Introduction
The article chosen for summarizing and paraphrasing is “Elon Musk is drifting toward the hardcore authoritarian right”. The article expresses concern about the political views of the world’s richest man and tech giant, Elon Musk. After decades of innovation in Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk has become a public figure that attracts a lot of attention in the media. It is hard to identify his political views and agenda through his odious interviews and public statements. However, as stated in the article: “Earlier in June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that he voted for a QAnon-affiliated Republican for a U.S. House seat in Texas and that he’s leaning toward supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024.” (Zeeshan). Such tendency can be explained either as one of the fluctuations in Musk’s views or as a more constant and stable nature.
The Elon Musk Article Analysis
Over time, Elon Musk becomes more and more influential, evident through the expansion of his businesses and business interests, such as the bid on Twitter. Because Musk owns one of the most popular and widely used social media platforms associated with liberal movements and freedom of speech, the leaning towards hardcore authoritarian right views can be dangerous (Zeeshan). The purchase of Twitter has spawned numerous debates on the future of the platform and whether Musk, who has been a prominent user of it, will take advantage of his position.
However, Elon Musk is known to express incohesive or even conflicted political views. For example, for a long time, he was a supporter of the Democrats. Is the claimed in one of his interviews: “In the past, I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk tweeted in May. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.” (Zeeshan). The switch in the party preferences suggests the tendency to move further away from the left-wing agenda. Such behavior may represent the approach that many influential people have. By sympathizing with both parties, people in business try to attract investments in their business projects or support the party’s policies and agendas that are favorable businesswise.
There has been a lot of debate on the ideological views of Elon Musk. The controversy began with Musk’s claims of being socialist while promoting a capitalistic worldview by rejecting the ideas of redistribution of wealth, which is one of the essential demands of socialism. Furthermore, Musk expressed several libertarian ideas by citing phrases such as the government being the biggest corporation or the organization with the monopoly on violence (Wolfe). In addition, he has also advocated for centrism and supported the libertarianish universal basic income champion Andrew Yang in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019 (Zeeshan). Hence, the ideological scope of the ideas expressed by Elon Musk seems to be all over the place, which suggests that the current authoritarian rights seem to be just another phase for him.
Conclusion
Finally, it is hard to identify the reasons and explain the political preferences of Elon Musk. While some people view it as a strategy to attract public attention that works wonders for his business, others believe that leaning towards the right represents the gradual tendency from the leftist view to the right. The concerns about the political views of the richest man in the world seem to gain more importance as he gets more influence on life in the United States.
Works Cited
Wolfe Liz. Elon Musk: Government Is ‘the Biggest Corporation, With a Monopoly on Violence, Where You Have No Recourse’. Reason. Web.
Zeeshan Aleem. Elon Musk is drifting toward the hard-core authoritarian right. MSNBC. Web.