Elon Musk: How did he come to wield so much power?
Just who is Elon Musk and why is he such a threat to workers and oppressed people in the U.S. and around the world?
While known as one of the world’s richest people, lesser known is Musk’s background as a privileged white “Afrikaner” born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971 under settler-colonial apartheid. Under an economic system designed to benefit whites, Musk’s family was very wealthy.
His ideological outlook appears to be inseparable from his upbringing in apartheid South Africa as reflected in his frequent racist comments, hostility to unions and support for deregulated markets. Often using profits from Tesla, Musk openly supports racist politicians like Trump and right-wing causes across Europe. Through his ownership of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Musk provides an unrestricted platform for far-right views.
Afrikaners in South Africa often portrayed themselves as “victims” who needed apartheid to protect their privileged culture and very existence. Musk is vehemently in alliance with Trump and his “anti-woke,” anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and with other reactionary Silicon Valley CEOs like PayPal’s Peter Thiel and David Sacks, who also grew up with incredible wealth and privilege due to systemic racial hierarchy under apartheid. (New York Times, March 6)
‘Hotbed of racist behavior’
Contrary to Musk promoting his own ingenuity and risk-taking policies as the source of his wealth, his profits depend on his superexploitation and all-out attacks on Tesla and X workers and opposition to workers’ efforts to unionize. In April 2024, Musk laid off 15,000 U.S. workers and then ramped up the use of H-1B visas for temporary foreign workers.
Many of the laid-off U.S. workers were senior engineers with higher compensation rates than their replacements who were junior engineers from abroad working for lower pay and putting in longer hours. Musk often pushes Tesla employees to work 60-80 hours per week.
Some 240 Black workers at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant filed a class action lawsuit in 2017 accusing Musk of “pervasive racial abuse.” In 2021 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) added federal charges to the California lawsuit.
The EEOC found: “The racial misconduct was frequent, ongoing, inappropriate, unwelcome and occurred across all shifts, departments and positions. … [F]actory walls had graffiti including swastikas, nooses and threats, including on vehicles rolling off production lines. … Black workers routinely endured racist slurs … used casually and openly in high-traffic areas.” (Al Jazeera, Sept. 29, 2023)
Black workers at Tesla who complained were given undesirable shifts, written up and even fired. In a separate lawsuit, women workers at Tesla’s Fremont plant complained about sexual harassment.
On Feb. 29, 2024, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Noël Wise opened the way for nearly 6,000 Black workers to sue the company because of Tesla’s “pattern or practice” of failing to take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination. Wise called the Tesla factory production floor a “hotbed of racist behavior.”
Ridding states of corporate oversight
Even before heading up Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk conducted actions over several decades to rid states where he conducts business of corporate oversight regulations.
Even though Delaware has a reputation for being friendly to corporations, Musk pressured the state government to strip away court-sanctioned shareholder protections and to roll back long-standing transparency requirements that allow consumers to file lawsuits for damage done by companies like Tesla.
Musk suggested Tesla would move its headquarters from Delaware to deregulated Nevada. Musk is pressuring individual states to compete with each other regarding shielding corporate executives from legal actions that hold them accountable for wrongdoing. (The Lever, Feb. 26)
Bargain among thieves
Getting appointed to head up DOGE didn’t come cheap. Musk paid $288 million in campaign donations to become Trump’s “hatchet man” and the largest of his inner circle of political donors, which includes several people now appointed to cabinet positions. While touting cuts to government, Trump’s budget changes since his inauguration have delivered $86 million to Musk’s rocket company SpaceX.
While claiming that DOGE was created to address concerns about bloated federal spending, Musk could have saved a lot of time and federal workers’ jobs by looking for government waste closer to home. For decades Musk’s companies profited from federal government support, receiving over $38 billion in contracts, including $15 billion from NASA. (Washington Post, March 8)
Meanwhile, Musk makes disparaging comments about federal workers and people who rely on federal benefits, including Medicaid and Social Security, which he falsely labeled a “Ponzi scheme.” Now DOGE is coming for the U.S. Postal Service, where U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is welcoming them with open arms.
The cost of serving Trump
Since openly aligning with Trump and carrying out massive attacks on federal workers and federal programs, the value of Tesla’s shares has plunged around 40% since December 2024, wiping out all gains made during the 2024 election campaign. Around the world, demonstrators have flocked to Tesla showrooms to protest Musk, and many people are returning leased Tesla cars. European Tesla sales dropped nearly 50% in January. Anger against Musk has turned violent with Molotov cocktails thrown and gunfire discharged at Tesla lots. (Washington Post, March 8)
But Elon Musk is only one of hundreds of global billionaires hoping to maximize their profits under Trump who would put private corporations in control of government functions and end any regulations that restrict their drive for profits.
While it is currently popular to attack Musk, we can’t lose sight of the reality that his and Trump’s offensives are trying but failing to prop up a dying capitalist system.
