This is the fourth version of a post devoted to Elon Musk. This alone is proof that the phenomenon of Musk permanently occupies my attention. After he took over Twitter, he was more in the global focus. There are several possible explanations for the Mush phenomena, but let me first lead you through my history with Musk:

The first one

The first reflection of Elon Musk came in 2016 after reading Elon Musk’s claims:

Computers, intelligent machines, and robots seem like the future workforce. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government.

This claim is such an abrupt attack on individual freedom and responsibility from a citizen of a country that a bit more than 200 years ago enforced a constitution that put a state in a position of a servant to an individual that needed to be addressed. Even more so because Elon Musk is not only a prominent member of the economic elite but also a vanguard of technological advancement. How come a person who is supposed to support liberal values envisages a future in which a state will pay our fees (while machines will do work)?

Communist and Capitalist at the same time? (part of the second revision)

Now in 2020, my claims about Elon Musk being a sort of contemporary communist cannot change but are even more controversial after Musk successfully launched Starlink and has not yet failed with Tesla despite many such predictions. On one side being and being seen as the cold-blooded Capitalist regarding employees in his companies, Musk propagates a refined version of communism on another. But then, was not Engels a wealthy capitalist and Marx a son born in a rich industrial family? Are not present dictators like Kim Jong Un the wealthiest people on the earth?

First, it should be clear that I have nothing against technological advancements and “machines” taking over labour previously executed by man. History proved that fears about “machines taking over jobs and thus raising unemployment” were overrated and utterly wrong. It is evident from industrial evolution that technological advancement opens new jobs. Admittedly, some posts become obsolete, but a couple of new ones emerge for each obsolete. So while it is true that robots will replace more and more jobs, Musk overlooks that recent posts will be created to support further advancements. But this mistake only shows that he is a short blinded technological geek who should follow Wittgenstein’s advice to keep his mouth shut about what he is not capable of understanding.

Musk, contrary to the value chain

What is much more dangerous and threatening is his conclusion that, in the end, the state will pay us! This reflects that he is entirely ignorant about value chains and intellectual and industrial property rights and that he shares Stalinist values of Russia from the first half of the 20th century.

The situation explained by Musk completely disregards value chain flow and, with that, the role of the free and responsible individual within this value flow. What is a valuable connection between work done by robots and fees paid to individuals from the state in this Musk’s vision? There is no connection.

Likewise, there was no value connection between work done by workers in communist Russia and salaries earned. The central authority, Big Brother, independently decided both job and salary. That was possible because of state-owned everything from tools and factories to intellectual and industrial rights. One sack sucked all inputs, and that same sack distributed fees to workers owned by that same sack/state by a method completely detached from value creation. It is no surprise that Musk later refers to Universal Basic Income as a step toward that final goal. UBI is a step towards one-world collectivism, statism and finally, state dictatorship – communism.

Unfortunately, Elon Musk is not a lonely rider in this respect. Long ago, Ayn Rand explained perfectly how and why a part of the American economy elite supported state interventions in the economy. One of the main reasons is that they are weak in producing new values but influential in gaining all sorts of state subsidies and other concessions.

My invention, others’ money

But wait? Is not Elon Musk one of the most energetic innovators on earth? Yes and no. The problem with all innovations coming from Musk is that they would not happen should the USA not heavily support »renewable energy technology« until Donald Trump’s reign. So Musk became Trump’s advisor in 2016, hoping for further support for renewables, and resigned in 2017 when Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris climate accord. Space is not yet renewable, so he refocussed to space heavily dependent on NASA. At the same time, Tesla got enough support from before the Trump era to sustain itself, at least for the moment.

But then there are batteries. His plans in the battery direction have the highest potential of all his businesses. But then, no analyst has taken hefty subsidies enabling safe gambling in this »business« field. But for how long?

We know that in Europe, solar and wind electricity is from four to ten times subsidised. That means we are all paying 4 to 10 times more for our electricity bills to support creatures like Elon Musk before we even think of buying Tesla, for instance. If Musk were a sincere developer, he should sell Tesla 4 to 10 times cheaper to compensate for our already cashed contributions to his technologies.

So I have to conclude that we are all teslas for being such servants to Musk and many others alike. (Tesla in Slovenian means dumbhead.) So I could say: “One Tesla a day keeps capitalism away”.

The third revision, after he bought his first shares of Twitter

I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/read-elon-musk-s-text-and-voice-message-to-twitter-on-his-43b-takeover-offer

After this, there are only two options:

• Either he is reincarnated, dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or
• he drastically changed his position in years after 2016.

Twitter is my preferred media, with my two accounts, @andrejdrapal (international) and @addrapi (local). Although I’m much too small fish to be attacked by Twitter censorship (performed by local pundits), such censorship is clearly visible not only in the case of Donald Trump but also in addressing LGBT+whateverfurtheryouwant issues (sorry, but I do not know how long these days this acronym is according to political correctness, and I do not intend to know), climate or Russian war in Ukraine. Any such censorship goes directly against my values, so now I should have to praise Elon Musk.

I know Elon Musk caused a severe cognitive dissonance in me, a dissonance I do not know how to solve. But since transparency is my core value, I publicised it. Not for my sake, but because I firmly believe that all such cognitive dissonances should be transparent, for they are part of our lives and are harmful only when they are hidden or suppressed.

The fourth revision, November 2022

After Elon Musk took over Twitter after he laid off 7000 or so employees and apparently made it financially sustainable, he also openly supported free speech by allowing so far censored accounts to come back.

Free speech is, at the moment, THE most crucial issue in Western society. According to my political bell topology, progressives tend to limit free speech as a “minor” sacrifice to achieve their utopia of global equality of outcomes based on One World Government. The Great Reset is an unprecedented attempt to actualise Orwell’s dystopia of 1984. What seemed to be a novel is becoming a reality. It is becoming a reality not because of the power of Clauss Schwab or George Soros but because of the widespread memetic infection that parasitised the minds of MSM media and progressive leaders. They are a majority, if not in numbers, but they lead a majority of ideological institutions like kindergartens, schools, universities, research labs, scientific communities, etc.

In such a totalitarian environment, the voice of Elon Musk is perhaps the last chance for Western civilisation to avoid a point of no return. I do not have much hope that free minded minority could win the fight with the above-cited zombies, for one cannot fight memetically with meme-less creatures, but what else can a memetically sane person do at the same time avoiding physical violence?

To conclude. One cannot be sure that the recent transformation of Elon Musk is sustainable or only a fluke of an over-intelligent and over-energetic person. I still take Tesla as a technological, aesthetic and business scam. For that reason, I enjoy observing Tesla prophets now planning attacks on Tesla premises. I enjoy watching peaceful progressives that were on Tesla’s frontline, now not knowing how to understand Tesla since Elon Musk is now their prime enemy, and this he is for a reason. Even if this is Elon’s fluke, I heavily support it. Even if it is futile and we are doomed, what else can a sane believer in freedom and a homonist do?