Algemeen·NRC·31 mei

Why can’t Elon Musk do for politics what he’s done for industry?

Politics is not exactly rocket science. How interesting, then, that Elon Musk is so bad at it. Unlike the two or three industries—and still counting—where Mr Musk has done as much or more than any other human this century to advance the species, politics does not require much technical sophistication or even rigour. The maths tend to be simple addition or division. Yet the calculations matter: the flourishing of the civilisation whose multiplanetary future preoccupies Mr Musk requires a healthy politics, much as his own companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, counted on far-sighted government subsidies and contracts, not to mention the principled rule of law, to succeed. But unlike the other fields Mr Musk has shaped, his contribution to this bulwark of civilisation is to make it not more imaginative and optimistic but more atavistic and fearful, and just plain dumber.