How Elon Musk affects the destiny of nations
According to the report of Online Economy, most of the business leaders spend their lives without causing international incidents. But Elon Musk has done it twice this month.
First, following Walter Isaacson’s revelations in Elon Musk’s biography, he angered Ukraine. According to Isaacson’s account, Musk denied a request to activate his satellite service, Starlink, over Crimea, thus thwarting Ukraine’s attack on the Russian navy.
Days later, Taiwan criticized him for saying that the People’s Republic of China views the self-governing island as the United States views Hawaii. “Taiwan is not part of the People’s Republic of China and certainly not for sale!” the country’s foreign ministry said on Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.
These were just a few items on Musk’s diplomatic agenda this month, which included meetings with the leaders of Israel, Turkey and Hungary.
Musk’s international influence poses an interesting problem for the United States. In a world where geopolitical leadership is increasingly dependent on technology, Musk should be one of the United States’ most important assets. And yet he is indeed an independent actor.
Of course, business has been intertwined with statecraft for centuries. In the 1700s, the British East India Company (EIA) became a government and colonized India for profit and exploitation.
William Randolph Hearst encouraged the United States to go to war with Spain in part to sell newspapers. Henry Ford, a staunch isolationist, tried to keep the United States out of both world wars. In 1940, Ford vetoed a contract to build fighter jet engines that Britain needed to fight Nazi Germany.
During the Cold War, Armand Hammer used his position at the head of Occidental Petroleum to defuse tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. George Soros has used the wealth gained from betting against the currencies of some countries to pressure democracy and human rights in other countries.
Musk owes his influence not to control of oil, capital, or private armies, but to technologies vital to economic competitiveness, national security, and public opinion.
NASA and the Pentagon are heavily dependent on Musk’s SpaceX for access to space. As Gregory Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, SpaceX is not like a traditional defense contractor that depends almost entirely on US government-approved sales, meaning Musk feels less obligated to align his views with Washington does.
After Russia destroyed another Ukrainian satellite service in the early hours of its invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainians credit Musk’s provision of Starlink terminals with restoring connectivity on the battlefield and helping Ukraine avoid failure (Musk has said the request has ruled out activating Starlink over Crimea to avoid “outright complicity in a major act of war and escalation of the conflict.”
Tesla is not the only manufacturer of electric cars in the world, but it is the most advanced and reliable. National leaders understandably think that hosting a Tesla factory holds the industry’s future. That’s why China allowed a foreign automaker to open a wholly-owned subsidiary in Shanghai in 2019 for the first time, correctly calculating that Tesla’s presence would boost domestic brands. That’s why Saudi Arabia is talking to Tesla about investing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Musk called this report a lie.
Ultimately, while Musk’s purchase has been financially awful, it’s been politically fascinating, allowing him to speak out about people who are being heard, amplified, filtered or banned on the world’s most influential social media platform. .
Only the United States could produce an entrepreneur like Musk, who immigrated from South Africa to Canada and then to the United States as a teenager.
And perhaps only in the United States could he have such political independence. Musk is in near-constant conflict with the United States, from the Federal Trade Commission to the Justice Department. In China or Russia, where power comes from one person, it comes at the cost of your business, your freedom, or both. In the United States, where power is spread between different branches and parties, Musk thrives.
Musk’s influence in foreign policy has caused many surprises. However, businesses are constantly thinking about such issues.
More important than Musk’s independence from the US government is his vulnerability to China.
Factory shutdowns imposed by China and then California to contain Covid-19 “ignited his anti-authoritarian side,” Isaacson writes. However, only California was the subject of Musk’s public ire. He called the quarantines fascist and the official was ignorant. Even when Tesla’s factory in Shanghai was shut down for 22 days last year, he didn’t say anything similar publicly about China.
Musk’s respect for China extends to former Twitter. Isaacson writes that shortly after the acquisition, he told journalist Barry Weiss that the platform should be careful “about the words it uses about China, because Tesla’s business could be threatened.”
Musk should not be singled out for engaging with American politicians while showing great respect for Beijing. The top executives of many companies, from Walt Disney to JPMorgan Chase, do the same.
Of course, the difference is that the fate of nations depends much more on which one has the best technology than the best bank loan or animated film.
The surest way to reduce Musk’s influence on international relations is to reduce his influence on technology. Competitors are trying to undermine SpaceX’s market share in launching satellites and rockets, and X is on social media. As for electric cars, now that Chinese brands have caught on, expect Tesla, like other foreign companies, to exit the Chinese market if Beijing no longer deems them useful. Musk may be more vulnerable to China when it no longer has sales there to protect.