Antonio Navalón
I confess that one of the things that have surprised me most about this 21st century has been that the rich, the really rich; the ones who make the Wall Street index move; who suddenly went from dreaming in a garage or their basement, none of them – except the great Steve Jobs – have sought to establish an ideology or share any political program. This is the first time in history that their interest and ideologies will not only make them more prosperous but are thoughts and ways of acting that they share only with themselves. These characters are willing to sell their mother and father for their own profit.
Henry Ford was a man who, in the 20th century, changed the world’s landscape by inventing the automobile, which became an element of modernity and industrial transformation. The famous Model T, created in 1908, completely transformed how people moved and marked a new era in humanity. Ford – who some at the time also regarded as the “American friend of the Nazis” – witnessed Charles Lindbergh’s feat in 1927 when the airplane “The Spirit of St. Louis” became the first vehicle to cross the Atlantic. Departing from Long Island’s Roosevelt Airfield and landing at Le Bourget Airport just outside Paris, this event was the beginning of what we see as normal today but was unimaginable at the time. However, the most striking aspect of the situation was that years after the end of the First World War and in the run-up to Hitler’s rise to power, this milestone allowed the connection between America and Europe.
Throughout history, various political, business, and financial leaders have promoted historical changes, some for the benefit of society and others for their own benefit. In this sense, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last American President who truly looked after the interests of the nation over which he presided. Roosevelt was a leader who, during one of the darkest times in history, World War II, managed to separate his interests and of those around him and put the welfare of his country first. Today, we have different conceptions and examples of leadership.
Elon Reeve Musk is the new leader of the world. The entrepreneur who owns Tesla, most recently Twitter, and many other companies, is not only not American by birth, he was not even born in any of the areas of American dominance. Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa; he was and is a man truly outside any classification. He is also a man who lives with the stars and dreams of earthly powers. He is the only one who has managed – through a service contract – to do what institutions like NASA no longer dare to do and to break human expectations. From a transcendental point of view, it is very important to see and analyze all that he has achieved. He believes and is the author of the theory that the world will change the day when rockets will be able – which is already possible today thanks to his company Space X – to go to and from space without any problem.
Some think Elon Musk will end up like Howard Hughes, the character he might resemble most. The American billionaire invested much of his fortune in exploring and promoting advances in the aeronautics sector. Some of his achievements included innovative designs in aircraft construction, such as the Hughes H-1 and the Hughes H-4 Hercules, setting air speed records, and producing films on the subject that changed people’s perspectives. Hughes is the character who most resembles those who have a distinctive stamp on the figure of Elon Musk. However, Musk is the only one who has dared – regardless of the cost, as he does not care about the money of this earthly world – to break the barriers of the imaginable and mark the beginning of a revolution that, let’s face it, is only just beginning.
As if we didn’t have enough with Tesla, with driverless cars, or with everything he has done – which is a lot – now Elon Musk has decided to go into and explore the forest of freedom of expression. And he has done so by buying not only Twitter, never mind lining the pockets of Jack Dorsey and the other founders, but by changing the way social networks are constituted radically. After buying the company, the first thing he did was to fire four of Twitter’s top executives, including Parag Agrawal, who was the company’s CEO. He paid forty-four billion dollars for the bluebird company and for creating Twitter from a spontaneous expression by its users to a business that served to exchange a “like” for a vote. And this would serve as a tool to reorganize the global communications structure.
The most exciting thing about Elon Musk is Elon Musk. Neither Tesla nor Space X nor Twitter nor anything he has done here represents the end of a path; instead, it marks the continuity of a way of thinking and acting. If one thinks about Mexico, it is not very difficult to guess why Musk visited Governor Samuel García and his government team in Nuevo León. What does Musk want and seek? After the inauguration of the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, the businessman wants to consolidate himself as an automotive player different from all the others that currently exist. Knowing Mexico’s importance in this industry, his maneuver can be described as audacious.
Musk is not an American, nor does he think like one. He is a man who, let’s not forget, whatever he does on Earth will be irrelevant compared to what he really cares about, which is the kingdom of heaven, infinite space. In this sense, it is necessary to know that once Twitter is instituted as the kind of business, he intends to establish, all others will follow. And at the end of that, the question is, from here on, what role will social networks play in defining and electing the President of Mexico and other countries? Because with Elon Musk, an era of romanticism and adventure died and an age of business began, which will have a completely different relevance and importance to the current one when it is consolidated and launched. And don’t forget… a “like” is not a vote.
If a “like” is not a vote, we must not forget that neither you nor I, nor anyone else who writes from the heart and expresses what they feel through a platform, must be aware that the right to freedom of expression already has a cost, even if it is for some. Musk intends to charge eight dollars a month to have a verified Twitter account. How many will be willing to pay for their freedom of expression?
But at the end of the day, Twitter is just another part of Elon Musk’s plan to break all kinds of schemes. Wittingly or unwittingly, the tycoon is doing something very important. What happens with social networks has an extraordinary relevance for the modern economy but, above all, for politics and the spirit of democracy. We live in a world of networks; for some, blessed, and for others, cursed social networks. In any case, the world has been altered and different since the bluebird flew into the world of communications or since one truly exists from the moment one creates one’s Facebook account.
Elon Musk can charge twenty, eight or however many dollars he wants to have a verified Twitter account, but it is essential to know that when you really get rich, you don’t use your own money; you use other people’s money. The fact is that this is the first investment that can have a direct bearing – for better or worse – on the future of politics. I understand Musk’s decision to return Donald Trump’s account; I don’t know whether it will stop there or what will happen next. We will soon see if Donald Trump has received the best gift with the arrival of Musk.
In any case, the transformation process both internally – with the massive layoffs he has planned – and externally, Musk has radically changed the way of doing things and, above all, the way of doing business. What is essential is to know what Mr. Musk wants because we already know that – as if it were a James Bond film – the tycoon is looking for the conquest of the skies; it is not enough for him to conquer the Earth. Whatever his final project may be, Elon Musk has already embarked on a path that can really make a qualitative leap in social and political behavior.
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