Character Limits

So, what made Musk turn to authoritarianism? In their book Character Limit, analysts Kate Conger and Ryan Mac describe several trigger events that occurred over a period of just a few years. Musk was extremely critical of the Black Lives Matter protests. He explained its appeal as a “woke mind virus” that had infected social media, but above all companies that leaned into diversity programs.

Like all libertarians, Musk has always been an advocate of radical meritocracy, in which hard work and individual abilities are considered the only legitimate prerequisites for success. In his view, diversity programs undermine the meritocratic idea. The American sociologist Arlie Hochschild has used the image of the “waiting line” to explain the approval for Trump among many white working-class people.

They want to believe in the American dream of social mobility through their own efforts, even if it does not really come true for them. The worst thing for them is when they think members of minority groups are being placed before them in the queue because of their identity.

Musk adopts this perspective as CEO. As a libertarian, Musk rejects trade unions. Unlike other US carmakers, he has managed to avoid collective agreements at Tesla. But signs of revival in the US trade union movement have put him under massive pressure in recent years. At the same time, the protective measures during the COVID-19 pandemic at his Tesla plants in California deeply encroached on his entrepreneurial “freedoms”; he no longer felt like the master of his own house. Joe Biden’s administration snubbed him by not inviting him to consultations with carmakers. Still, the personal nature of Musk’s crusade against the contagion of “wokeness” is not fully explained by economic interests, as we see when he declares his trans daughter “dead” in an interview.

Within a few years, a libertarian tech CEO who exhibited narcissistic traits but was politically a centrist, turned into a leading exponent of what we have defined as libertarian authoritarianism. Libertarian authoritarians want to abolish the democratic state, which they see as a machine that restricts individual freedoms. Neoliberals use the state to strengthen the market, whereas libertarian authoritarians consider the democratic state itself, the authorities and their regulations, to be invasive and harmful.

It’s the same way they characterize migrants and queer people. This perspective is rooted in an hyperindividualistic conception of freedom that denies the interconnectedness of social existence, treating freedom as a private entitlement rather than a shared societal condition. Ironically, while libertarian authoritarianism protests against the structures of late modern society, it ultimately reinforces its foundational principles of self-determination and sovereignty.

Musk presents himself as an “absolutist of free speech” and has transformed Twitter in record time into a global amplifier of right-wing speech that drowns out all others. He paved its way, famously, by firing thousands of Twitter employees who were responsible for “content moderation,” i.e., filtering out hate speech and fake news. At the same time, he reactivated numerous accounts that had previously been blocked for hate speech. His “free speech absolutism” is, however, clearly relative. He has regularly had accounts that published criticism of him blocked, and cooperated with Chinese censorship authorities.

From an initial casual tweeter, on X Musk has become a message machine. According to an analysis by Bloomberg, Musk became the most influential amplifier of anti-migrant conspiracy theories on X during the US election campaign. Within two months, he posted 330 messages on the topic, in which he claimed, among other things, that the Democrats were smuggling illegal immigrants into the country to prevent Trump from being elected. His language became increasingly vulgar during the election campaign. He referred to the border crossings on the southern border of the United States as a “zombie apocalypse” in a livestream with Trump on X. And the more heated the election campaign became, the more he intervened in the algorithm.

Paranoid Style

In his 1949 book False Prophets, sociologist Leo Löwenthal described a type of agitator clearly visible in Musk. It is exactly through the unserious, ambiguous, and playful style that the agitator manipulates vague fears and releases latent aggressions. Musk later presents himself as a dark fighter at Trump’s side and provocatively displays the clownish traits of this role. For Löwenthal, the agitator is dangerous because “the paranoiac brooding and the projection of conspiracies end with suggestions for acts of violence”; and given the scale of the conspiratorial threats society faces, “existing laws and institutions cannot cope with them and . . . extraordinary measures are needed.”

Musk surely projects a paranoid reality: one in which migrants threaten a white majority through immigration, woke communists endanger the economy, and democratic parties plan large-scale election manipulation. In his countless posts, he paints the picture of a liberal dictatorship that every individual must resist. Musk is not only targeting the digital sphere, but also the analogue one. After all, elections are still decided at the polling station.

If you were wondering why you keep seeing Musk’s posts on X even though you don’t follow him or at least interact with him, it’s because he’s standing next to your ear with his megaphone so you have to listen to him. Musk was already a global player as a carmaker, but the acquisition of Twitter gave him leverage to disrupt other political systems as well.

He is the first truly global oligarch. His recent description of German chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, and leading Green Party minister Robert Habeck as fools was relatively harmless. Through his follower count, Musk can try to turn the rules of democratic legitimation on their head: elected representatives are subject to his judgement, or should justify themselves to him for their actions.

During the racist British riots in July and August 2024, Musk played the despicable role of an authoritarian agitator on many levels. After a knife attack on girls in a dance class, speculation about the Muslim identity of the perpetrator, posts about Muslim violence, and conspiracy theories that the authorities wanted to hide the background of the crime spread on X like wildfire. Pogrom-like riots followed, shaking several cities.

A key instigator of the explosion of fake news, conspiracy theories, and racism on social media was Tommy Robinson, the most well-known British right-wing extremist, who ran the digital hub of networked violence from his hotel room in Cyprus. His account had been reactivated by Musk, who interacted with Robinson in an approving manner, thereby giving him immense reach.

What’s more, Musk commented on posts by far-right influencers, even claiming that a civil war in the United Kingdom was inevitable. When British prime minister Keir Starmer criticized him for this, the X boss compared him to Joseph Stalin’s censors. He regularly calls for the resignation of officials of other states, like Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes, whom he called a malicious dictator because he wanted to force X in Brazil to take more responsibility for the content on the platform. Musk’s supporters demonstrated against him.

On the other hand, he has a lot in common with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, whom he supports wherever he can. The same goes for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), whose election campaign he recently promoted in the German weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag. On New Year’s Eve, Musk called German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier an “anti-democratic tyrant” in an X post, in response to a post by a right-wing German influencer who wildly accused Steinmeier of planning to cancel the result of February’s federal election.

Radicalized

This past Saturday, Musk appeared at the AfD’s election campaign launch in a video that imitates Leni Riefenstahl’s overwhelming aesthetics. But what Musk said was just as important. If there was one democratic consensus in Germany after Nazism and the Holocaust, it was that there is no reason to be proud about being German rather than some other nationality. Yet, Musk called on the euphoric AfD members to finally take pride in being German again and to leave the past — that is, the guilt of Nazism — behind.

Quite openly, Musk was here normalizing what would previously have been considered an extremist talking point. Yet, we might also say that here Musk was encouraging AfD supporters to openly embrace their own existing right-wing extremism rather than play it down. As pointed out by Polish president Donald Tusk, Musk’s fascist agitation took place just hours before Holocaust Memorial Day, marking the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. However, Musk’s provocative behavior should come as no surprise, after his saluting at the Trump inauguration the previous week.

Musk became an authoritarian by radicalizing his economic libertarianism. His transformation from a politically liberal to an authoritarian agitator is primarily due to the suspicion of a blocking of the meritocratic principle. He feels that as a singular entrepreneur he has fallen into the trap of egalitarianism. In his essay “Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda,” Theodor W. Adorno noted, following his colleague Löwenthal: “As a rebellion against civilization, fascism is not simply the reoccurrence of the archaic but its reproduction in and by civilization itself.”

Musk’s disruptive rebellion against liberal democracy, however, is not a barbaric brutalization. It stems from the radicalized Californian ideology in which technology is supposed to improve the world and liberate the individual. To improve the world, Musk wants to destroy socially regulated democracy. The liberated individual is to be defended against the interventionist power of modern statehood.

It is uncertain how the relationship between global agitator Musk and Trump, as the most powerful officeholder in the world, will develop. Musk intervened in vain to prevent the compromise between Republicans and Democrats to ensure the solvency of the state. At the same time, he antagonized the far-right part of the MAGA movement by advocating the import of highly qualified engineers. Here, lines of conflict are emerging between the nativist authoritarians, who under Trump’s leadership want to restore the American nation in the sense of white supremacy, and the libertarian authoritarians like Musk. The time when Musk did not have to be choosy about the authoritarian messages he served as a mouthpiece for may be limited.