who started Tesla out. He promised robo taxis. That anyone who bought a Tesla would be able to drive it to work, push a button, and it would set off on it's own earning money. That never happened.

And what other models have Tesla, under his control, come out with ? Cyber truck, that did not sell, and his arctic semi, that is not selling.

He oversells, does not deliver, but still people pour money in, because he has "vision".

His "ideas" appear not to be constrained by having to make economic sense, or make a profit. He sold the idea of electric pods in tunnels, and magnetic pods in vacuum tubes. He delivered the Vegas loop. A couple of half mile long tunnels the size of sewers under Vegas, with ordinary Teslas with.... drivers.

He promised life on mars with his starship. He has yet to get one into space with a full load. Remember, starship is supposed to carry fuel into space to refuel other ships.

He promised humanoid robots. And we got men in robot suits. He promised brain chips. Now forgotten.

His Falcon 9 rocket is superb. But is it his ? Nope, he sold the idea then hired NASA engineers. He sold the idea that he could do it and NASA could not. He just announced he will retire it. Why ? Because starlink does not make money. Now it's push the moon, and mars again, to keep the investment money coming in.

I think, if one stops and thinks... what has he done that has changed anything... nothing.

I forgot his roof solar panels. Got huge grants, cos his vision.. shut down cos it was a scam.

How on earth do you get from "hate" Musk to Israel ?

Then, quote " People are weak minded."

I don't hate Musk. I dislike what he stands for. And one of the things I dislike about what he stands for, is this whole notion that is that if you are with him and do not question him, then you are on the "good side" But if you dare question him, then you are just a hate filled person and you hate everything. Because you are " weak minded."

Your post actually demonstrates one of the key reasons to dislike him.

Weak-minded how?
Does that mean that you reckon that it's sheeple behaviour to "hate Musk", merely fashionable, an unjustified trend that will collapse quickly? Weak=temporary or sheeple?

Did you feel it was weak-minded when Musk was being celebrated and gushed about widely, say 12-15 years ago? You must have deplored the Musk celebrations back then as weak-minded too, right?

The mention of Israel is a bad connect, especially since outrage about Israeli action goes back almost 60 years. At that point in your post, did you completely change your definition of weak-minded, meaning that it's weak-minded to hold onto a grudge for 60 years?

Left wing politics ever since Marx has been based on the concept of the "oppressor and the oppressed", "bourgeoisie and proletariat", "strong and weak ", "winner and loser"or "perpetrator and victim ". Combined with a view that economics is a zero sum game where if one person is making money then someone else must be losing money.

So as a very high profile successful businessman he obviously attracts hate from the left.