For years, Elon Musk appreciated to think about himself as a real-life Marvel superhero, a Tony Stark–esque genius who would save humanity from its best threats. He dressed like a superhero for Halloween. He as soon as seemingly compared himself to Batman in a tweet. He was repeatedly referred to as “the real-life Iron Man” within the media, and even made a cameo in Iron Man 2, reveling within the comparisons between him and a superhero. However the previous few years have proven a special model of Musk—yet one more akin to a comic book e book supervillain who undergoes a darkish transformation. Image Spider-Man donning the all-black symbiote go well with or Superman shedding his ethical compass. Sure, he’s gone by means of a kind of traditional transformations, and the shift appeared satirically full when he appeared onstage at a Donald Trump rally this previous weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania, sporting a black “Make America Nice Once more” hat and proudly declaring, “I’m darkish MAGA,” earlier than actually leaping up and down.
Now, I’ve no drawback with folks declaring their allegiance to Trump. All of us have our political viewpoints. Folks could also be voting for Trump due to their staunch perception within the Second Modification, or as a result of they’re drawn in by his promise of decrease taxes (for the wealthy), or as a result of they’re antiabortion, or as a result of they’re steadfast supporters of Israel—or as a result of they simply hate Kamala Harris. However none of those causes actually apply to Musk, and the query that individuals can’t cease asking about him is: why? Is that this about decrease taxes? Did Harris kill his pet once they had been youthful? Name him a foul title? Make enjoyable of his hair? What precisely is it that made Musk rework from a Democrat-supporting champion of renewable power and free speech to a Trump supporter and cultural warrior? What made him go from speaking concerning the science of renewable power and solar energy to shilling conspiracy theories concerning the authorities’s Hurricane Helene response and baseless claims that undocumented immigrants are being utilized by Democrats to steal elections?
Whereas it’s tempting to border Musk’s current embrace of far-right views as a strategic transfer tied to monetary incentives or company pursuits, the previous poster little one for progressive beliefs—who was arguably one of the influential folks preventing towards local weather change—seems to have made this ideological pivot for much extra private causes. As one Silicon Valley insider put it to me: “This began when he grew to become offended at authorities throughout COVID, once they pressured him to shut his automotive crops, after which he was actually radicalized about social points by his daughter’s resolution to transition.” The nail within the superhero coffin, it seems, was when she fought again towards him in public, calling her father a “serial adulterer” and his actions “past silly” and “determined.” (To be honest, loads of folks have used a kind of phrases towards their mother and father earlier than.)
Certainly, through the pandemic, Musk publicly fought towards native authorities restrictions, notably these imposed in Alameda County, California, which pressured him to close down Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing facility. Defiantly, he reopened the manufacturing facility in Might 2020 towards native orders, even tweeting, “If anybody is arrested, I ask that it solely be me.” (Which will have appeared like a courageous transfer, but it surely was actually simply chest-thumping; Musk knew full properly that the US wasn’t going to toss the richest man on earth in jail.) However that second actually fanned the flames, making Musk irate—not on the scenario (by which tens of 1000’s of individuals had been dying from COVID), however reasonably at Democratic state officers who had been dictating what he may or couldn’t do along with his factories, which he noticed as an affront to his autonomy and his companies’ survival.
In case you think about Musk’s views as a tightly woven material, this was the second when you would see the primary thread begin to unravel. The COVID confrontation marked the start of Musk’s detachment from the left-leaning politics of California, which he got here to see as an impediment to his success.
Then, in 2022, he bought Twitter.
That’s when his views began to flip-flop in all instructions. One second he was totally free speech— declaring himself a “free speech absolutist”—and the subsequent factor you realize, he was suspending accounts and reinstating some beforehand banned customers (like Trump), managing to silence those that criticized him, together with users who impersonated him and journalists he discovered annoying. Whereas he stated he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, Musk endorsed Trump—whom he beforehand urged to “sail into the sundown”—within the fast aftermath of the July assassination try. Oh, and there are his overseas coverage takes: From suggesting that Ukraine give Crimea to Russia to proposing that Taiwan be made a “particular administrative zone” of China, it’s as if Musk fancies himself a one-man United Nations, fixing conflicts with the knowledge of a Twitter ballot. To name Musk inconsistent could be beneficiant—he’s extra like a wind sock, blown about by no matter private vendetta is closest to his coronary heart on the time.
Which brings us to the impetus for the whole tearing of the thread that tied Musk to the left. The speculation in Silicon Valley is that the factor that made him really feel like he’d been “red-pilled” was not an try on Trump’s life, or his personal taxes, however really a household rift that spilled into the general public eye.
This goes again to 2022, when his daughter Vivian got here out as transgender and sought to legally change her final title from Musk to Wilson, citing her want to haven’t any relationship in any way together with her father. In a courtroom submitting, she wrote: “I now not dwell with or want to be associated to my organic father in any means, form or kind.” The painful estrangement clearly left Musk feeling deserted, and he blamed the whole factor on “the woke mind virus,” a time period he now makes use of to explain progressive social values he sees as harmful. In his eyes, the left—which he as soon as applauded, and whose members had been the primary purchasers of his improvements and beliefs—had now taken away his little one. (Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk suggests that this occasion performed a serious position in catalyzing his shift towards extra excessive political beliefs.)
