Elon Musk, JD Vance, and the Onward March of Tech Fascism

Elon Musk lies with ease. It’s one of the key traits he shares with Donald Trump.

For example, Musk:

• Claimed to support free speech yet regularly silences his critics.
• Pledged to stay out of the 2024 election and became Trump’s top donor.
• Called himself a “centrist” while giving Nazi salutes.
• Promised “Full Self-Driving” cars for years yet has never delivered

Now Musk says he will leave his role in government and return to Tesla. This is also a blatant lie. One does not simply give up the kind of power Musk bought for himself with his quarter-billion-dollar contribution to the Trump election. If anything, Musk’s nefarious meddling with government is only just beginning.

Yet the mainstream press has largely bought this simple narrative. Headlines suggest Musk will depart the Trump administration to return to Tesla, his death-spiraling car company. These stories note that, under law, Musk’s special government employee status expires after 130 days.

Two major issues with this logic:

1. Musk is Tesla’s main problem. Musk has destroyed Tesla’s brand with his toxic Nazi-saluting MAGA government destruction antics. Tesla once had a “halo” — a reputation as a good company with a moral mission. Thanks to Musk, it now has the equivalent of Hitler Devil Horns. From now on, it will be impossible to buy a Tesla without being seen as an overt supporter of fascism. Saving the brand would require separating Musk from Tesla. This appears unlikely to happen, and Musk’s alleged return to the company will only accelerate its global demise. Now that the #TeslaTakedown protesters know Musk is vulnerable, they will likely intensify their effective strategy rather than fall for this laughable attempt at subterfuge.
2. Musk and Trump do not care about the law. The law only permits a special government employee to serve for 130 days, but since when do Musk and Trump care about the law? These people openly break laws, defy courts, and mock the Constitution. Does anyone really believe they will kick Musk out of government because it’s the law? Any journalist who buys that is an even bigger national security threat than the fascists.

Musk isn’t going anywhere. He will still wield tremendous power in our government via his hand-picked cronies, tech fascist allies and the data surveillance systems they are busy unleashing inside of our government.

Elon Musk believes he is the most important human being in history. He will only escalate in his quest for power. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not been paying attention — or is playing by outdated rules of journalistic objectivity that do not work in this era of weaponized lies.

Over at Techdirt, Mike Masnick does a good job of summing up the absurdity of the situation:

There are a few ways to think about Elon Musk’s announcement this week that he’s stepping back from DOGE. The first is that he’s leaving a job he officially doesn’t have. The second is that he’s returning to a job (Tesla CEO) that he’s supposedly been doing this whole time. The third, and perhaps most interesting, is that none of this actually makes any sense at all.

Elon Musk Pretends He’s Leaving The Job He Supposedly Doesn’t Have To Not Return To The Job He Supposedly Never Left

There are a few ways to think about Elon Musk’s announcement this week that he’s stepping back from DOGE. The first is that he’s leaving a job he officially doesn’t have. Th…

TechdirtMike Masnick

JD Vance Follows Curtis Yarvin

Vice President JD Vance has long been a follower of Curtis Yarvin, the San Francisco software programmer whose anti-democracy, pro-dictatorship blog posts have become sacred scripture in Silicon Valley. On Friday, Vance made it official by following Yarvin on Twitter (X).

Vance's decision to follow Yarvin, whom Vance himself has called a “reactionary fascist,” amounts to an amplification and an endorsement. That's because Vance, with 4.2 million followers, only follows 1,140 accounts on Twitter. This puts Yarvin's among the select few followed by one of the most powerful men in the world.

Vance's public association with Yarvin normalizes his extreme anti-democratic ideology. It signals to others in elite or political circles that such views are now acceptable within the new power structure. Unsurprisingly, Yarvin gained 1,000 new followers in the day after Vance followed him.

For years, Vance has pointed to Yarvin as a source of inspiration. When asked how to fix government during a podcast interview in 2021, Vance name-checked Yarvin as someone with good ideas. “There's this guy, Curtis Yarvin...” he said.

When asked what advice he would give Trump, Vance previewed the Yarvin-inspired strategy we now see being imposed on the United States government: “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

He also declared that Trump should defy any court orders designed to halt this hostile takeover of government. Sound familiar?

As far as I can tell, not one political reporter took note of Vance's fascist Twitter provocation. Par for the course.

Lately, Yarvin has kept busy complaining that Trump’s attack on American democracy will flop because it simply is not authoritarian enough to succeed. VP Vance has now made it clear he is listening.

Below is a short 30-second video on Yarvin and Vance that we did last year. And if you need a refresher on the Vance-Yarvin relationship, you can read my New Republic profile from July: “Where JD Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas.”

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