Their project is a corruption of the spirit. How is it even legal?
If one image encapsulates the crude corruption of our time, it might be this one: Donald Trump and his benefactor-lackey Elon Musk leering at innocent Teslas parked on the White House driveway. The spectacle of this klepto-oligarchy hawking wares on ground where Lincoln once did tread was so vulgar as to make a used car lot look dignified by comparison.
This, because a billionaire who controls information, transportation, and even space travel spent a mountain of cash to basically purchase a position as unelected co-president. Musk’s role in Trump’s reelection bid — and his subsequent political rewards — exemplifies the deep entanglement of money and power in America in a manner so excruciating that even the most complacent should be contemplating how things went so horribly wrong.
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Though Musk’s DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency, Orwellian even in its naming aesthetic) claims to target inefficiency and waste — which undoubtedly exist — the transparent actual endgame is insidious: dismantling the very gatekeepers and regulators that serve as checks on corporate overreach, while slashing programs aimed at lifting up the poor. Under the guise of streamlining governance, DOGE is designed to hollow out the institutions that prevent the super-rich from turning public infrastructure into private profit. It is a systematic effort to erode protections for workers, gut environmental safeguards, and cripple social safety nets, ensuring that the Musks of the world can operate without interference while the most vulnerable are left to fend for themselves. In short, Darwin without a soul.
(For extra credit: As Trump drives the global economy mad with random tariffs and harebrained schemes, how confident are you that this cabal is not shorting the markets and making a killing while your retirement accounts are tanking? Just asking a question; not implying anything, of course.)
This is worse than mere venality. As a Dominican poet once told me about something entirely different: It is a corruption of the spirit.
That they are largely getting away with this scam breeds the kind of arrogance that can make an oligarchy careless. Nowhere was the result more evident than on the White House driveway, where Trump organized the absurd Tesla exhibit, lending the power of an American crown jewel to the business interests of an eccentric billionaire with with astonishingly low EQ.
Trump also promised to buy one as a signal to his supporters, hours before reports that Musk might donate $100 million to a super PAC associated with the president. Nothing to see here, folks! Certainly no shame.
For now all this is backfiring, for two possible reasons. First, karma is a bitch, if a capricious one who often leaves the worst unpunished; second, because the market for Tesla, heavy on idealists disinclined to deny climate change, overlaps only very modestly with Trump’s frenzied MAGA base.
So even as Musk ascends politically, and almost surely because of it, Tesla’s dominance is cracking. And Musk’s erratic pronouncements on X, where he amplifies conspiracy theories and rails against progressive causes, have further corroded a once-pristine brand.
So sales have plummeted, dropping 71% in Australia, 76% in Germany (coinciding with his endorsement of the AfD), 48% in Norway and Denmark, and 42% in Sweden. In China, where Tesla once held an edge, sales of its China-made EVs fell nearly 50% while local rival BYD recorded a staggering 90% increase. Even in the U.S., where Tesla still holds a strong share of the electric vehicle market, its sales fell by 11% in January while competitors like Ford and Volkswagen gained ground.
Meanwhile, vandalism and protests targeting Tesla have erupted across multiple cities. A Tesla store in Australia, was graffitied. Elsewhere, Tesla showrooms have been hit with Molotov cocktails, suspected arson, and even gunfire. In response, Tesla has resorted to desperate measures, such as offering free lifetime charging for Cybertruck buyers — a costly gamble to retain consumer interest in a vehicle priced near $100,000.
Why would Musk, whose stupendous net worth is very much a function of Tesla’s valuation, take such a risk? Because there are bigger fish to fry. The ideological foundation behind this maneuver can be found in the philosophy of another billionaire with fancy plans: Peter Thiel, who shares a PayPal past with Musk. In his 2009 essay “The Education of a Libertarian,” Thiel wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” He argued that capitalist democracy has become an oxymoron, blaming the expansion of voting rights — particularly to women and welfare recipients — for weakening the ability of an elite class to steer society in the correct direction.
This is the fundamental ethos of oligarchy: that the wealthy, the brilliant, and the technologically advanced must rule because the masses are incapable of self-governance. Once a fringe notion, this idea has crept into mainstream billionaire politics. That (together with garden-variety greed as they grasp for corporate tax cuts — the usual Republican kickback) explains why some of them increasingly back leaders who dismantle democratic institution.
To achieve this, they are trying to convince people that government — without which most kids would not have schools, Teslas would not have roads, and citizens would not have protection — is necessarily bad
Like most bullshit, the Thiel-Musk philosophy contains an element of truth. The world is undeniably growing more complex, and the rapid acceleration of technological, economic, and social change has left many people disoriented. In their confusion and desperation, electorates across the globe have embraced erratic and extreme responses to their uncertainty. And while this phenomenon exists in various forms internationally, the most extreme manifestation of it in the developed world is undoubtedly in the United States.
The solution lies in robust education, critical media literacy, a strong civic ethos and principled leadership. Instead, the people are simply being fooled, even if it offends some of them to hear it. The populist rejection of expertise has not led to rule by the common man but rather to rule by those who control the loudest megaphones, the largest data pools, and the financial structures underpinning daily life.
This attaches to the almost unfettered flow of money into politics – the benighted mechanism that allows this entire system to function. The notion that an individual billionaire — one who owns critical infrastructure, commands a global social media platform, and has personal stakes in government contracts — can openly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to a presidential candidate is an indictment of modern democracy. Musk’s financial backing of Trump, whether through direct contributions, PAC funding, or the implicit value of a social media empire dedicated to amplifying his campaign, represents a distortion of political competition so extreme that it barely resembles a democratic process. By the way, it totaled over a quarter of a billion dollars.
In a functional system, there would be significant restrictions on the degree to which a single private actor could bankroll a candidate, especially when that candidate’s policies directly benefit his business empire. In many countries that is so – but not in the United States, not to any effective degree. This distorts the electoral landscape in a way that ordinary citizens cannot hope to counterbalance – and, ironically, breeds the kind of hopelessness that spits out a character like Trump.
It is not, of course, unprecedented – just more cringe-worthy than we have grown used to. The Trump-Musk freak show in a way mirrors historical precedents of business elites leveraging their wealth to milk society.
The Gilded Age saw robber barons like J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie amass unprecedented power, consolidating monopolies and using political influence to bend regulation in their favor, shaping laws to suit their corporate empires. Their unchecked dominance created a system where government became an instrument for wealth accumulation.
The excesses of that era led to early antitrust regulations, but in the century since, similar abuses have emerged in new forms — like a virus mutating.
The Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s saw U.S. government officials lease federal oil reserves to private companies in exchange for bribes. In the 2000s, Halliburton and the Iraq War provided another glaring example, as Vice President Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton led to billions in government contracts awarded without competitive bidding. The 2008 Financial Crisis and subsequent bailouts reinforced how deeply intertwined business and government had become, as banks with close political ties were deemed “too big to fail” and rescued with taxpayer money. Yet these recent scandals, as egregious as they were, are a pale shadow of what is unfolding now.
Is there really nothing to be done? In a democracy, there actually is, if the people decide to wake up.
At a basic level, if Tesla benefits from direct government contracts or regulatory advantages due to Musk’s political loyalty, it could violate the Procurement Integrity Act, which forbids government officials from steering contracts to private entities for personal or political gain. Additionally, Musk’s use of X to amplify Trump’s message and attack opponents could constitute an unreported in-kind campaign contribution under the Federal Election Campaign Act.
In the longer term, curbing the overwhelming influence of oligarchs in politics requires systemic reforms. The Federal Election Commission could more effectively investigate and penalize illegal in-kind campaign contributions, ensuring that billionaires cannot covertly bankroll political candidates. An independent anti-corruption body, modeled after European agencies, should be established to investigate and expose corporate-political collusion. Transparency laws must be enforced to regulate social media platforms that function as de facto campaign propaganda tools, subjecting them to campaign finance laws. And the Securities and Exchange Commission could expand its oversight to prevent executives from misleading investors based on their political connections, closing the loopholes that allow wealth and power to distort both markets and democracy.
All of that would require a sweeping Democratic takeover of Congress in the 2026 midterms. Until then, the Democrats have earned their period in the wilderness with their startling political incompetence.
As for the American public, they will have to reap what they have sown. For a time, they will continue to slake the unquenchable thirst of masters who disdain them. Arrogant megalomaniacs who are blissfully unaware of the connection between their fortune and good fortune, think they’re way smarter than you, and view acquiescence as the proof.
