Behind the curtain of Elon's Operation Oz
Is Elon Musk directing the show? Should we not be worried?
Image by Sterling Sheehy
Elon’s Dream
Imagine Elon Musk reading The Wizard of Oz to one of his children (not the one who rightfully hates him), and afterwards experiences an unsettling midsummer night’s dream.
He awakens the next morning extremely agitated, captive to compulsive urges, not uncommon for Elon, as he has Asperger’s Syndrome, characterized by obsessive-compulsive behavior and difficulty understanding or reciprocating affection.
First, he impulsively decides to move enterprises Space X and X from California to Texas. The Golden State, it seems, had passed “a law prohibiting school districts from requiring teachers to inform parents if a child wants to be identified by a different gender”.
Elon, you see, has a transgender daughter, Vivian, who reports her dad berated her “for being queer and feminine”. For Elon, California’s intervention was “the last straw”. Incapable of loving and supporting his daughter, Musk fitfully decided to take it out on the State of California - for showing a bit of in loco parentis sympathy for kids who have parents like Elon. Warning sign number 1.
In light of the Trump campaign’s decision to play the transgender card, day in and day out during the final weeks of a very tight election (and not, say, spotlight a new U.S. foreign policy with Iran), it seems reasonable to assume that papa Elon himself was squarely behind X’s transphobic messaging, confirming not only Elon’s “family values” but bringing into question the emotional stability and unpredictability of the top presidential advisor to a demonstrably unstable president. Warning sign number 2.
Since joining Camp Trump, Elon delights in saying he has become a “cultural Christian”. He says he believes in the idea of loving one’s neighbor, but evidently not loving the child in front of him.
But even that is a step forward for one who “has toyed with odd beliefs like the so-called ‘simulation hypothesis,’ which says that we’re all living inside a giant computer program”. Warning sign number 3.
And Elon himself may not fully comprehend what particular obsessions or compulsions drove him away from his daughter, out of California, and into Camp Trump or even why he seems happiest childishly jumping up and down on a stage in front of people with whom he simply cannot relate.
One can imagine, however, Elon naturally finding comfort in a social or political world of Cowardly Lions, Heartless Tin Men, Brainless Scarecrows and Wicked Witches. And the appeal of a Wizard operating behind a veil of secrecy having the power to manipulate people and events by controlling a host of communication, space exploration and medical technologies. Warning sign number 4.
And one can understand, with some degree of empathy, why Elon prefers to retreat to the safety of the purely transactional (being crowned “efficiency” czar, for instance), and to stay far, far away from the emotional demands of family and community, which are simply outside his psychological range (and engender evident rage when unable to summon the human traits an emotional life requires). Warning sign number 5.
Elon Embraces the Perfect Fit of the Transactional
For example, transactional Elon’s remarkable largess to the Trump Campaign naturally suggest unwritten understandings, as conditions are a standard element of transactional bargaining, especially between two emotionally distant businessmen each disdainful of the constraints of laws business and electoral. See, for example, The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump.
Examples spring to mind:
Trump’s RNC and PACs spend a chunk of that largess buying millions of X ads, driving up X’s share value and bringing scads of users back to X.
Space X: Signal in advance to the public, as Trump did, the billions coming from NASA and DOD contracts.
DOGE gets a seat at the big table when federal agencies convene to usher in cryptocurrency.
Neuralink, yadda yadda yadda.
Tesla, yadda yadda yadda.
More Bounty to Come?
Perhaps best of all, for enterprises Elon and Trump: A Trump DOJ and SEC offer free passes - no IRS audits, agency investigations, citations, lawsuits, injunctions, damages, you name it.
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Elon’s end game?
It is not about government efficiency.
Like Trump, Elon’s end game is self-enrichment and celebrity, the essential elements of which are no taxes, no regulation, no indictments, no convictions, no jail time. He is, by nature, purely transactional and transgressive.
There is no love of neighbor (or daughter) or Country to it.
Warning sign number 6.
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About Elon’s Dream
The Cast:
The Scarecrow without a Brain: RFK Jr.
The Cowardly Lion: Trump 2024 primary opponent Doug Burgum
The Tin Man without a Heart: Matt Gaetz
Wicked Witch of the North East: Elise Stefanik
The Wizard of Oz: Elon himself, small in moral stature, secure behind the curtain, exercising powers unseen.
And our Republic? Courage Dorothy! Courage Vivian! Courage all!
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Elon Musk says he’s moving SpaceX and X out of California
By Ramishah Maruf, CNN
July 16, 2024
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/business/elon-musk-spacex-x-texas/index.html
Elon Musk's transgender daughter, in first interview, says he berated her for being queer as a child
In an exclusive interview, Vivian Jenna Wilson said her father’s recent statements, including that she is “not a girl,” inspired her to speak out: “I’m not just gonna let that slide.”
July 25, 2024, 6:30 PM EST
By David Ingram
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665
How Elon Musk came to endorse Donald Trump
The world’s richest man favored Biden in 2020, but he has since become a vocal Trump supporter.
By Josh Dawsey Eva Dou and Faiz Siddiqui
July 29, 2024
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/29/musk-trump-endorsement-immigration/
[Excerpt:]
Elon Musk began privately gathering support for Donald Trump’s second presidency long before he tweeted his public endorsement on July 13.
At least five months earlier, Musk made a pitch for Trump at the Palm Beach, Fla., oceanfront mansion of Wendy’s chairman Nelson Peltz, where some of the billionaires and top political strategists who had gathered to discuss 2024 campaign strategy were surprised to see him.
Musk’s SpaceX is a Sure Bet
Nov 12, 2024
[Excerpts:]
Over the summer, as Elon Musk ramped up support for Donald Trump’s election campaign, the famously transactional former president seemed to promise the world’s richest man something in return. “We have to make life good for our smart people — and he’s as smart as you get,” Trump said at a late-July rally.
One thing Musk wants: for the Federal Aviation Administration to speed up its processing of space launch licenses, which his company SpaceX says is slowing the cadence of test flights of its massive Starship rocket. And then there’s SpaceX’s tussles with the Environmental Protection Agency over the impacts from Starship launches on a wildlife-rich area on the Gulf Coast in Texas.
Another way Musk and SpaceX stand to benefit in the Trump administration is from a transition to a GOP majority on the Federal Communications Commission. The company currently has a “deluge” of requests pending with FCC to raise the share of the spectrum used by its Starlink communications satellites and the power of their transmissions, as well as to increase the size of its constellation and place satellites at lower altitudes, notes Quilty.
Worries about the unreliability of the U.S. with Trump back in power, as well as that kind of unpredictability from Musk, is likely to cause other countries to accelerate their efforts to develop independent launch and satellite capabilities, said Manber, who meets regularly with foreign space agencies.
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Vote! In 2026.
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