The US social structure was  , designed by its founders , to have a system of checks and balances, so that no individual or organization would have total energy.
But that system was designed with only , government , leaders and , government , institutions in brain — although the founders did care about private individuals controlling the authorities, this wasn’t their primary focus, and they eventually ended up declining to throw institutions in place precisely to guard against financial power.  ,
James Madison believed, for instance, that the governmental system of the US state was protection much against little cabals of rich oligarchs. In recent years, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court ‘s , Citizens United , choice, some have voiced concerns that the US has become an elite, where wealthy people are capable of buying power and influence — either by plan efforts, lobbying, or other means.
These issues came mostly from the liberal left, who , generally claimed , that the US has become an aristocracy. However, many on the right were also concerned about George Soros and other democratic entrepreneurs ‘ effect.
But the studies backing up the “oligarchy” state was  , very uneven and weak , — in reality, most political researchers found that coverage in the US tends to connect strongly with the objectives of the center class. And common problem was vague and scattered — Americans will tell you that their financial program “unfairly favors the strong interests”, but this could mean something, and most Americans , are no concerned , about the prosperity of billionaires.
Yet in the past week, we have witnessed a single wealthy man making important decisions in real time regarding US national government policy. In order for the US federal government to spend money, it has to pass “appropriations” bills. There are always big fights over those bills, so sometimes they just pass a” continuing resolution” to keep spending going.
If the CR doesn’t pass, the government shuts down, and its employees— including the people in the US Military — stop getting paychecks. In a number of instances over the past three decades, the party in charge has threatened to refuse to pass a bill and impose austerity on the government, or worse, to exceed the “debt ceiling,” which prevents the government from borrowing money.
Elon Musk, president Trump’s most significant donor and political ally, and the owner of one of the largest social media networks, had a different take on the most recent CR. Musk , launched an all-out attack , on the resolution:
Musk, who , spent more than US$ 250 million  , getting Trump elected, posted about his opposition to the original spending deal well over 100 times over the past two days, with threats to fund primary challenges to anyone who voted for the plan, which was six weeks in the making.
Any member of the House or Senate who supports this outrageous spending bill should be re-elected in two years! Musk was posted on X on Wednesday afternoon.
Later in the day, Trump himself , came out against it, making it clear the bill was done.
What’s interesting about this is that , everyone , seems to , agree , that it was Musk, not Trump, who torpedoed the CR.  , Fox News reports:
After Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy allegedly engaged in congressional discussions regarding government funding, some House Republicans are privately expressing their anger.
If Elon and Vivek are freelancing and shooting off the hip without working with [President-elect Trump], according to a second GOP lawmaker, they are getting dangerously close to undermining the actual 47th President of the United States.
Overheated rhetoric is common, so we shouldn’t take this as gospel. And it’s also worth noting that Musk , approved , of a modified CR, but that one was torpedoed by conservatives in Congress. Also,  , Musk’s threat , to primary anyone in Congress who voted against the approval of Matt Gaetz wasn’t enough to keep Gaetz from withdrawing. So Musk actually isn’t the all-powerful emperor he’s depicted as in the header image of this post — at least, not yet.
But it’s undeniable that Musk has influence that goes far beyond that of any typical super-rich political influencer. He’s not just the owner of X but its poster-in-chief, who manipulates the platform’s algorithm to , show everyone his own tweets , first and foremost.
Additionally, he is the owner of SpaceX, which the US government largely depends on for its entire space program. And he’s more or less the leader of , a right-wing faction in the tech industry  , that has become a key Republican constituency over the last election cycle.
Therefore, Musk has a lot of extremely powerful tools for directly influencing American policies. He has the authority to threaten to primary any Republican who deviates from his personal goals ( and frequently does ). He has the power to launch right-wing instant mobs on X to attack any Republican who floutes his rules.
He can ( and does ) dump hundreds of millions into elections. He could probably use SpaceX’s government contracts as leverage as well, if he chose. And with Donald Trump, the oldest President ever elected, clearly in his final years, Elon’s energy and activity level frequently make him the ideal stand-in.
It’s clear to both foreign and domestic leaders where the power is in the incoming U.S. regime, but this isn’t just supposition on my part. House Speaker Mike Johnson , called up both Trump and Musk , to try to get a CR passed. And Musk now , regularly accompanies Trump , to his meetings with foreign heads of state. The American public as a whole is now accepting this reality after watching Musk kill the continuing resolution.
What does it mean for the nation to have so much of the government’s power firmly rooted in the hands of a single, unelected private individual? It’s hard to say.
There may be some historical precedents here, as Mark Hanna had a significant influence in the McKinley administration and William Randolph Hearst’s control of the print media terrified politicians over a century ago. Various industrial-age tycoons wielded a lot of influence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fox News was created by Rupert Murdoch. But Musk’s clout may eclipse them all — X is a new kind of media, Trump is a different kind of President, and so on.
Many in the tech sector I know are enthralled by Elon’s authority. But I believe that this is scary for many regular Americans because they won’t be able to trust Elon to do the right thing, as many other tech professionals do. To see this, let’s do a thought exercise: What if Elon were evil?
Imagining” Evil Elon”
In a post back in October, I wrote that America’s future could hinge on whether Elon Musk decides to play the superhero or the supervillain.
Musk’s friends and confidantes expect the former. They probably know him as a reasonable guy — a , Reaganite , conservative who was  , driven to the center-right , by the excesses of wokeness, who loves , free speech , and free enterprise and small government and responsible fiscal and monetary policy and , peace between nations, who wants to bring human civilization to Mars and accelerate tech progress and so on.
Let’s refer to this variation of Elon as” Real Elon.”
However, one might also think of Elon, who lives in the fervent imaginations of his foes. Let us call this” Evil Elon”. Regular people, observing Elon’s actions in the public sphere, can’t always tell the difference between Real Elon and this fantasy supervillain.
Whereas Real Elon opposed the CR because of concerns over government spending and legislative complexity, Evil Elon opposed it because it contained national security provisions that , would have nixed , some of Tesla ‘s , planned investments in China:
Cynics note  that Elon supported’s shorter replacement CR would have actually spent more money than the one Elon killed, with the main difference being that the replacement CR didn’t have restrictions on US investment in China:
Real Elon is a consistent and dedicated ally of the Chinese Communist Party, despite his admiration for individual freedoms and capitalism. When Real Elon calls for Taiwan to become a” special administrative zone” of China, he does it because he likes authoritarian rule and because the Chinese Communist Party has paid him off. Evil Elon does it because he wants to avoid World War 3.
On Ukraine, similar, Real Elon , just wants to end the conflict , and stop more Ukrainians from dying. After all, Russia is strong and determined enough to almost certainly hold onto a piece of Ukraine at the end of the conflict. So why not just trade land for peace and be done with it?
However, Evil Elon, who shares his sympathies with authoritarian rulers in general, wants Putin to succeed. No one is aware of what Elon and Putin discussed in their frequent conversations since 2022. However, Evil Elon’s supporters believe they conspired to smuggle the Russians into the conflict.
Real Elon and Real Elon both accused Vindman of treason and threatened him with” the appropriate penalty” because we all get upset on social media and like to rippling people who criticize us. However, Vindman was right when Evil Elon did it.
When Real Elon , declared his support , for the German far-right party AfD, it was because he saw Germany spinning into , industrial decline , and suffering from an immigration policy that failed to exclude , violent criminals. But Evil Elon did it because he likes that AfD is , vocally pro-Putin , and , pro-CCP.
In fact, believers in Evil Elon suspect that his support for AfD might also be due to the whiff of , Nazi apologia , and , antisemitism , that hang around some of the party’s candidates. Real Elon is a stand-up guy — when he agreed with a tweet about Jewish communities pushing anti-White hatred, he , publicly apologized, declaring it the worst tweet he’s ever done, and declaring himself a “philosemite”. And when Real Elon accidentally endorsed a Tucker Carlson interview with a Hitler apologist, he , quickly deleted the endorsement , once he realized what it actually contained.
However, those who believe in Evil Elon believe that these are just the kind of public relations stunts a supervillain would employ to cover his tracks. They worry that the massive wave of antisemitism that has swept X  since Elon took control is the result of deliberate boosting rather than just the unavoidable result of more indulgent moderation policies combined with the response to the Gaza war. 1 , They do not buy , Real Elon’s protests , that other platforms have even more antisemitism.
And so on. Essentially, Evil Elon is a somewhat cartoonish supervillain, who wants to set himself up as the ruler of one of three great dictatorships, ruling the world with an iron fist alongside his allies Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin — a new , Metternich System , to enshrine right-wing values and crack down on wokeness and progressivism and obstreperous minorities all over the world.
I had Grok draw this new Metternich System for fun, and the end result was pretty good. I feel like I have to share it:
But anyway, the point here is that when normal Americans look at Elon and his words and deeds, they can’t be 100 % certain that he ‘s , not , Evil Elon. A few progressives will be very convinced that he , is , actually evil, but I think most people will simply wonder and be uneasy. Evil Elon will continue to exist in a sort of quantum superposition with Real Elon in their minds — a Schrödinger’s oligarch who will , probably , turn out to have been a good guy all along, but , might , ultimately turn out to have been very bad from day 1.
And that will scare them. In fact, all powerful people have this same property— even some of the people who voted for them didn’t entirely trust Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, and so on.  , Powerful people are simply inherently untrustworthy, because the consequences of misplacing your trust in them are so grave.
There have been checks and balances on these leaders for the majority of modern American history, which means that if they did prove to be bad, there would be plenty of institutions and opponents in place to limit the damage.
So who or what can check Elon’s power?
One flaw of the US political system, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, is that there are few mechanisms in place to restrict the political influence of private actors. This is why some people worry about the U. S. becoming an oligarchy, especially in the years after , Citizens United.
Up until now, I believe those worries have been unfounded because powerful figures like the Kochs, Soros, and Murdoch have, of course, had a hand in politics and some sort of canceled out each other. But in the age of X, SpaceX, and Trump, we may be looking at a very different situation.
Musk is a singular figure because he has already demonstrated himself to be the one who can create large, successful new high-tech manufacturing companies in the United States. He might also prove himself to be the one who can successfully convert a vast fortune and a corporate empire into effective dominance of US politics.
So who or what could balance out Elon’s power? Prior to his primary threats and online assaults, Congress appears prostrate. Trump may have fired and denounced him in 2017 as he did Steve Bannon, but that Trump has long since passed away. This Trump is aging, bedeviled, and abandoned by many of his former allies. Democrats are still dealing with the collapse of 2010s-era progressivism, and in a few days they will control zero branches of the federal government.
It’s possible that a bunch of , other super-rich people , will unite to balance out Musk. Although the idea of needing oligarchs to stop other oligarchs is not particularly appealing, it might be preferable. So far, though, even super-rich people who have had rivalries with Musk in the past , seem inclined to bend the knee , and live as best they can under the new regime.
What about the press? Traditional media — newspapers, TV, and radio — has declined steeply,  , replaced by social media. Musk , owns one of America’s main news platforms , ( and a second one, TikTok, is , effectively controlled by the CCP). Meanwhile, more progressive media outlets still seem to be in a state of paralysis over conflicts with their activist staffers and their subscribers over Gaza, trans issues, and general election-related recriminations.
Ultimately, of course, power resides with the American people. Musk’s power comes from his ownership of capital, but the way he exercises it is fundamentally a , democratic , one — if he’s able to primary Congressional Republicans, it’s because his primary challengers are able to win votes, and if he’s able to start a rage-mob on X, it’s because people like what he says.
This means that if enough people get tired of Musk’s attempts to influence American politics, he’ll lose his influence. X is somewhat influential, but even with Musk’s algorithmic changes, it’s not a mind-control device, and it’s also , 2025″>not actually that widely used. Musk is America’s most successful and successful entrepreneur, but even the most successful of men is powerless if he is turned down by the populace. 2 ,
The fracas over the CR this week have a chance of alienating Musk because the American public has never liked shutdown brinksmanship. If Elon pulls a few more stunts, Trump’s second term could be defined by a protracted backlash against his overreach.
Vox populi, vox dei, as they say.
Notes
1. In reality, I have a third theory that claims that Russian and Chinese bots are the primary culprits of antisemitism in order to wedge American society. Right after the election, I’ve noticed that antisemitism largely vanished. This could have been attributable to an Elon crackdown.
2. I wouldn’t bet on it, though, but a few techlords might one day be able to use AI to rule the world in defiance of the vast majority of humanity.
This , article , was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion , Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion , subscriber , here.