The mad trillionaire

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Elon Musk recently became the world's first trillionaire after his company SpaceX, which now includes Twitter and xAI, went public. At the time of writing, he is worth $1.2 trillion. This is an unfathomable amount of money, and it is controlled by someone who's becoming one of history's greatest villains.

When someone acquires this much wealth and power (as I've argued before), it becomes a threat to democracy and global order. There are many reasons to be worried about the kind of influence Musk is wielding, but I'll try to go through the checklist relatively quickly.

It's been estimated that DOGE, the Trump administration group that Musk led until May of last year, is responsible for at least 750,000 deaths globally due to its dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This agency provided resources and medical assistance to impoverished people around the world. DOGE also fired hundreds of thousands of civil servants within the federal government, slashed science funding and more.

Elon Musk's companies, such as SpaceX, now provide critical infrastructure to the government. Musk's AI is used by the Pentagon, and his rockets launch us into space. The American government and many other governments rely heavily on his Starlink satellites for communication.

Of course, Twitter is one of the more influential social media platforms in the world, and Musk has an iron grip on its algorithm. He has reportedly used the algorithm to elevate himself and his ideology. Researchers have found that Twitter users are being pushed to the right politically by the platform.

Some of the most egregious behavior we've seen from Musk recently has been witnessed on Twitter. Musk has been stoking fear and hatred in the UK—essentially portraying immigrants as rapists and criminals who threaten the white population. You can find white supremacist rhetoric on Musk's Twitter account pretty much any day of the week.

Here are some recent examples:

"Musk will use his stratospheric wealth and influence to incite untold levels of global fascist violence going forward," The New Republic writes. "Which leads to an unavoidable conclusion: At some point, friends of liberal democracy throughout the advanced democracies—including future liberal governments—will simply have to come together in a concerted and deliberate way to constrain Musk and all he’s unleashing."