A kind of “Muskian exceptionalism” can be seen in the Italian and European public debate. Many commentators and politicians are describing Elon Musk as if he were a new and entirely singular phenomenon in the digital landscape (or, more generally, among big capital holders). We need to clarify some fundamental questions in order to avoid being confused whenever another technocrat billionaire – as is now the case with Mark Zuckerberg – makes moves to align himself with the new Trumpian power. Where, then, can we find Musk’s exceptionalism? What really makes the difference isn’t what he’s saying.
He is certainly not shy about expressing his views, but not unlike other tycoons like Bill Gates or George Soros who have been doing the same for decades. What is exceptional is the mainstream media’s reflexive attention to anything Musk does on X, which greatly amplifies the impact of whatever he says. Indeed, if his words stayed on X alone, they would not come to the attention of the vast majority of the public: in Italy, for example, 87 percent of the population doesn’t use that platform.
One could argue that Musk has a political profile that other figures as rich and powerful as him do not. It’s true that Musk is more outspoken than many others (but not more than, say, Peter Thiel, to name another big tech mogul close to Trump), but what of it? Many others – the Koch brothers, for instance – generally choose to be more discreet, but still participate heavily in American political life, financing election campaigns, frequenting the White House, where they often play the role of informal advisors, and generally influencing democratic political choices, not least by funding NGOs of various kinds, universities and even individual researchers.
Not to mention those like Jeff Bezos who directly own media outlets, in his case the Washington Post. Of course, the North American political system is particularly influenced by money, but one could make an analysis that would not be entirely dissimilar for all major European countries, including Italy.
So, we could say that Musk is simply much more open than the average of the other figures in his category. He loves to show off, he loves to exaggerate, having realized – like his friend Trump – that this is a winning strategy with the media. He says extreme things, but which are often shared by much of the U.S. establishment, which simply shies away from such crude frankness when expressing itself in public.
This is why Muskian exceptionalism seems to me to be a fallacious analytical category (same as the “techno-right,” but that would be another discussion) which risks obstructing our understanding of far more important structural phenomena behind the dust storm created around one particular character.
Out of all these underlying structural phenomena, the one that I believe is by far the most important is the process that has led all the major European countries, with Italy front and center, to hand over control of three essential types of infrastructure, namely communication, storage and information processing infrastructure, to a handful of U.S. companies. States that do not control such infrastructure, including physically, are limited in their sovereignty, to put it mildly.
Thirty years ago, the awareness of the importance of controlling the telephone and radio network, towers and cables, archives, servers – in short, the materiality of the information infrastructure – was widespread among the ruling class. However, over the last two decades this awareness has vanished in great measure, as evidenced by the enormous role taken up by companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and, potentially, SpaceX, not only for businesses but also for public institutions, including the most delicate nodes of the state apparatus.
How was this possible? Perhaps the European ruling class, failing to understand the strategic implications of the digital revolution, was seduced at first by the short-term economic advantages of relying on Big Tech, failing to cultivate internal resources and letting them wither away, and then basically resigned itself to being under the U.S. digital umbrella.
From this point of view, the nomination of John Elkann, heir to a great European industrial dynasty, to the board of Meta (at the same time as the company has veered in a Trumpian-Muskian direction by abolishing its already controversial fact checking program) seems to be a classic case of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”
But one cannot help thinking about the price European countries will pay for ceding much of the nervous system of their societies, economies and state institutions to the United States.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-resa-europea-ma-il-padrone-non-e-uno-soltanto on 2025-01-08
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