June 14, 2024
A number of harassment allegations illuminate why the tech mogul has embraced Trumpism.
On Thursday, Tesla shareholders voted to grant firm CEO Elon Musk a pay bundle of roughly $56 billion—a staggering bounty that was all of the extra outstanding as a result of it got here simply two days after The Wall Avenue Journal launched a blockbuster report alleging a sample of office sexual harassment that might, in a extra simply world, render the tech magnate unemployable. There’s a startling discrepancy between Musk’s unprecedentedly lavish compensation and the sordid habits reported by not simply the Journal but additionally different information retailers. This gulf illustrates the aura of invincibility that Musk enjoys as one of many world’s richest males. The allegations additionally make clear Musk’s current political shift, because the onetime supporter of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden more and more aligns himself with Trumpism. As Trump notoriously stated about sexual assault within the 2005 Entry Hollywood tape, “while you’re a star, they allow you to do it. You are able to do something.” Musk and different Silicon Valley plutocrats more and more see themselves as not simply businessmen however stars, which apparently means they too really feel that they do “can do something.” This creates a pure affinity for Trumpian politics and its promise of rich-guy impunity.
The most recent allegations towards Musk are merely the newest manifestation of a recurring drawback. In Could 2022, Enterprise Insider reported that
SpaceX, the aerospace agency based by Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct declare towards Musk in 2018…. The attendant labored as a member of the cabin crew on a contract foundation for SpaceX’s company jet fleet. She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg with out consent, and providing to purchase her a horse in trade for an erotic therapeutic massage.
Regardless of the settlement, Musk denies any wrongdoing on this case and has even made the declare, which is contradicted by proof, that he didn’t use flight attendants on his SpaceX jets.
The Wall Avenue Journal report, written by Joe Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar, revisits the flight attendant’s story and in addition paperwork three different circumstances. Probably the most in-depth one includes a current school grad who had beforehand been an intern and who was employed by Musk in 2017. In accordance with the newspaper, Musk
texted her typically and invited her to return over to his Los Angeles mansion at night time on a number of events. Generally she accepted his invites, however pals stated she informed them on the time that his habits made her job tougher. She ultimately moved off Musk’s government group, in response to pals she informed and to individuals accustomed to her time at SpaceX. The lady left the corporate in 2019.
This lady appears to have made some kind of personal settlement with Musk, as a result of she issued an announcement through her legal professionals, who additionally work for Musk, disputing a few of the Journal’s reporting.
The 2 different incidents described within the Journal are:
One other lady who left the corporate in 2013 alleged in exit negotiations with SpaceX human sources and authorized executives that Musk had requested her to have his infants.
Present Challenge
A fourth lady had a month-long sexual relationship with Musk in 2014 whereas she instantly reported to him. The connection ended badly, resulting in recriminations over textual content and e-mail as she left the corporate and signed an settlement prohibiting her from discussing her work for Musk.
The day after the WSJ broke this story, Axios reported: “SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk had been hit on Wednesday with a lawsuit from eight former workers, who alleged they had been illegally fired for elevating issues about sexual harassment and discrimination towards girls on the firm.”
These allegations are critical and would usually destroy a profession, however Musk has little to fret about. As the huge pay bundle that Tesla shareholders voted to bestow on him demonstrates, Musk lives past the conventional guidelines of accountability. A star CEO can do something. Musk is beloved by not simply his shareholders but additionally the company boards which can be, in concept, designed to function a verify on his energy. The Wall Avenue Journal has reported that whereas some on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX fear about Musk’s use of illicit medication (LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, and ketamine), different board members be part of the CEO in his pharmaceutical adventures.
SpaceX has guidelines towards sexual harassment and in addition assessments its workers for drug abuse. However Musk, regardless of the corporate’s claims on the contrary, appears immune from these guidelines. He’s a legislation unto himself, presiding over his corporations (the social media agency previously referred to as Twitter however now given the Muskian designation X in addition to Tesla and SpaceX) like a feudal lord dominating his serfs. Musk’s alleged sexual misconduct even calls to thoughts the supposed medieval apply (whose historic actuality is the topic of a lot scholar competition) of droit du seigneur: the customary privilege of feudal lords to deflower and generally impregnate the younger girls beneath his command, significantly earlier than the consummation of their marriage.
Not too long ago, some economists and social theorists, notably former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, making an attempt to explain the acute inequality and monopoly dominance attribute of excessive tech have began utilizing the time period “techno-feudalism.” The idea is regrettably nebulous in financial phrases, since tech nonetheless operates beneath the foundations of capitalism. However techno-feudalism is probably extra apt as an outline of a cultural milieu moderately than an financial type: Actually, figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Invoice Gates, and Elon Musk carry themselves with the unbridled hauteur of the feudal lord greater than the cautious, calculating mindset of the traditional haute bourgeoisie. And there’s something abjectly servile concerning the abasement of shareholders and company boards to Musk. If nothing else, Musk has invented a brand new street to serfdom.
Musk’s political evolution has been the topic of a lot dialogue. Musk likes to name himself a centrist, and The New York Instances claims that his politics are a “bundle of contradictions and inconsistencies.”
He twice voted for Obama (who in his 2015 State of the Union handle named Tesla as one of many corporations creating the roles of the long run) in addition to for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Tesla and SpaceX have each relied closely on authorities spending—significantly within the case of Tesla, for which the federal government has sponsored applied sciences that can assist scale back carbon emissions. Musk himself was once one thing of a hero in environmental circles for his position in boosting electrical automobiles.
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However since Biden’s victory within the 2020 election, Musk has steadily moved to the proper, utilizing his social media platform to unfold the racist and antisemitic conspiracy concept that there’s a “nice substitute” secretly deliberate to displace the white race in Europe and the US with immigrants from Asia and Africa. He has additionally disputed the declare that the far-right Different for Germany occasion, broadly seen as a neofascist formation, is extremist. The Wall Avenue Journal reviews that Musk has a “rising alliance” with Donald Trump and may need a task as a presidential adviser if Trump returns to the White Home.
There are little question many intertwined causes for Musk’s shift to the proper, not least of which is his hostility to the left, which he blames for the truth that one in every of his youngsters, a transgender daughter, not speaks to him.
However the allegations of sexual misconduct additionally present a clue that parallels the household drama along with his estranged youngster: As feudal lord, Musk feels entitled to have his personal manner in all the pieces, from the gender id of his youngsters to the sexual favors of his underlings. For such a rampant egotist, any kind of liberal or egalitarian politics—even in so gentle a type as Joe Biden’s presidency—is anathema. Therefore Musk’s embrace of Trump, one other would-be patriarchal tyrant who believes that if you find yourself the boss, they need to allow you to get away with something.
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