A version of this story appeared in the What Matters of CNN. To get it in your reception box, register for free here.
Cnn
–
Americans are still in ignorance of the extent and the scale of what Elon Musk does with DOGE, the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government, which works to considerably reduce the size of the government by aiming to cut 1 dollars or more in public spending.
But there is an overview of what motivates musk – namely an effort to fight against what he called “civilian suicidal empathy”.
During a three -hour interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan published on February 28, Musk spoke of his deeply held belief in conspiracy theory that Democrats work to import as many undocumented immigrants as possible so that they can take control of the United States government forever.
“If they were still four years old, they would legalize enough illegal in swing states for the Swing States not the Swing States,” Musk told Rogan. “They would be fair, they would be blue states. Then they … would win the presidential election; They would win the room, the Senate and the Presidency. »»
It is a wild idea in the same direction as the demystics “Replacement theory. “And there are many factual holes in theory, starting with the fact that it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in the federal elections and that there is no direct route to citizenship for people who illegally enter the country.
But what came into the conversation can further shed light on what motivates musk to reduce the size of the government, and it is based with its takeover, the purchase and the foundation of companies in the private sector. It is the belief that empathy for individuals is expensive for the collective.
Musk underlined California’s decision to provide medical insurance even to undocumented persons who qualify for its low-income Medi-Cal program.
“We have civilian suicidal empathy,” said Musk, taking the term from Gad Saad, a Canadian scholar who is also a frequent Rogan host.
While Musk said he believed in empathy and that “you should worry about others”, he also thinks that it destroys society.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, empathy exploits,” said Musk. “There, they exploit a bug in Western civilization, which is the response of empathy.”
Empathy, he said, has been “armed”.
This is an important thing to remember while Musk turns his crusade to the American government. Although President Donald Trump has declared that the cuts will not affect security net programs such as social security, health insurance and medicaid, except to eliminate fraud, Musk clearly indicated during the interview that he considers that the concept of social security is a “Ponzi regime”.
Walter Isaacson on the life of Elon Musk, the ego and the “lack of empathy”
The lack of musk empathy is a theme of recent biography for which Walter Isaacson writer had access to the billionaire throughout his Twitter takeover.
And Musk’s contempt for individuals employed in his companies is also a line line in the book, including on the production lines of Tesla and SpaceX, where he is described as people quickly.
In each of these societies, Musk expressed the desire to save humanity: with electric cars in the case of Tesla; by making interplanetary humanity in the case of SpaceX; And by standing for the first amendment in the case of Twitter.
“He likes this notion of helping humanity,” Isaacson told Christiane de CNN in 2023. “In fact, he has more empathy for humanity in general than he has often done for 20 people around him.
Musk always has this vision of himself as a superhero taking risks; He spoke Rogan several times about his fear of being killed. Now, instead of saving humanity, he thinks he saves the United States government by reducing billions of dollars in spending, even if it has an impact on the daily life of many Americans – by costing them their work or by reducing government services – in the process.