Who Elected Elon Musk President of the World?

If there were ever a great example of why the world needs to rein in individual and corporate wealth, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is it.  

Musk is certainly a very bright man with an excellent record of success in multiple industries.  His championing of electric vehicles has accelerated that technology dramatically and he deserves to be congratulated for that.  His forays in space exploration are also remarkable, though not as clearly beneficial for humanity.  In general, one can say that he has achieved much in his career and should be encouraged to continue to explore new technologies and ideas within his sphere of knowledge and expertise.

 

But he is also a very erratic and eccentric personality with a tendency toward megalomania and a huge ego. No one in their right mind would choose him as a leader or arbiter of civic values and ideas.  Moreover, he is not an elected official and has no mandate from the people.

 

Computers, cell phones and the Internet have centralized power, wealth and influence in a very troubling way.  The human social and herd instinct, as well as some very pernicious proprietary technology has compelled us to purchase or subscribe to astonishingly few products or social media.

 

We subscribe to Microsoft or Apple not because they are uniquely brilliant or creative, but simply because they long ago became the standard and it is too onerous or perhaps even foolhardy to experiment with or move to other platforms.

 

We use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Amazon or PayPal because everyone else does, not because of their ingenious design or technology.  The software technology behind these platforms is quite simple and it is only the random combination of luck, timing and momentum that propelled these specific businesses to such dizzying heights and allowed them to dominate.  

 

But the centralized nature of these products and services has rewarded their owners with unimaginable wealth and the all-too-common delusion that they are superhuman, imbued with superior knowledge and wisdom.

 

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is an expression of this type of hubris and megalomania, disguised as a mission to save free speech.  We need only reflect on the almost comical eccentricities of Henry Ford and Howard Hughes, among a long list of tycoons who believed they were uniquely qualified to dictate how the world should run, to realize that this too will not end well.

 

The world is not well-served by dictators or even well-intentioned plutocrats.  The progress of humankind is frustratingly slow, but it is best accomplished through communal deliberation and consensus leadership, not an ‘I know best’ mentality.  

 

We are in ever-increasing danger of having super-wealthy individuals and companies direct our future.  The only way to curb this phenomenon is to heavily tax massive incomes and wealth, and to break up monopolies or somehow encourage alternatives to centralized platforms.  The future will be dark indeed if the Elon Musks of the world are in total control.