Zoe Schiffer
Appearances
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
Thank you for having me.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
You know, I always reflect on this quote from Sam Altman, who's the head of OpenAI and previously a friend of Elon Musk, now possibly an enemy. And he has said, Elon Musk desperately wants to save the world, but only if he can be the one to save it. And I think that that is really true.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
Elon Musk is very worried with global humanity extinction level problems, and he casts himself in a leading role in trying to solve them. At the same time, he has some practical concerns with what was going on in the United States. And he said very openly that if Vice President Kamala Harris had been elected president, that she was going to crush Tesla.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
And he felt like his businesses were at stake, the future of the companies, the empire that he had built.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
Yeah, the moderate Democrat piece started to really shift. I mean, it happened over the course of many years, but there were a couple of key moments. The COVID-19 pandemic was one of them. He was very against the lockdowns. He thought that basically the Democrats' reaction to the pandemic was quite overblown and was detrimental to businesses.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
He felt like the Biden administration had shortchanged him in giving him the credit that he felt he deserved for electric vehicles. And, you know, he's been going through a process that I think we can say a process of radicalization on the Internet becoming more widespread. right wing, more anti kind of woke. And this was a core reason that he got involved with Twitter.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
He said that the company was overrun with something that he deemed the woke mind virus. And I think it's fair to say that when he looked at the country prior to Trump getting reelected, he felt like the country was kind of teetering on the brink of getting overrun with the woke mind virus once again, and he needed to step in and save it.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
I mean, even before he took on this role, he arguably had more power than anyone who wasn't in control of a nuclear arsenal. This is a man who has massive wealth, and he also has a lot of political power. He has contracts with governments all over the globe through Starlink, and these countries, including the United States, are quite dependent on his work.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
So now he's in an interesting position where before the election, while he had so much power, there were also a number of investigations that were ongoing. The U.S. government was actively looking into decisions that he had made while running his companies. And, you know, there was the possibility of fines or regulations.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
Now he is in the position of, in some ways, regulating the regulators and his power looks pretty unchecked.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
I think that to the extent that Elon Musk can continue to amass wealth and power, he will continue to do so. He now is in the position of being able to influence what companies get government contracts. He really has the ability to overrun how government has historically worked in this country and change it. And while some of what's happening looks...
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
unusual and I think that there are legal questions like they will take a while to resolve and in the meantime Elon and his team are really running rampant you said there's a few areas that are worth actively looking at can you give me an example of places where you see potential questions
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
Well, I mean, you know, there were a lot of investigations into Tesla and its self-driving technology prior to Trump getting reelected. I'm curious to see where those lead. Like, I think that there are big questions about how, you know, his companies will change and benefit from his new position that we all need to be aware of.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
I will be curious to see. Right now, it looks like we are watching Elon's team kind of infiltrate one agency after another. I think that we have yet to see what will come of all of this. At the same time, I want to make sure that we are all paying attention to what the larger goal is. Because just like when Elon took over Twitter and he had kind of...
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
all of the goals that he talked about publicly he wanted to rid the platform of bots and spam he wanted to eliminate child sexual exploitation material these were all things that most people could agree on at the same time a couple years or a few years after the acquisition took place we're in a position of saying well those goals do not look like they were achieved and in many cases.
Consider This from NPR
What does Elon Musk get out of remaking the government?
And the overall goal, the kind of unsaid, unspoken initiative to turn Twitter into X, into a political operation that would elevate right-wing politicians in the United States and around the globe, that goal has been very successful. And so I think we need to ask the question of what is Elon Musk's larger goal with the federal government of the United States?