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It is astonishing that the Senate approved his nomination as
Secretary of Labor.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/30/elon-musk-wealth-power
Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in
Robert Reich
Robert Reich
He may be the richest man in the world – but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him
Fri 30 Aug 2024 06.00 EDT
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Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable
political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around
the world.
Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald
Trump last month. Before that, Musk helped form a pro-Trump super
political action committee. Meanwhile, the former US president has
revived his presence on the X platform.
Musk just hired a Republican operative with expertise in field
organizing to help with get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of Trump.
Trump and Musk have both floated the idea of governing together if
Trump wins a second term. “I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission,” Musk said in a conversation with
Trump earlier this month streamed on X. “And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”
Musk reposted a faked version of Kamala Harris’s first campaign
video with an altered voice track sounding like Harris and saying she
doesn’t “know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire”. Musk tagged the video “amazing”. It’s got hundreds of millions of views, so far.
The Michigan secretary of state has accused the Musk-supported
America Pac of tricking people into sharing personal data. Although the
Pac’s website promises to help users register to vote, it allegedly asks users in battleground states to give their names and phone numbers
without directing them to a voter registration site – and then uses that information to send them anti-Harris and pro-Trump ads.
According to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital
Hate, Musk himself has posted 50 false election claims on X so far this
year. They’ve got a total of 1.2bn views. None of them had a “community note” from X’s supposed fact-checking system.
Evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents are using
X to disrupt this year’s presidential race, presumably in favor of
Trump. Musk has done little to stop them.
Meanwhile, Musk is supporting rightwing causes around the world.
In the UK, far-right thugs burned, looted and terrorized minority communities as Musk’s X spread misinformation about a deadly attack on schoolgirls. Musk not only allowed instigators of this hate to spread
these lies, but he retweeted and supported them.
Inciting rioters in Britain was a test run for Elon Musk. Just see
what he plans for America
At least eight times in the past 10 months, Musk has prophesied a
future civil war related to immigration. When anti-immigration street
riots occurred across Britain, he wrote: “civil war is inevitable.”
The European Union commissioner Thierry Breton sent Musk an open
letter reminding him of EU laws against amplifying harmful content “that promotes hatred, disorder, incitement to violence, or certain instances
of disinformation” and warning that the EU “will be extremely vigilant” about protecting “EU citizens from serious harm”.
Musk’s response was a meme that said: “TAKE A BIG STEP BACK AND LITERALLY, F*CK YOUR OWN FACE!”
Elon Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist” but has accepted over 80% of censorship requests from authoritarian governments. Two days
before the Turkish elections, he blocked accounts critical of the
president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
And his friendly relations with authoritarians often seem to
coincide with beneficial treatment of his businesses; shortly after Musk suggested handing Taiwan over to the Chinese government, Tesla got a tax
break from the Chinese government.
He may be the richest man in the world. He may own one of the
world’s most influential social media platforms. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him.
Here are six ways to rein in Musk:
1. Boycott Tesla.
Consumers shouldn’t be making him even richer and able to do even
more harm. A Tesla boycott may have already begun. A recent poll said
one-third of Britons are less likely to buy a Tesla because of Musk’s
recent behavior.
a two-frame portait montage of Donald Trump (left) and Elon Musk (right) ‘His rhetoric has made Tesla toxic’: is Elon Musk driving away his
target market?
Read more
2. Advertisers should boycott X.
A coalition of major advertisers has organized such a boycott. Musk
is suing them under antitrust law. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it
is war,” he wrote on X, referring to advertisers who criticize him and X.
3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if
he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.
Global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the
24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found
complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist.
4. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission should demand
that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals – and
if he does not, sue him under Section Five of the FTC Act.
Musk’s free-speech rights under the first amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest. Two months ago, the US supreme
court said federal agencies may pressure social media platforms to take
down misinformation – a technical win for the public good (technical
because the court based its ruling on the plaintiff’s lack of standing
to sue).
5. The US government – and we taxpayers – have additional power over Musk, if we’re willing to use it. The US should terminate its contracts
with him, starting with Musk’s SpaceX.
In 2021, the United States entered into a $1.8bn classified contract
with SpaceX that includes blasting off classified and military
satellites, according to the Wall Street Journal. The funds are now an important part of SpaceX’s revenue.
The Pentagon has also contracted with SpaceX’s Starlink broadband
service to pay for internet links, despite Musk’s refusal in September
2022 to allow Ukraine to use Starlink to launch an attack on Russian
forces in Crimea.
Last August, the Pentagon gave SpaceX’s Starshield unit $70m to
provide communications services to dozens of Pentagon partners.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is cornering the rocket launch market. Its rockets
were responsible for two-thirds of flights from US launch sites in 2022
and handled 88% in the first six months of this year.
Elon Musk is a lesson in the dangers of unchecked corporate leaders
Siva Vaidhyanathan
In deciding upon which private-sector entities to contract with, the
US government is supposed to consider the contractor’s reliability.
Musk’s mercurial, impulsive temperament makes him and the companies he
heads unreliable. The government is also supposed to consider whether it
is contributing to a monopoly. Musk’s SpaceX is fast becoming one.
Why is the US government allowing Musk’s satellites and rocket
launchers to become crucial to the nation’s security when he’s shown
utter disregard for the public interest? Why give Musk more economic
power when he repeatedly abuses it and demonstrates contempt for the
public good?
There is no good reason. American taxpayers must stop subsidizing
Elon Musk.
6. Make sure Musk’s favorite candidate for president is not elected.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of
public policy at the University of California Berkeley and the author of
Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His
newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is
a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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