Musk Raj: Donald Trump win gives Elon Musk a free run for planet conquering plans

In the middle of September, Elon Musk had a “one-on-one” chat with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The setting was casual and the chat was live-streamed. Five minutes into it, Netanyahu told Elon Musk that he couldn’t be the president of the United States. Musk replied with two words. “Not officially,” he said. It was a quip, a joke, but the clip soon became viral and, in the subsequent weeks, continued to circulate.

Today as Donald Trump wins the US elections and is set to be the next “official” president of the USA, many might be wondering — and with some logic — that Elon Musk would be a “not official” president.

Subsequent to his interaction with Netanyahu, Musk tried to address his quip. At one gathering he emphasised that he was not a political person, even though he had intensified his support for Trump. He said, “I was born in Africa, so I cannot be president. I actually don’t want to be president. I want to build rockets and cars.” And that is probably the truth. But nothing in the world is black and white, and definitely not when we are talking about the world’s richest person, which is Musk by the way.

There is a reason why Musk threw his lot in with Trump. It is not just due to his rhetoric around the war to save civilisation, or his rightward leanings on socio-economic matters. Instead, much of it is to do with his ambitions, which are planet-sized in every way.

In his biography, Musk tells Walter Isaacson that he is “by nature obsessive-compulsive.” And this obsession and compulsion is deeply reflected in Musk’s desire to succeed. It is not for riches, although riches are always welcome. It is also not for power, which too is welcome but is not the main objective. Instead, it is likely a desire to fix things. Fix the world. Fix the environment. Fix the existentialist threats facing humanity. Or simply fix Twitter, which led Musk to drop over $44 billion dollars on it.

This is a classical Silicon Valley I-am-a-genius trait, the same which lets technologists dabble into everything, believing that they are unstoppable and they are meant to make the world a better place, whether the world desires it or not. In the same biography, Max Levchin said, “One of Elon’s greatest skills is the ability to pass off his vision as a mandate from heaven.” Levchin would know because he has worked with Musk.

In the last few months, this mandate from heaven for Elon Musk has been to help Donald Trump elected as the next US president. To achieve that Musk has done what he does best: He went all-in, he threw everything at making this thing happen. He gave millions of dollars away through his America PAC. He campaigned and networked probably harder than one single person — including Donald Trump — for the Trump victory. On Twitter aka X, which he owns, he pulled out all stops to bombard its users with Pro-Trump messaging.

What will Musk gain from Donald Trump win
Whether Trump or Musk publicly acknowledge it or not, Elon Musk is going to have an outsized impact on the Trump administration. Not only has he played a key role in delivering the victory to Trump, a role that no one can ignore or refuse to acknowledge, but he is also quite close to JD Vance, the next vice president of the United States. Vance, a venture capitalist, made his money in Silicon Valley and he is considered close to people like David Sacks, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. They all are part of the same circle.

As the Trump win became clear, Musk tweeted and pinned: “America is a nation of builders. Soon, you will be free to build.” And that is exactly what Musk must be hoping to do with help of the new US administration.

As Musk and his influence through X, SpaceX, Neuralink, Tesla and other companies has grown, so has the scrutiny around his companies and how he operates. In the last few years Musk has complained again and again that regulations are holding him back. He has bemoaned the government interference in his work — which is not really work but always a mission.

At the same time, Musk has run into issues and regulatory pressure outside the US as well. Look at Brazil where he has faced the ire of the supreme court. Or look at India, where Musk is hoping to bring both Tesla cars and Starlink internet service but is yet to secure regulatory approvals. At the same time, his companies are facing renewed competition from the Chinese — particularly Tesla EV cars — and a friendly government with a friendly policy in such a fight can do wonders.

It is not clear if Musk will formally join the US government in some capacity or not — chances are that he will not — but he will definitely seek a way forward where he and his companies are freer to do the things that they want.

If Neuralink, which aims to create a brain-technology interface, wants to expedite human trials, Musk would want the US regulators to not breathe down his neck. More significantly, Musk wants to make riskier bets around his Mars plan, a mission to colonise an entire planet. He probably wants an expedited schedule to launch un-crewed and crewed missions to Mars, something that a US government in tune with his missionary zeal is bound to help with.

Ambitions. Elon Musk has desires that are planet-sized. He wants the entire world to be enmeshed by a network beamed through Starlink satellites. He wants the whole world to go green and drive Tesla EVs. He wants to colonise Mars, not only for its resources but also to ensure humanity’s survival if a large asteroid — the proverbial planet-killer bullet — hits earth.

He wants humans around the world to have more children. These are big goals, even bigger than the classic Silicon Valley mottos like “organise the entire world’s information” or “free information”. Working on them requires not just a missionary zeal and talent to make things happen, but also a helping hand from the government. With Donald Trump in White House, Musk will now have this helping hand in whatever he is chasing. As far as helping hands are concerned, it doesn’t get better than a friendly US government and a US President whom you helped win.