We spoke with Alessandro Aresu, Limes’ scientific consultant, to better understand what the consequences of Elon Musk’s political rise will be after Donald Trump won the elections, becoming the 47th president of the United States of America. It is not yet clear what role he will have in the White House.
Interview with Alessandro Aresu
Scientific advisor to Limes and author of “Geopolitics of artificial intelligence”
He waited for the result alongside Donald Trump. Because this was also his electoral campaign. Elon Musk jumped on stage, created memes and donated more than $119 million toAmerica CAPa political action committee to support Trump. His support was also publicly acknowledged by the future president, who during his speech called Musk “one of the most important people in the country”.
Musk’s was not a losing investment. After Trump’s victory, Tesla shares began to rise again. Not only that, the future president has promised Musk a role as advisor to the White House, he will therefore be able to exercise influence in the economic and political fields, he could suggest where and how to put tariffs, or push on two of the promises made by Trump: the deregulation and cutting taxes on the super rich.
In fact, Musk leads SpaceX and Tesla, aims at the artificial intelligence market and has already exerted geopolitical pressure by turning the Starlink satellites in Ukraine off and on at will. To better understand what the consequences of Elon Musk’s new role on the political front could be, we spoke to Alessandro Aresuscientific consultant of Limes and author of Geopolitics of artificial intelligence.
Who is Kash Patel, the loyalist that Trump wants at the head of the FBI: “He will dismantle the migrant criminal gangs”
With Trump’s election, what role could Elon Musk play?
Musk said he did not want to enter directly into the administration in a role similar to our ministers but that he wanted to work on a Department of Government Efficiency (acronym DOGE, to identify the Shiba Inu dog meme), aimed at reducing regulation and spending at the federal level. This is what Trump has repeated in his various speeches, so discussions about an informal (more likely) or more formal role for Musk in 2025 will intensify in the coming weeks. In the meantime, perhaps Musk will take on a informal assignment in Trump’s transition team.
Many companies run by Musk do business with the US government or receive federal support. SpaceX and Tesla have received billions of dollars in government contracts over the past decade. How might Trump’s presidency affect you?
On this, one issue needs to be clarified: it is false that the success of Musk’s companies depends on public funding because each company must be evaluated on the basis of what happens in its specific market, and not in an abstract way. Always, thespace economy depends on public money around the world. What SpaceX has achieved, not only thanks to Musk, but thanks to the president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwellbecoming the global leader in space and being the company that allows the United States to excel over China, does not depend on public money: SpaceX receives public funds but to carry out missions and projects that, unlike its competitors such as Boeing, it knows carry forward and knows how to complete. The US government is therefore more dependent on SpaceX, because it has no viable alternatives, and because SpaceX innovates, than vice versa.
What about Tesla instead?
This is a different matter, because under Biden the company has been placed on the margins with respect to US strategies, while Musk certainly wants it to regain centrality under Trump. But there is a paradox here because Trump is not a supporter of the electric car.
The companies led by Musk are currently involved in a series of disputes with federal agencies and regulators, could he get relief?
This is the real issue for SpaceX and in my opinion it is also what has led Musk to ever stronger political involvement. Musk’s company has numerous disputes with various federal agencies, for permits and for the environmentwhich impact its operations and very ambitious plans for the future. Musk wants all this bureaucracy to be substantially overcome with Trump, to do what he wants because he has to “build”, “make humanity a multiplanetary species” etc. Trump is therefore an opportunity for him to overcome those constraints.
Musk launched his Grok chatbot. Could it also have advantages in the artificial intelligence market?
It is certainly a topic of great interest to Musk, which is often underestimated. As I remember in my book “Geopolitics of artificial intelligence” which tells this story in detail, Musk is undoubtedly the creator of OpenAI, the person who puts the initial funds into it and who involves the key figures, starting from Ilya Sutskever. At a certain point in OpenAI’s history, since it was impossible to continue as a non-profit due to investment requirements, Musk wanted to bring OpenAI under the umbrella of Tesla. Instead, he is essentially screwed – in a substantive, not legal sense – by the evolution promoted by Sam Altman, which is the decisive agreement with Microsoft.
And Musk is trying to catch up.
Yes, as soon as the success of ChatGPT arrives in 2022, Musk coincidentally tries to do everything to get back into artificial intelligence, both because he wants to position Tesla as an artificial intelligence company, so that the company has a higher valuation, and because he has a personal issue with OpenAI. This controversy obsesses him since Musk, accustomed to great successes, does not know how to lose!
Here is his new position in the Trump government: how could it influence the artificial intelligence market?
I think that Musk in some way really wants to hit OpenAI from a legal point of view, bog down its operations, put it on the margins of the political discussion on artificial intelligence in the United States, that is, in the world. It’s not a concern for humanity or anything like that that these entrepreneurs feed to us, which are always false and hypocritical. In this case it is really a personal question.
Other advantages? For example at a geopolitical level?
Elon Musk, in his megalomania, also sees himself as a super-diplomat, an international political actor. So he has his own ideas about the war in Ukraine, perhaps about the conflict between the two Koreas and other international issues. But above all, there is an essential relationship of Musk with Chinabecause Tesla has a large part of its production in China and wants to have access to the Chinese market. I am therefore certain that Musk wants to be involved at the highest level in the Trump administration’s discussions with China.
Summing up. Why did Musk say during an interview with Tucker Carlson: “If Trump loses I’m screwed?”
As for SpaceX, I don’t agree with Musk’s statement, because as long as SpaceX is superior to others, Musk still wins. On the other hand, it is obvious that Musk has become a hugely polarizing figure and his pro-Trump actions and polemics have clearly reached a level, with such an expenditure of resources, that a Democratic administration would have hostility and probably various investigations.
Alessandro Aresu
