Return of the King

Elon Musk and the dream of populist autocracy.

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Elon Musk. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Elon Musk is the nation’s foremost culture warrior.

So says Rich Lowry in a new column and I’m inclined to agree, as it seems fitting that a faction as shallow as the populist right should be led by a general who’s not meaningfully conservative in any traditional sense.

Elon isn’t fighting for smaller government, more guns, and fewer abortions. He’s getting off on spiting liberal scolds, the grandest aspiration of most Very Online red-pilled culture warriors.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “ They derive legitimacy from divine right. Or from the purchasing power of $44 billion. Which are pretty similar.”

    Not really. Everybody on Twitter has the right of exit and nobody is entitled to be there. Actually, owning a company does give the owner legitimacy to make decisions, because his willingness to part with his own money and take a risk to take ownership of the property gives him the right to use that property as he sees fit. Last I checked, conservatives believe in property rights.

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  2. William Brady

    Is there a way I can access the “Continue Thread” links in the comments of these columns, without having to be redirected to the beginning of the page every time?

    Because if not, I think releasing a dedicated mobile app for this outlet will solve so many of these issues.

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  3. DTruitt

    It's ridiculous to write off Elon Musk as a mere troll.

    This man is the richest man on the planet, because unlike trolls, he creates massive amounts of actual value ... value to customers, value to society, and of course value to himself. Trump is a troll because he never created anything of value but his nameplate, he lost his old man's fortune several times over and somehow convinced banks and investors and condo customers (but apparently not tie customers or wine customers or self improvement university customers) to invest and buy products that ultimate proved to be utter junk.

    Let's do a quick review:

    1) Musk started with next to nothing (no half billion bequest from his old man) and built the worlds first successful web financing company

    2) Musk started a company to build electric vehicles when nobody was buying EVs or thought they would ever amount to real consumer products, and built it into one of the world's largest auto manufacturers now venturing into heavy truck manufacturing, energy storage solutions, and other energy related products

    3) Musk started the world's first space rocket company that actually produced operating space rockets, and essentially took over the business world wide ... and has now expanded it into the world's first widely distributed satellite communications empire that has literally kept Ukraine out of the dark during Russia's invasion. Musk is taking people to the moon next year - something nobody has done at all since 1972 ... and to Mars a few years later, something that even the massive United States Government has been unwilling to even try to do. He invented and produced the world's first reusable rockets, thus tremendously reducing the cost of transporting stuff to space.

    All of these were business ventures and investments that the vast majority of pundits, investment advisors, and business experts said could never amount to anything business wise, or would even work technology wise. He proved them all wrong over and over and over and over again.

    But then he devoted a considerable chunk of his personal wealth - not that of scammed investors and banks like Trump did - to buying Twitter which sent the media into a twitter because it was just unacceptable for one rich guy to own something that big and influential.

    If Catoggio wants to dismiss Musk as a mere troll, that's just plain stupid.

    Criticize Musk all you like for what he says and does with his new company, Twitter ... crap on him for not being willing to accept the cancel culture supinely like virtually all other business leaders in the world, not to mention politicians and everyone else frightened by the prospect of getting trolled by the cancel culture trolls of this world. Criticize Musk for being iconoclastic - which by the way, any 200 billionnaire is entitled to be an iconoclast.

    But never dismiss Musk as a troll. Until any mere media writer like Catoggio or anyone else on the planet is entitled to dismiss Musk, which none are, really, just keep it to yourself. You're only jealous of his success.

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    1. Avatar photo
      LakesideBill

      Agree completely. Musk is the greatest visionary of our age, and the greatest engineering manager alive, maybe of all time. He is a national treasure. Is he a little nutty at times? Of course--no sane person would decide that the thing to do with one's time and money is to go into competition with Toyota, GM, BMW, etc., starting with no experience in the car business. If I were 30 years younger, I'd send him my resume in a heartbeat.

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    2. @Fakejohn

      In America we're all entitled to call whomever we want names if we feel like it (USA! USA!). He is a troll. That doesn't mean he hasn't accomplished everything else you mention, but he's also a troll. My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci? In what world is that not trolling? I'd love to have his money but I don't feel a lot of jealousy towards someone who can literally go anywhere on earth and meet with anyone but instead chooses to shovel out tweets and watch the reaction. By the way, if you think SpaceX is taking people to the moon next year I have some beach front property in Arizona to sell you.

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  4. Avatar photo
    Chris Babcock

    Confession: I'm a huge of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. My hope is that he absolutely ruins that website by making it unusable to anyone but the populists--and with them fully distracted with the circus, we can provide a bit of bread and keep them from interfering with actual productive society. I will miss the old days of 2009 when everyone used Twitter to encourage people to open as many tabs as they could and auto-refresh all Iranian government websites during the Green Revolution, to create a user-driven DDOS; but I'm sure eventually that would be made illegal because our government refuses to say that some nations are simply evil and any American should be given a letter of mark to wage war against them.

    Anyway, as I have said before: If you don't like social media, build your own social media. Let the muppets have their fun trolling themselves, and remind them that Twitter is most important to watch (don't leave your seat!) on Tuesdays in November.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Richshipe

    Does Musk really believe all he's spouting? Or is it just boob bait meant to sell twitter subscriptions to boobs? Why couldn't it be the Roger Ailes kind of move with social media? Roger Ailes understood there was a large untapped audience in right of center viewers. If you are just straight news you are one of many channels. If you tack right you claim ground that nobody is claiming. It seems like every new check mark I come across is a culture warrior ditto-head. In other words, it seems to be working. Who knows if they can pay the bills or not. But it is certainly how you get them to subscribe.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Mattjabour

    Remember in Death Note, where one of the main characters was killed off, and then they just replaced him with two new characters with half of his traits apiece? I think that's what's happening to Trump, where he's being split into Elon and DeSantis.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Margaret.Friedberg

    Great piece. Really insightful. I’m not as negative on him as this piece is, and to me having a dedicated interest in the first amendment was not a conservative value in my day. It made one a liberal. But I think you have well-encapsulated the reason for his current heyday.

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  8. Dennis.Trask.Z

    A sewer.

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  9. Egal.Fabrice

    I agree with this column and I'm... kinda, sorta OK with it.

    Let Musk be the new King Troll. He can't be president due to his place of birth, so his realm will remain metaphorical. Trump could rule the US, Musk will rule Twitter. Let the MAGA crowd get high on banning libs from Twitter, and with any luck, Trump will be gone by the time they get back to Earth.

    The Twitter progressive hellscape might get replaced by a Twitter conservative hellscape, but that one at least wouldn't pressure mainstream journalists or professors. The MAGA crowd is perfectly capable of going crazy without Twitter, while Twitter was very much associated with the intersectional crowd. Even if the progressive mob is recreated elsewhere, I'll take the reprieve.

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  10. Avatar photo
    RightWithReason

    I remember when 2015 rolled around and we could look back and laugh at the "futuristic" vision Back to the Future III presented of that year - particularly the costumes. "Nobody wound up wearing stuff like that," we giggled.

    Except ... here we are, just seven years later, presented with a picture of someone from real life - the world's richest man, no less - wearing something right outta Griff Tannen's closet. 🙄

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About Nick Catoggio

Nick Catoggio is a staff writer for The Dispatch and writes the newsletter Boiling Frogs. He previously blogged as Allahpundit for Hot Air. ⁣  ⁣  Subscribe to Boiling Frogs here »
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