Elon Musk: A Dangerous ‘Evolution’
Has the world’s richest man simply lost his marbles or been ‘radicalised’ by his own platform? David Troy traces his beliefs and behaviour to paint an altogether more concerning picture of the X owner’s political and cultural journey
This article was first published in the October 2024 monthly news magazine of Byline Times. To stay ahead of the curve, subscribe now to the print edition and get 50+ pages of exclusive content delivered straight to your door or inbox.
In November 2022, just after Elon Musk purchased the social media platform then known as Twitter, I argued in these pages that the world’s richest man was shifting away from being a profit-motivated and, sometimes visionary, entrepreneur into a geopolitical propagandist allied in common cause with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, China under Xi Jinping, and other authoritarian nations, against the West and the dollar.
Since then, Musk has become more extreme in his stances – most recently attempting political interventions in the domestic affairs of the UK and Brazil in the name of ‘free speech’. This included his claim, in response to the UK’s race riots this summer, that civil war was “inevitable” and attempts to institute direct exchanges on X (formerly Twitter) with the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
