What’s Musk Really Up To? March 26, 2025March 26, 2025 No question that Musk is a visionary genius (also “a pathetic man-child,” in the words of his daughter) — we have a lot to be thankful to him for. But I wouldn’t buy his stock, now selling for 141 times its trailing 12-month earnings (Ford sells at 7 times and pays a 7% dividend) because Tesla’s sales are falling sharply around the world, including China (Tesla’s No.1 rival is practically taunting Elon Musk now) . . . . . . and, like Marc Elias, whose powerful Open Letter to Musk I commend to you, I wouldn’t buy his cars, because he and Trump are wrecking American democracy and the post-War order. Our allies are appalled; the world’s murderous tyrants are delighted. Our economy, “the envy of the world” when they inherited it, now teeters on the brink of stagflation. To the man with the chainsaw, nothing is off the table when it comes to addressing the deficit — except the income side of the equation. Cut wages, cut health care, cut scientific research, cut our “soft power” around the world as you let babies starve to death (they’re African babies, so who cares?) . . . just don’t raise more revenue from billionaires, millionaires, and large corporations by allowing their 2017 tax cuts to expire. Could it be that simple? That he genuinely believes there’s tremendous “waste fraud and abuse” to be cut even though he’s yet to identify much of it at all? And that all he really cares about is keeping his taxes low? Maybe not. Here’s one view recently posted on Facebook: If you’re a little confused about what Musk is trying to achieve with DOGE, here’s the breakdown: Elon Musk and Peter Thiel cofounded a company that became PayPal. Other executives at PayPal went on to found or lead other huge tech companies including YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Affirm, and many VC firms. This group became known as the PayPal mafia because they exerted an outsized influence on Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel mentored a young JD Vance and helped him get set up in his first VC firm. Peter Thiel and the PayPal mafia funded JD Vance’s successful Senate run. Amazing because he had absolutely zero political experience. Thiel and Musk all but forced Trump to choose JD Vance as VP in exchange for funding his presidential campaign. The three of them, plus a lot of other tech billionaires subscribe to an ideology called the Dark Enlightenment espoused by this super weird, creepy dude: Curtis Yarvin aka Mencius Moldbug. Yarvin preaches that the media and academia represent “The Cathedral” that secretly controls power and must be dismantled. He advocates for a corporate run monarchy led by a CEO-Dictator. Says that Democracy is an “outdated software” and openly opposes it and that: – Government agencies should be dismantled and The U.S. should be broken up into “patchworks” controlled by tech oligarchs. – That the elite tech billionaires should rule because they have the intelligence to “fix” society – That the “masses are asses” too dumb to govern themselves. The strategy is to gut the government via R.A.G.E – Retire All Govt Employees to make government incapable of operating. Then to replace government with private corporations. → This may be completely crazy. Or visionary — like going to Mars, annexing Canada and Greenland, or boring tunnels from LA to NY. I don’t know. But I’d like Congress and the courts to have a real say in how our future is shaped, not just Trump and Musk. Instead, they are doing what tyrants always do when snuffing out democracy. As Robert Reich makes clear, they are going after the four pillars of society: universities, science, the media, and the law. And it falls to us lovers of liberty, he argues — whether on the right (Liz Cheney) or the left (AOC) — to find the courage to stop them. Join Indivisible! Attend one of 600 events April 5 or organize your own! Spread DIS-disinformation! PRKR The Supreme Court ruled against inventors yesterday by declining to hear their case. Not surprising given how few cases they do accept and how full their plate is these days — but still. Fortunately, as I understand it, while it would have been nice if the Court had agreed to hear Parker’s argument — and good for patent holders everywhere if they had agreed with it — their failure to do so has no bearing on PRKR’s 13 outstanding lawsuits. The stock briefly fell off a cliff yesterday but then largely recovered. It remains (in my view) the compelling speculation it’s always been. But ONLY with money you can truly afford to lose.