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I’m seeing many versions of this theory but somehow this is not compelling at all. There were some sophomoric political ideas in the mix but this feels like Seth Abramson style metamodern red string theorizing that doesn’t fit the personality here.
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The more Musk's actions don't make sense from a commercial point of view, the more I become convinced that this is about politics for him, specifically ingratiating himself with the American right and with Beijing. A brief thread with the evidence. /1
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Both trump and Musk have an effectuation-oriented entrepreneurial style, not a planning and scheming style. In its best form, effectuation is zen-like flow from capabilities to impacts. In its worst form, it is about pushing buttons and improvising rapidly based on what works.
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The “scheming” style of leadership is more characteristic of cunning viziers ruling from behind the thrones of weak emperors. Bannon for eg. Elon may or may not be a weak-emperor type but there are no obvious vizier types in evidence here (Sacks and Calacanis are more pit bulls)
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Musk and investor cabal have obviously been *thinking* about politics from the outset, with a free-speech/anti-woke element in the acquisition thesis, but it’s more sophomore bull sessions. Not politics in the sense political operators seem to practice.
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From his track record, Musk clearly knows how to work regulatory and government procurement regimes in multiple jurisdictions for Tesla and SpaceX, but that’s a very different part of the politics API that you approach as a supplicant, not power-player.
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It is not obvious to me that he has a well-developed politics at all. I think he’s intuitively more politically *sophisticated* than Thiel (HHG+Iain M. Banks > Ayn Rand+LOTR+Girard) but far less of a developed schemer and planner. Thiel is more vizier than effectuator btw.
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In fact to the extent I’m giving Musk any benefit of the doubt here, it is solely due to his clear good taste in comedy-scifi. The Starlink TOS requiring you to agree that Mars should be ancap utopia is both funny and kinda interesting.
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But the overall picture is not… consistent with these fever dreams of a Bond villain attempting to take over global politics (and in some versions of this story, making grand political plans to further Mars colonization)
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With Trump, Abramson’s theories (of Trump being deeply entangled with the Russian mob and under Putin control) had a fundamental plausibility. The story fit the character. This story doesn’t.
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