Musk's Terraforming Masterplan Has Failed
Mars? No. Earth.
Why did Elon Musk transform from progressive to the wildly dangerous supreme vanguard of the alt-right? It’s a question that has been bugging me for years. Sure, as a billionaire, he should love Republican tax plans, but his entire empire has been built from a left-wing customer base and a series of government grants from the Democrats. So, as we have seen, this rapid shift to neo-fascism isn’t so much the equivalent of Musk shooting himself in the foot — it’s more like him taking a nuke to the face. But why? What motivated him to commit such a blatant act of self-destruction? Unfortunately, this isn’t a dodgy ’90s superhero film, so the supervillain isn’t going to explain his master plan in a grand soliloquy, and no caped crusader is going to ‘deus ex machina’ Musk out of existence. It’s up to us to figure out his overarching motivation from the clues this powerful moron has left behind and use what is left of our collective power to take him down. So, again, why has he done this? Well, after writing about this for years, I have come to only one conclusion: Musk knows he can’t have Mars, so he is desperately trying to terraform Earth instead, and this surrogate scheme is going down faster than a TNT-filled lead Starship.
Let’s get something straight: Musk is not a good businessman. He has a rich track record of horrific manipulation and malpractice. All his companies have faced collapse at some point because of his recklessness and stupidity. What he is really good at, though, is accumulating power. Every one of his ventures, from digital banks to rockets and EVs, has overtly been about manipulating governments and markets to turn these corporations into veritable monopolies. This is Elon’s true motivation — power and influence through technocracy.
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Nothing symbolises that mentality better than his plans to colonise Mars. Such a colony makes zero sense, so why do it? Musk has been a techno-libertarian since day one. Even in the ’90s, he was more politically aligned with libertarian seasteaders (read more here) than futurists. He is one of the PayPal mafia, after all. That is precisely why he wanted to start a Martian colony, not as a business venture or for the limp excuse of “saving humanity”. It would be his very own autocratic techno-libertarian wet dream that would make seasteading look pathetic. His privately funded colony would have no regulations, government, or the law of the land in his way, and thanks to the 140 million miles between Mars and Earth, he would become the de facto leader, and no inhabitant could ever think about deserting the project.
He could dominate in peace and be the emperor. Musk profoundly fetishises this level of power, even if it only involves overseeing a barren wasteland inhospitable to life. It’s obviously the result of his deep sense of fragile masculinity, but that is a topic for another day.
Mars was Elon’s ultimate goal. But, in 2023, after the first Starship test, I think it became apparent the red planet is far out of his reach — hell, even the moon is far out of reach. The only way Musk can expand SpaceX past Earth orbit is with Starship. But this first launch demonstrated something catastrophic. Musk had wildly overestimated the performance of his rocket engines; they can’t produce enough thrust, and even Musk himself stated that they could only theoretically take less than 50% of the promised payload to orbit. That alone would make trips to the Moon or Mars even pricier than in the Saturn V days, rendering his colony impossible. But even now, after eight test flights, Starship has yet to even take 10% of its promised payload into orbit, so it looks like Musk was heavily massaging these initial figures anyway (read more here). I strongly suspect that after the first launch, Musk knew Starship simply couldn’t make the distance.
His master plan for power was ruined. So, instead of terraforming Mars, he turned his sights on Earth. With his newfound immense wealth, which skyrocketed the year before, it would be easier to transform the West into his libertarian nightmare than to fix Starship.
How? Well, he can buy a puppet president with Trump and even buy local elections, inserting his own loyal goons into power, turning the US into an open plutocracy. He can endorse and support legal actions that concentrate power in the hands of the president now loyal to him, making this plutocracy very authoritarian. Then, using DOGE and the guise of “efficiency”, he can deregulate every industry and destroy vast swathes of the government, turning the US into an effective libertarian state. DOGE can also embed his companies and replace government systems with code he oversaw through cronyism, corruption, threats, and brute force, turning this decimated government into a technocracy, with him in control. But Musk wouldn’t just stop there. He wants to dominate a planet, so he would also start doing the same thing across Europe and any Western-aligned country with a far-right movement.
Looking at these actions through a business lens makes no sense at all. But, if we look at them in the context that Musk is a power-crazed lunatic desperate to become a twisted emperor, everything adds up.
So, when did Elon start implementing this new master plan? Well, he suddenly started pouring money, time, and effort into far-right parties worldwide in mid-2023, just a few months after that first failed Starship test. I can’t help but conclude that upon Starship 1 exploding just four minutes into its flight back in April 2023, Musk realised he couldn’t have Mars and immediately decided to terraform Earth into his sick fantasy instead.
But, just like all dodgy supervillains, his plan was doomed from the beginning, and now his backup terraforming plan has failed spectacularly.
You see, a techno-plutocracy can only exist if those in power can separate their wealth from the democratic control of the free market. And Musk has failed to do that. Thanks to Tesla boycotts, its share price is nose-diving. And, because Elon built his empire off loans collateralised against Tesla shares, this tumbling value could destroy Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter/X if these loans get recalled (read more here). If he doesn’t have the wealth and influence of his companies, Musk can’t hold any power in the new political system he thrust upon the world.
Musk has also failed to overcome the forces of democracy. Despite desperately trying to buy a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin by pumping unprecedented levels of money into his loyal Republican candidate, the Democrats won. In fact, there are even reports that many Republican voters were deeply put off by Musk’s attempts to buy the election, meaning Musk might actually be the reason the Democrats won. Using his wealth to override democratic rule was the lynchpin of his master plan, and while it worked in the presidential race, failing on this smaller scale means he can’t erode democracy enough to solidify the US as truly authoritarian. It leaves him open and vulnerable and renders his plan useless.
Moreover, the orangutan of a president he supported is only loyal to people as long as they are “winners”, and Wisconsin painted Elon as a failure. In fact, insiders have stated that Trump now sees Elon as a liability. As such, the very man Musk supported as his puppet president is rebelling against him and openly ignoring his influence, such as his recent calls to lift tariffs from Europe, thanks to his demonstrable incompetence.
Every part of Elon’s Earth terraforming machine has failed. He can’t have Mars or Terra Firma, and now this nuke is slowly exploding in his face, gradually decimating the companies that made him so powerful. What will be his next desperate grab for power? For all of our sakes, let’s hope he takes enough ketamine to find his own make-believe planet to rule over while being safely held in a padded cell. Because, at the end of the day, Musk isn’t a supervillain; he is just a lunatic.
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Sources: EuroNews, The London Economic, TV, MF, Economic Times, Novara News, Bank Rate, Space.com, WP, NBC
Great post. I am reminded by some early Internet noodling by the end of the world folks who used to opine on "society falls apart, but I have my electronic library, and I will lead a small group of hardy like-minded geeks and rebuild a tech based society" sort of crap.
Alas, they all assume that preserving knowledge (not on paper or some other long life media, but originally on CD-ROM's, then on other media).
They would do this long circle jerk about establishing semiconductor manufacturing, and other things they felt were essential to save society.
They never realized that to be able to do any of these higher order functional things that they felt would be their domain (as geeks) would require a massive civilizational foundation, not just some know how.
No, I was slammed when I told them that they and their 500 or 1000 hand picked techno-anarchists would be lucky to scarf down grubs and to fend off packs of wild dogs.
Musk clearly doesn't understand how much of what he has accomplished (and that is far less than he thinks he has accomplished by his own toil) would be impossible without society, billions of people, and stable governments and yes, laws, laws that he feels he can ignore.
The arrogance of the billionaire class is boundless
Scientifically, if Musk isn't an idiot, he doing a great job of playing one. You can still be in grade school and know that, because it has no magnetosphere like Earth, Mars is under constant bombardment by solar and cosmic radiation many times more intense than any astronaut has ever experienced. And. if that and the minus 100-degree nighttime temperatures, months-long dust storms, low gravity leading to loss of muscle, bone, and immune system function, and unbreathable atmosphere aren't hostile enough, the soil is toxic to humans and plants. And if even you could create protected and sustainable environments there, how would you transport the technology and machinery to do so? Think of the time, money, and planning it took to get just one small vehicle there.