It is very strange, the ever-expanding realm of Elon Musk. He is a man whose power crosses vast industries, who now sets the total political agenda for nations around the world, and whose followers are so devoted, they would put his face on a coin themselves. Normally you have to kill people to get that powerful.
Normally, for that kind of power, you have to march with thousands of men across deserts. You have to control the food supply. You have to keep a secret police around to lock up dissidents and instill fear. Or claim Divine Right and convince millions that you alone descend from the sun.
Which is all to say, Musk, 53, came to power in a very new kind of way. His was a bloodless conquest. People in nations across the world rebelled against their weak provincial governments to follow Musk, who has either co-founded or led PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX among other companies. But the rebellion was quiet, at laptops, post by post. It was a mostly peaceful transfer of power, beginning with the acquisition and reopening of Twitter, which he renamed X, which everyone smart said was very dumb to do and that the site was dying until suddenly it wasn’t.
And now: We’re in Elon’s Empire.