Musk as anti-hero

People wonder what Musk’s endgame is, the actual reason he leapt at the opportunity to do a takeover of the government. After all, how could it be different from taking over Tesla and SpaceX? And the obvious reasons are, lucrative contracts and the ability to command policy that favors him. Sure, and those are short term goals that have been realized already. But that doesn’t really explain his glee in destroying whole agencies with no thought. It’s not just the destructive impulses of the teenage boy he is emotionally. He’s after something. 

And the answer is, AI, filled with government data. And the purpose? Sure, more money and dominance in the AI field. But really? He wants to run the entire government, all its services and bodies, with xAI. If he can’t ever be president, he can always be Big Brother. 

AI is a system without empathy, which he claims is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” Making all decisions, collecting and granting all monies, directing armies of dog robots with guns to solve meat puppet problems. Basically, civilization on autopilot, with him holding the code. He doesn’t need money. He just wants ultimate control. 

It’s no coincidence that his other baby company, Neurolink, has sci-fi overtones of mind control. This teenage man might have had Lex Luthor and the other evil geniuses of comics in mind, if not the Bond villains complete with volcano, hairless cat and rocket ship pointed at world capitals. He named his satellite company “Starlink,” with shades of The Terminator’s creator, the AI system Skynet which caused near extinction of humanity in that movie series. But he thinks of himself as the hero. Musk has already appeared in a Marvel movie as himself, buddies with the fictional billionaire inventor, Tony Stark. He will tell you he is working for the good of humanity, although he is clueless as to what that might actually be. 

Whatever condition you want to apply to him, be it narcissism, drug addiction, megalomania or something else, Elon Musk is determined to make dystopia real, with him at the controls. He probably won’t make it to Mars himself. But he can make sure that our lives are just as empty, dangerous and soulless as that barren planet, to make his comic-book dreams of galactic power come true.