Elon Musk has said he is pulling back from investing in politics, which at first blush seems counterintuitive.
He has said more than once that America and the West are facing an existential risk, and he has already proven that he is immune to the usual financial and social pressures that most mortals would fear greatly. He remains great friends with Donald Trump, and still travels with him and meets with world leaders at his side.
So what has changed?
Only the Republican Party could take a gift-horse and not just look it in the mouth, but defecate in it. @elonmusk is the Gutenberg of our time. We don’t win this last must-win election without him. So of course we have to turn right around and demoralize him after the fact. https://t.co/JJpqTe02f8
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) May 22, 2025
Elon hasn’t exactly said, but I think the truth is buried in that answer he gave at the Qatar Economic Forum: “I think I have done enough.”
You could read that in many ways, and perhaps I am reading into the statement something that isn’t there. But what I heard, from both his affect and his words, is a sort of disgust with the political process. After investing enormous amounts of time, energy, and money, Congress just passed a bill (supported by Trump) that basically eliminated the DOGE cuts, maintains the ridiculous spending in the Inflation Reduction Act/Green New Deal, and ensures the rapid expansion of the debt as far as the eye can see.
You can argue that the “Big Beautiful Bill” needed to pass because it was the best deal you could get–I fear that I, too, might have voted for it while holding my nose–but isn’t that the point? The US faces an existential threat–the collapse of the US dollar at some point in the near future–and the best that Congress–run by Republicans and supported by Donald Trump, and hence a Republican trifecta–can come up with is this piece of excrement?
All the goodies are there, but none of the more painful things that everybody knows are necessary to ensure the future of the US as we have known it. Now it is true that the government will not collapse–even Venezuela’s and Cuba’s governments have soldiered on despite decades-long declines, and the United States’ decline will look more like Britain in the 1950s to 1970s than either of those countries. We will become poorer, but not poor, less free, rather than ruled with an iron fist.
The Fall of the Roman Empire didn’t follow directly after the fall of the Republic–it soldiered on for a long time, wounded but hardly dead. A dominant military enables that sort of decline.
If you are Elon Musk, why would you keep pouring money into a system that is choosing decline?
Perhaps I am too sour on the process and catastrophizing. After all, when your whole life is wrapped up in fighting for a cause, you are likely to wind up like Steven Miller–obsessed and, if essentially right, a bit overzealous at times. I get why Miller is so obsessed and aggressive–he sees this fight as existential, as do I. As does Musk.
But Musk has many things to pour his energy into, including making the human race multiplanetary. Some of us have more limited skills or slightly less energy and imagination.
Whatever the reason, Elon looked dispirited about politics. And if my diagnosis is correct, I understand why.
