Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Everyone’s got an Elon take. He’s a messiah. He’s a menace. He’s a genius. He’s a clown. The verdicts differ, but they share one theme: they treat him as an individual.

Muskism argues otherwise. Elon Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self—reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.

If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty—first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His rockets run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us.

Muskism sells itself as the future, but entrenches age—old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s libertarian but state—fed, pro—natalist but anti—immigrant, futurist but reactionary.

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff cut through the hype and the hate to reveal what Musk really represents: a new political economy, where to be “free” means to serve a Technoking. Muskism isn’t about the man. It’s about the machine that made him—and the world he’s making next.