Who Redpilled Elon?

The Groypers and the Richest Man In The World

Why does Elon Musk have to be this way?

The mystery is less about Elon qua Elon and more about some strange cultural processes running in parallel. His descent into red-pilled, groyper antisemitism and edgelord shitposting has only accelerated since he accidentally bought Twitter just over a year ago.

I’ve been trying to solve the mystery of who turned Elon this dark and ignoring the process I suspect was used, so today, I’m breaking down some thoughts on how an otherwise generally intelligent person gets dragged into a world where he’s getting affirmation from neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes and thinking, “This is fine.”

As all of you have heard by now, Elon’s latest example of setting his ass on fire was a full-on antisemitic explosion:

Elon Musk agrees with tweet accusing Jews of ‘hatred against whites’ is one of the milder headlines on this imbroglio. In response to an ad highlighting online antisemitism, a Twitter user posted the following:

To which Elon replied:

He then proceeded to attack the ADL, because, of course, he did.

With that, here’s how I think it’s happening.

1. Online radicalization even works on intelligent people. Examine the power of affirmation, intellectual echo chambers, and the dopamine loop of online radicalization, and you’ll see something interesting.
   
   Even Elon — perhaps especially Elon, with his not-so-hidden spectrum of behavior — is a Twitter dopamine addict. (Trust me, I know how hard that monkey is to get off your back.)
   
   Before he owned the company, he saw it as a source of validation, companionship, and fun. Now, the radicalized Elon has decided to radicalize more people, this time using the Twitter platform.
   

2. Silicon Valley’s culture is weird, libertarian, and overly confident. None of this in and of itself would have inevitably led Elon to become an alt-right antisemite, Putin fanboy, or the world’s richest troll.
   
   I encourage you to read up on the Valley’s culture and how it’s reshaping America. It’s an education in weirdness. Elon, one of the PayPal Mafia, was in it in from the 1990s. Like many of his fellow travelers from that world, he’s steeped in a bizarre brine of fabulous wealth (and thus, immunity to law and consequences for behavior) and the fallacy that because they’re rich, they’re never wrong.
   
   As rich and intelligent as these people seem on paper, intelligence, knowledge, and judgment are rarely domain-agnostic. Peter Thiel was deeply influenced by Curtis Yarvin’s neo-reactionary “Dark Enlightenment” post-democracy theories. Musk is under the sway of a different, slightly lower-end version of the reactionary movement, one more racially charged than Thiel’s. (The rabbit hole of obviously insane influencers surrounding every one of the Silicon Valley alt-right billionaire class is amazing, but this piece is already going to be quite long.)
   
   This culture made Musk ripe for the picking.
   

3. The lonely ones are easier to convert. Something about him feels deeply, fundamentally lonely, and he’s looking to validate himself and his honestly somewhat juvenile opinions.
   
   When the money came, he was still lonely. When the fame came, he was still lonely. When ten children from three women came, and he still never displayed the signifiers of a man with a family, it was a strange signal that for all the gifts under the tree on Christmas morning, he was a solo act, looking for cohesion and validation.
   

4. The alt-right and authoritarians hacked the “free speech” ethos of Silicon Valley. I’ll spare you the usual explanations that the First Amendment doesn’t cover what Elon and others think it covers because XKCD said it best:

   

   Source: XKCD

   The early Silicon Valley techno-optimists considered Free speech a fundamental principle. In the Internet’s adolescence, “The Internet routes around censorship” was a central normative tenet. The idea was that an open and free exchange of ideas was essential for fostering innovation, creativity, and the development of a robust digital public sphere.
   
   This was a zero-day exploit for racist hate groups, crypto- and neo-Nazis, and authoritarians; they’ve implanted in Elon and far too many others the belief that all ideas are morally equal. This leads to the belief not only should horrific, antisemitic, Nazi, and race-hatred content be allowed on every platform but that because of its very transgressiveness, it should be elevated to confront the delicate sensibilities of the woke bourgeoisie.
   
   I’m sure you’ve looked at your Twitter feed lately and wondered, “Where the hell do these antisemites and Nazis and trolls come from?” It’s a choice. It’s in the code now and the most sweeping victory for the authoritarian movement since Facebook handed Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica the keys to the kingdom.
   
   The rising hate movement uses the tools and technology the early tech optimists hoped would liberate the world. Elon “solved” the platform hate speech dilemma by saying, “Screw it,” and swinging the rudder to the right.
   

5. Slick conspiracy packaging works. Let’s face it: intelligent people do evil, sophisticated, and appealing narrative-crafting for the worst causes. Don’t mistake the writers and strategists of the authoritarian movement for toothless, cousin-humping Klansmen from Asscrack, Oklahoma.
   
   They may use well-reasoned arguments, historical references, and pseudoscientific claims to attract people like Elon, who crave at least the gloss of an intellectual backstop for their beliefs. They package great social media and video content for evil purposes. The appearance of intellectual depth can make these ideologies more convincing, even when they’re essentially an ahistorical trainwreck.
   
   Conspiracy theories give people a sense of cohesiveness: alt-right ideologies almost always involve conspiratorial excess, particularly the kind of antisemitic tropes Elon seems dedicated to pushing these days. People may be drawn to conspiracy theories that provide simple, often scapegoating explanations for complex issues. This can create a sense of empowerment and purpose among those who adopt these beliefs without the heavy lifting of reading or understanding history.
   
   Conspiracy and weaponized grievance-mongering depends not only on an aggressive ignorance of history and reality. No, sorry, folks…but the Jews are not conspiring to flood America with dark people to replace the embattled white race. “Jews will not replace us!” is the thin edge of the wedge of the discredited white replacement theory.
   
   No conspiracy ever holds. Never. “Three can keep a secret if two are dead” is accurate, and the government doesn’t work the way the conspiracy boys think it does. It’s terrible at keeping anything a secret, much less a global conspiracy of any dimension. No, the Deep State isn’t real. (I wish.) George Soros and Hillary Clinton aren’t drinking the blood of children to stay eternally young. You won’t be forced to eat insect loaf in the re-education camp.
   
   It’s all hot garbage, but Elon buys into it.
   
   I have a theory that narrowly intelligent people are more vulnerable to this kind of conversion and radicalization. All his technological insights don’t give him a nuanced epistemic toolkit to filter out the hot garbage of white replacement theory and the rest.

6. Maybe he’s more of a visionary than we think. If I’m wrong about the future, I end up in a prison camp. (Just ask Donald.)
   
   If Elon’s wrong about the future, he’s a rich asshole with some terrible opinions. As I wrap this article up, I think some of this may be that Elon has been convinced that Russia, China, and authoritarian nationalism are good for his future business prospects.
   
   He’s certainly been in touch with the Putin Regime — QED his vicious hatred of Ukraine — and plays a cautious game of never calling out bad actors in big markets for his products. He let Donald Trump and a thousand of the worst online players back on Twitter despite many using the platform to call for violence. In some ways, this would be the least horrifying explanation.

I know I haven’t solved the mystery — perhaps Kara Swisher’s Burn Book will open more insights on this — of who converted Elon to the dark side, but I think understanding the process of how might start getting us closer to the culprit.

If you know more, email me. It’s a fascinating question.