Muskism's Human-As-Code Ideology Invites Resistance

Most critiques of Elon Musk focus on his erratic behavior or wealth. Quinn Slobodian, co-author of Muskism, says that framing misses a more serious issue. Musk is the culmination of a system where government and technology have merged without the social contract that stabilized earlier industrial capitalism. The hidden consequence is not just inequality, but a worldview that reclassifies human beings as bugs, viruses, or non-player characters in a programmable system. Seeing this clearly reveals the vulnerabilities of Muskism: it depends entirely on winning consent from a population it treats as code. And with visibility comes the possibility of resistance.

The empire the state built

"If you look at two of his biggest companies... they both step in to serve a specific state need at a certain specific moment."

-- Quinn Slobodian

The founding myth of Silicon Valley is that Musk built SpaceX and Tesla through sheer genius and risk-taking. Slobodian traces a different origin: SpaceX was born from Rumsfeld's post-9/11 vision of network-centric warfare, and Tesla from Obama's green industrial policy. The state provided the initial market, the defense contracts, the life-saving loans. But here is the part that is often overlooked. While Fordism required a quid pro quo (unions, wages, social stability), Muskism does not. The government de-risked the empire and got lower launch costs and electric vehicles in return. What it did not get is any say in how those companies treat workers, or national security guarantees against whims. The immediate benefit of cheaper access to space and EVs feels productive. The downstream effect is an asymmetrical dependency. When Musk decided Ukraine could not use Starlink for a Crimea offensive, he simply turned it off. That is the hidden cost: private control of public infrastructure, with no lever to enforce accountability. Over time, this model creates a single point of failure, a techno-king who can unilaterally reshape national security, communications, and energy.

What happens when you forget the users

Fordism had "revolution insurance." Henry Ford recognized that if you want to avoid having your factory burned down, you meet the working class halfway. Recognition of unions, rising wages, cradle-to-grave employment: it was not altruism, it was a pragmatic settlement. Muskism does none of this. Tesla's gigafactory in Berlin is the only auto plant in Germany without a collective bargaining agreement. Sweden is in its longest labor action in history because Tesla refuses to negotiate. The worker has been forgotten.

"The reason why they might be worried is because their thin view of human nature and politics is actually incorrect. And actually you do need to respond to people's everyday lives, their needs."

-- Quinn Slobodian

This is not just a moral failing, it is a systemic vulnerability. Slobodian argues that the Silicon Valley class overestimated how supine the population would be. When DOGE actually tried to cut Social Security and Medicaid, people filled town halls in anger. The AI push accelerated the backlash: building Manhattan-sized data centers to create the "machine God" that will put people out of work permanently is, as Slobodian notes, an insane way to communicate with the public. The immediate shock and awe of DOGE felt decisive. What it generated, over the following months, was a grassroots resistance that no political party has yet harnessed. The tech titans assumed society could be reformatted like software. It turns out human beings do not work that way.

The programmer becomes the king

This is where the ideology gets dark. Musk sees the world through a computational lens: society is an operating system, people are either programmers or users or NPCs. He is certain we are living in a simulation. He talks about "bugs," "viruses," and "vampires" that need to be removed. His X.com platform is designed to create a closed feedback loop where only his most dogmatic talking points can survive.

"He wants to create a communications ecosystem in which only those most dogmatic kind of provedal like talking points can be repeated back to him."

-- Quinn Slobodian

The mechanism for this power is a hack of corporate governance. Silicon Valley companies go public with dual-class stock that gives founders 10x to 20x the voting power of ordinary shareholders. Musk will hold 85% of the votes needed to remain head of SpaceX after its IPO. This combines the capitalization of public markets with the total control of a private firm. No shareholder can dislodge him. Then campaign finance law lets him pour unlimited money into politics. The great man of history, rejected by decades of social history, comes roaring back because we designed the system to allow it. The consequence is a merger of wealth, political power, and information control unseen since the Gilded Age. But Slobodian points out that this concentration contains its own counter-force: the same network technologies that enabled horizontal communication in the 2020 protests (Black Lives Matter, #MeToo) can be turned against the programming class. The fight now is over who gets to define reality.

Key action items

• Demand public equity stakes in large AI companies as a condition of government contracts and subsidies. This pays off in 12 to 18 months as a way to socialize returns without nationalizing operations.
• Over the next quarter, organize around data center siting regulations. Polling shows Americans broadly oppose having them imposed locally. This is a rare area of agreement.
• Push for restoration of shareholder democracy provisions at state level. Delaware's loss of SpaceX to Texas is a warning; new laws should prevent dual-class structures from evading accountability.
• Immediately diversify state pension fund investments out of the top tech monopolies. This reduces dependency and creates political leverage.
• Support grassroots coalitions that bridge left and right on tech accountability. The resistance to AI overreach is broader than partisan lines.
• In the next 6 months, pressure the SEC to enforce existing rules on corporate political spending transparency. The flow of money from tech oligarchs to candidates is currently opaque.
• Recognize that the long-term play is building alternative infrastructure, as the EU is attempting with satellites and open-source software. This is a 3 to 5 year horizon, but it is the only real insulation from "techno-king" control.