Elon Musk made an explicitly future-forward pitch to Pennsylvania voters Saturday — arguing that a vote for former President Donald Trump was a vote for the progress of humanity itself. “I want a future where you look forward to it and you’re excited about what’s going to happen, that we’re going to learn new things, that… it’s going to be better than the past,” Musk said, invoking a future where "we’re out there among the stars, where ‘Star Trek’ is real.” Musk has spoken at length about his desire for humanity to become a “spacefaring civilization” and colonize Earth’s moon or Mars, even specifying which type of government he thinks would fit an off-world colony ( direct democracy). He’s been equally specific about what kind of government he thinks is necessary on Earth to enable that future, namely, one that will ease up on regulating his vast business empire. What Musk doesn’t often address is why humanity should do this in the first place. His most commonly articulated reason is that it’s a hedge against existential risks on Earth, but the lack of a more affirmative case (aside from “we want Starfleet to be real,” as he added Saturday) reflects the core of his and some tech-world brethren’s increasing mind-meld with the former president: their belief that a kind of restless change, absent any inherent quality, goal or direction, is a virtue in its own right. Of course progress can mean connecting with people across the world instantly, or mapping the human genome, or wiping out polio. But there’s also a dark side: critics have pointed out that a faith in progress detached from any driving values or traditions can hollow out a culture — allowing for-profit companies to set the terms of how society interacts with their products. The critic Neil Postman, in his 1992 book “Technopoly,” saw a gullible public essentially allowing its own brainwashing. And he thought a country like America was particularly vulnerable — a country with “a democratic ethos, relatively weak traditions and a high receptivity to new technologies.” But you don’t have to take Postman’s dark view of technology to acknowledge that Musk and his foes have a radically different view of its role in society. Musk believes that technological advancements are the catalyst to lead humanity into a glorious future, while their critics, including Democrats and many tech nonprofits (as well as some of the biggest tech firms ), believe that without strong democratic control, they might create a self-justifying doom loop that serves only the interest of tech developers and their business partners. President Joe Biden’s major AI executive order, which Republicans have vowed to repeal, stresses putting human values first. Leading figures like Stanford researcher Fei-Fei Li push for “human-centered” artificial intelligence. The European Union’s sweeping AI Act pledged to regulate AI in a manner consistent with “EU values and rules.” The idea of directing technological development in accordance with any given group’s values — even at a societal scale — is anathema to Musk and Trump. Musk’s tech-first values could take on outsized importance on the national stage. If Trump wins, the mogul has agreed to head up a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” something he insisted Saturday will be focused on “making sure that there are incentives for excellent work.” “Whatever you incentivize will happen,” Musk said, using the example of Hurricane Helene, which he claimed was poorly managed. “But if you have a failed response to the hurricane disasters, and no one even gets fired, well, okay, what do you expect? No one’s going to take action.” The intersection of technology and the natural forces unleashed by Helene are a perfect example of how Musk’s “technopolist” politics might work, although one’s results may vary. There were two immediate, clear repercussions of the disaster for Musk’s business empire: One, his Starlink satellites provided much-needed internet and cellular coverage to those impacted by Hurricane Helene earlier this month — at least those who already owned a Starlink kit. At the same time, his X social media platform and its hands-off approach to moderation meant that false information about outright warfare between North Carolinians and the Federal Emergency Management Agency spread like wildfire in that hurricane’s aftermath. Both outcomes are neutrally downstream from the “incentives” created by the technology itself — in Starlink’s case reliable internet access to remote areas, and in X’s case a completely open and unmediated channel for global communication. One helped the public, and one hurt. But both benefit Musk, a perfect case study for the “neutral,” tech-first heuristic for progress he and Trump are touting.
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