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The Soros, Musk models of politics

Jan 07, 2025 08:21 PM IST

Two billionaires, with two value systems, and two different modes of doing politics dominate public imagination. Rarely have two private citizens held this influence

Elon Musk’s net worth is $421 billion. George Soros’s net worth is $6.7 billion. Musk spent $270 million to help Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential elections, almost all of it in the past six months. Soros has given $32 billion of his wealth to promote “open societies” globally over the last 40 years.

FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024 Brandon Bell/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo (via REUTERS)
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024 Brandon Bell/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo (via REUTERS)

Both the world’s richest man and the world’s 469th richest man, have strong convictions. Both claim to believe in free speech, democracy and individual rights. Both believe their convictions have universal value. Both are naturalised American citizens who appear to passionately believe in the idea of America as a home of freedom and opportunity. And both think they can change the world.

Elon Musk is 53. Born to a White South African father and a Canadian mother in Pretoria, Musk moved to Canada and then the United States (US) in his 20s. Skipping a graduate course, he worked illegally in America on his first start-up, before going on to set up Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, all of which reveal a remarkable ability to think big and combine science, tech and markets. George Soros is 94. A Jew, he survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary, studied and worked in London, and then moved to New York. A refugee-turned-financial investor, he understood the markets, made the right bets and accumulated wealth.

Soros is a Democrat at home. He is a political liberal who believes in exporting his ideological worldview gleaned from his tutor in London, the philosopher Karl Popper whose work on open society and its enemies remains a classic. Musk is a Democrat-turned-Republican at home. He is a mix of a political conservative and political libertarian who too believes in exporting his ideological worldview, gleaned largely from his personal experience, to the rest of the world.

Soros makes political donations to Democratic candidates at home. But his broader mode of functioning globally rests on shaping societies. Open Society Foundations support civil society organisations and individuals espousing values of human rights, civil liberties, social justice and equity. Through training and education, advocacy and exposure, institution-building and dialogue promotion, Soros promotes individuals, shapes underlying social dynamics and through that, somewhat more indirectly, aims to alter politics to create what he thinks are open and just societies.

The American Right sees Soros as the invisible hand behind the Democratic Party machine, behind “woke” politics, behind campus protests. The global Right holds Soros responsible for promoting dissent in their polities, interfering in sovereign jurisdictions, and being a part of a wider liberal and American conspiracy to destabilise societies. The global far-Left, incidentally, is no fan of Soros either and sees him as a part of the broader liberal capitalist world aiming to defuse radicalism by promoting incremental reform. Soros’s sweet spot lies in the liberal and the centre-Left constituencies which see in him an ally in these adversarial times, committed to justice, equity and minority rights.

Musk shattered all records with his personal donation to Trump this season. Unlike Soros, whose influence even in the US is more indirect than direct, Musk has jumped straight into the world of party and electoral politics both at home and increasingly in the United Kingdom (UK) where he has taken up the issue of the mass abduction and rape by Pakistani gangs and called for the removal of the just-elected Labour prime minister, and Germany, where he is backing the country’s far-Right party. Musk is unapologetic about his political preferences, he is clear about which government and party he likes and which he wants ousted, and the groundwork of social change is not for him.

With his proximity to Trump, Musk’s voice is heard in every global capital and every is utterance measured carefully for what it may mean in terms of possible American policy. With his ownership of X, the world’s premier medium of political communication, Musk has the ability to directly influence conversations on a real-time basis both with his own posts and what people get to see on their timelines. And with his willingness to spend his money to bully Republicans in the US Congress to toe Trump’s line or face his financial wrath in the next election and donate to the Reform Party in the UK, Musk can tangibly change outcomes. This combination of political influence, control over key technological levers, and financial muscle has given Musk an unprecedented ability to decide what matters, where, and who he favours to deal with it.

Both American liberals and the Left see Musk as a representative of the dark fusion of politics and money (and technology) that has enabled Trump’s return and are horrified at the multiple levels at which there is a conflict of interest in the dynamic. The American Right was thrilled with Musk’s backing for Trump, but as the recent debate on the H-1B visa issue showed, the nativist base doesn’t quite trust Musk’s independent thinking. Globally, liberals and the Left view Musk as a danger to their societies, as a reckless and irresponsible conspiracy theorist and a relentless promoter of misinformation, and as a White chauvinist backing the most extreme Right-wing formations in their countries. Musk’s sweet spot lies with centre-Right and far-Right constituencies who see in him their most powerful ally ready to take on “political correctness”, as someone committed to free speech, and a brave warrior against State overreach, and with younger somewhat non-political folks who admire the science entrepreneur in him.

This week, Joe Biden, in one of his final acts as president, awarded George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour. But the broadly liberal-Left political worldview that both the 82-year-old incumbent who decided on the award and the 94-year-old recipient of the award believe in today faces its gravest challenge. Last week, Donald Trump ushered in the New Year with Elon Musk at his private resort, as both men continue to make plans for the most ambitious overhaul of the American government in decades and to reshape the world in their tech-conservative-libertarian vision, one that is not just on the ascendant but is set to cause the greatest disruption of our times. In the story of Soros and Musk then is the story of the rise and fall of the dominant political ideologies of the 20th and 21st century.

The views expressed are personal

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