How Science Fiction Led Elon Musk to DOGE
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What is the main topic of this episode?
From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope. The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough. I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. It may take us many years to understand fully what's happening in America right now. This attempt by Donald Trump, as well as Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, the authors of Project 2025, and so many others to radically reshape this country and its institutions as quickly and as brutally as possible. We've been talking a lot on the radio hour about the colossal upheaval of the first hundred days of the Trump administration and what could be more important. But today, the subject that we're going to drill down on is an appraisal of Elon Musk and his vision of our future. Of the many politicians who have tried to position themselves as Trump's heir and closest advisor, really only Elon Musk rivals the boss. And in some ways he exceeds him. There's that astronomical untold wealth. There's his delight in trolling his enemies and his contempt for government and its rules. And there's a deep belief in him that what's good for Elon Musk is precisely what matters.
And yet the thing is, Elon Musk is not just a chaos agent, as he's sometimes called. He's driven by a distinct ideology, or at least a clear set of obsessions. And to find out more about this, I called up Jill Lepore, the best-selling author of These Truths and other works of history. And I called her because she's written about Elon Musk for The New Yorker, and she's also produced a podcast about him called X-Men. She's a professor at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. We spoke last week. Jill, Elon Musk is only recently a MAGA figure. He supported Obama. He supported Biden in 2020. He was strong on climate change and the shift away from fossil fuels. So to what degree do you understand him as a self-interested agent where Trump is concerned, or is he really sincere in his turn to the right?
How did Elon Musk's worldview develop from science fiction?
I think Musk is a man of many costumes, and he likes to play roles. He is a person who is very immersed in the world of video gaming and comic books and science fiction and Hollywood superhero movies. Wearing the dark MAGA hat and the Occupy Mars black T-shirt is as much a costume and a performance as it is an expression of sincere political commitment. So Musk went to Stanford in 1995 for a PhD program, and he left after a couple days to start his first company. In order to raise funds for their ventures, they were all encouraged. to promise to be altering the destiny of the species. And that sense of the messianic language that was required to get funding from venture capitalists, I think a kind of fully grown up person would engage in that and know that it was bullshit. I'm sorry, this is the radio. A fully grown up person would engage in that and know, you know, this is nonsense. This is what you have to do to get money.
But I think a very young, impressionable, sort of arrested development person who's grown up on superhero culture might really come to believe that, that they are better than anyone else on the planet. And that the future destiny of humanity is something that they hold in their hands. Uniquely. And if I want to be a messiah, there have to be existential risks that I can save humanity from. So they have to keep propagating new risks. So, you know, then it's AI and Musk is determined to either defeat it or create it or depending on the time.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic of this episode?
0:02–3:04
2
How did Elon Musk's worldview develop from science fiction?
3:04–5:44
3
What role does pop culture play in Musk's ideology?
5:44–9:58
4
How does Musk's political alignment relate to his business ventures?
9:58–15:32
5
What are the implications of Dogecoin for social services?
15:32–19:38
6
How does Musk view existential risks to humanity?
19:38–22:05
7
What criticism exists around Musk's interpretation of cultural narratives?
22:05–29:55