If Elon Musk is ever told to stop what he’s doing, will he comply?

This enormous wealth is the result of both corporate acumen, an appetite for taking extreme risks with the businesses he has owned over the last 30 years, and – as with all such stories – a bit of luck.

If you’re someone who uses X, formerly Twitter, you can’t help but know who Musk is because he insists you do – his posts to his 200 million followers are constantly tricked by the algorithm to reach as many eyeballs as possible. possible.

The way up the ladder when it comes to the social media ward poll.

Nevertheless, its user base should not be sniffed at.

But if you’re an Xer and of a moderate disposition, the 53-year-old Musk’s behavior may be difficult to reconcile with his image as a brilliant business prodigy.

For starters, X is worth less than half the $40 billion Musk paid for it in October 2022.

His relentlessly objectionable views presented in his X posts are a collection of right-wing talking points, from conspiracies to outright anti-Semitism to his widely publicized love for US presidential candidate Donald Trump.

This behavior, and Musk’s liberal approach to fascist content published on the site, caused advertisers to abandon X en masse (to which Musk infamously replied to said advertisers in November 2023: “Fuck you”) and fueled the company – never the most profitable of the original generation to begin with social media giants – to the edge.

It also irrevocably changed Musk’s public image from a genius, quirky billionaire, pioneer of futuristic technology, to a crazy rich kid with little or no sense of humor and too much free time.

But there are two sides to his admiration for X – amidst the endless madness, you’ll occasionally see something decidedly more sober, usually involving other companies that made him famous – electric car pioneers Tesla and private spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, the first non-state-sponsored entity, which reached near-Earth orbit in a rocket-powered vehicle, the declared goal of which is to eventually establish a colony on Mars.

Last week, for example, he announced his plans to offer travel to Mars to anyone who wants it, stating that “multiplanetary life ensures the long-term survival of life,” something he has repeatedly said online.

SpaceX more powerful than American NASA

Currently, SpaceX is probably more powerful than the American NASA – a fact emphasized by the US space administration last month asking Musk’s company to provide a ride home from the International Space Station early next year to American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams after the Boeing Starliner they were traveling in for the roundtrip was deemed too risky to get home.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has a subsidiary called Starlink, which you may have heard of; it is essentially a next-generation internet service provider, powered by the coverage provided by more than 7,000 satellites floating above the Earth.

If that number seems huge, that’s because it is – as Musk himself tweeted that since launching its first rocket in 2019, Starlink now covers over two-thirds of existing satellites in orbit, with coverage spanning over 100 countries and territories , including Ireland.

Ultimately, the company’s ambitious plan is to launch over 42,000 such machines to provide network coverage across the planet and provide Internet access to people living anywhere on Earth.

The strength of the network in its current form is best summed up by two recent events.

The first occurred in February 2022, when Ukraine asked SpaceX to activate Starlink across the country to replace national internet services that were devastated by Russia’s invasion and the start of the still-ongoing conflict between the two countries.

Starlink operated and continues to do so, initially at its own expense, although the costs are now covered by the US Department of Defense under a contract with SpaceX.

More controversially, Musk rejected Ukraine’s request to extend Starlink’s coverage to the Crimea area of ​​Ukraine during the Russian offensive, on the grounds that Starlink was never intended for military purposes.

However, the point remained – at that time, Ukraine desperately needed Musk. He didn’t need Ukraine.

The second, more recent development concerns Musk’s ongoing legal battles in Brazil. These conflicts stemmed from X’s refusal to ban a number of far-right accounts in the country, even though the state Supreme Court ordered it.

Matters came to a head when Musk refused to appoint a legal representative for the social network in the country, leading to a complete ban on X in Brazil.

At least that’s how it should be. Instead, Musk’s initial response was to provide access to X to any Brazilian citizen who wanted it via Starlink, which he eventually changed.

The point is that whether Musk is anyone’s favorite or not, the power he wields is enormous and undeniable, perhaps greater than any private individual in the history of the world.

As the man himself wrote on Twitter in April 2023:

Between Tesla, Starlink, and Twitter, I can have more real-time global economic data in one head than anyone else.

Certainly historically, most shadowy business figures who wanted to advance their interests around the world tended to do so quietly.

That’s not the case with Musk, who is open about what he does and seems perpetually addicted to the ego boost his companies provide.

But perhaps the fame of the South African escapades will eventually come back to bite him.

Following the recent launch of the 7,000th Starlink satellite, US Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appeared to suggest that antitrust issues may play a role in SpaceX’s dominance of the private space industry.

“Any telecommunications market that is competitive is stronger — we are seeing lower prices and more innovation, and frankly, space should be no exception,” Rosenworcel told U.S. government technology publication Fedscoop.

“We have one player that has almost two-thirds of the satellites currently in space and has very high internet traffic,” she said.

“In my opinion, our economy does not benefit from monopolies, so we need to invite many more space actors into many more companies that can develop constellations and innovations in space.”

While Starlink is never specifically mentioned, the implications are quite clear – after all, state power may try to stop Elon.

This may go some way to explaining Musk’s notorious distaste for “bureaucratic red tape” and his enthusiasm for Trump – a man who seems to like bureaucracy even less and who has campaigned on pledges to deregulate every industry he can.

But what would happen if the US federal government took action to force Musk to clean up?

Perhaps the best indicator is a man’s own actions. Musk doesn’t mind making outrageous claims or picking fights, especially with governments.

Although many of his outlandish claims have not come to fruition, Musk’s appetite for battles with national administrations seems limitless.

Some of these skirmishes are escalating into conflicts over free speech, such as Musk’s condemnation of France following the arrest last month of the CEO of notoriously unregulated messaging service Telegram, Pavel Durov.

Others contain darker elements, such as Musk’s tweet stating that Leo Varadkar “hates the Irish” at the height of Dublin’s November 2023 powder keg riots, or more recently when he suggested that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK Britain when the country was plunged into crisis. the race riots that occurred last July after the murders of three young children in Southport.

These words have an effect – like anything that is drilled into the brains of 200 million people.

During his latest legal troubles in Brazil, Musk finally complied with the said court order, finally appointing a legal representative in the country as requested and blocking far-right accounts, which began the impasse.

Although Brazil has indeed had a major impact – there are 21 million X users in the country.

He recently deleted a tweet questioning why no one seemed to be trying to kill Joe Biden or Kamala Harris after two separate attempts on Donald Trump’s life, pointing out that some of the statements were too extreme even for Elon Musk.

So we know that he is capable of both occasional self-censorship and withdrawal.

The question is: as his power grows and entire countries become more and more dependent on his companies and their technology – if Musk is finally told to stop what he’s doing, will he comply?