What will now be the relationship between an almost eighty-year-old president who looks mostly towards the past with anger and this “captain of the future”? In a word, the two already have an agreement: Musk, who as an entrepreneur has shown that he knows how not only to innovate, but also to industrialize his technologies with efficiency and low cost, should apply the same recipe to the administration public
By Corriere della Sera
Some time ago, a thousand kilometers from Earth, a laser system for transmitting orders between satellites at the speed of light was tested for the first time: a safer and faster way to detect and intercept missiles launched by a enemy. An evolution of US defense from SpaceX. Not only the revolution of the car that separates from oil with Tesla, the batteries of the new generation for the electric grids, the 7000 Starlink satellites that already provide connections anywhere in the world and the space reclaimed by the United States thanks to its rockets and spaceships.
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who with his money, the immense use of his social platform X (formerly Twitter, on which he accompanied Trump’s victory march on election night) and his popularity (203 million followers) , has become the great novelty of Trump’s third presidential campaign, his superpower, and also increasingly a key figure in the American system. All new generation missiles are his, more advanced and much cheaper than those produced by Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. And its military satellites and spy satellites are built and put into orbit in complete secrecy at the expense of the Pentagon (occupying the field of other historical names of the military-industrial complex: Raytheon, Grumman, Northrop). Not to mention the geostrategic role of Starlink satellites, which are essential in the conflict in Ukraine and are seen as a potential invisible weapon in other hot spots, from the skies of Taiwan to those of Gaza.
For this reason, Elon has received a security clearance from the military, which gives him access to the most secret information, but also imposes strict confidentiality restrictions.
RESPECTED?
He, the world champion of freedom of speech, always with the desire to surprise and with several personality disorders that he himself has accepted and copes with (or worsens) through chemistry, has already said that he understood why the secrets that are discovered they must remain so: for they are boring things. Generals and secret service chiefs tremble: Could he have given classified information in his conversations with Putin? And did he inform the competent authorities about those conversations (which he had denied, but which have recently been confirmed by the Kremlin)?
All this is of little concern to Trump, who has also been accused of taking a loose approach in dealings with Putin. So far, the Republican leader has used Musk’s money and popularity for his election. Narcissistic, focused only on himself, for the first time Trump has welcomed a famous figure on his stage. And at every rally he describes with admiration the scene of rockets launched by Musk quietly returning to Earth.
DOGE?What will now be the relationship between an almost eighty-year-old president who looks mostly towards the past with anger and this “captain of the future”? In a word, the two already have an agreement: Musk, who as an entrepreneur has shown that he knows how not only to innovate, but also to industrialize his technologies with efficiency and low cost, should apply the same recipe to the administration public.
Musk has already created an acronym for his future role: DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency. With it, he promises to save the state two thousand billion dollars every year.
Impossible for analysts: the federal budget of 6.5 trillion is mainly intended for health care for the elderly (Medicare) and for the poorest and for pensions, while 850 million goes to defense. It wouldn’t even be enough to lay off almost all public employees (and Musk, who this year has laid off 14,000 Tesla employees and, after buying Twitter, has laid off more than three-quarters of his staff, probably does think about exactly that).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Here the questions are endless: from legal ones (a minister and entrepreneur at the same time? Or a private adviser with full power in a public area and an inevitable conflict of interest, given that the state is a client and regulator of companies of His? Layoffs banned from public service laws: Trump is very interested in spending cuts to offset the big tax cuts he intends to deliver. Will he accept unpopularity (with a possible consequence riots) of mass layoffs?
But above all, a figure who now feels all-powerful, whom historian Niall Ferguson has compared to Napoleon and who has behind him a section of Silicon Valley – from Peter Thiel to venture capitalist Marc Andreesen – who aims to transfer to Washington his philosophy of “disruption”, will he be satisfied with a reforming role, however radical, of the public service?
The progress of artificial intelligence is convincing some digital tycoons that the mechanisms of liberal democracy are already obsolete: an efficient techno-authoritarianism, supported by machine intelligence, is better. In an interview with Politico, Fiona Hill, a diplomatic adviser who worked on the White House national security teams under Bush, Obama and Trump and who has known both Putin and Musk, sees a less technological plan, but with an authoritarian background. A thesis that would also explain the strange relationship of Elon and Trump himself with the leader of a country, Russia, sworn enemy of the USA: the fascination of the oligarchic model of the Kremlin. Everything is resolved – wars, economic issues, territorial disputes – in agreements between a limited number of international actors, possessors of political, economic and military power. Without the annoying interference of peoples and parliaments.
