Leaders | On another planet

Elon Musk is Donald Trump’s disrupter-in-chief

The entrepreneur will be let loose on America’s government

Elon Musk playing with a toy rocket, car, White House, bull and dog
image: Pablo Delcan

In 2017 Elon Musk branded Donald Trump a “con man” and “one of the world’s best bullshitters”. Now he is known at Mar-a-Lago as Uncle Elon and is in the president-elect’s inner circle. This week they watched a rocket launch together. The alliance of the world’s leading politician and its richest man creates a concentration of power both want to use to explosive effect: to slash bureaucracy, detonate liberal orthodoxies and deregulate in the name of growth.

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Disrupter-in-chief”

From the November 23rd 2024 edition

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