Antonio Navalón
Amid so many things happening around the world, one of the new facts that characterize the times we live in is how the rich are, how they behave, what their curiosities and interests are, and, among them, the richest of all: Elon Musk. While the October 7 massacre and the thousands of deaths in the Gaza Strip are still fresh, the South African tycoon visited the place where the barbarism was unleashed. Musk is a unique, wealthy man. For starters, he is the only rich person – from my point of view and perception – since the old oil and gold pioneers, who has a history of constantly having personal contact and fighting with his partners.
Even though the whole world is the same and tends to unify because of the impact of the cultures we live in, it must be recognized that Musk is still unlike any leader in the world, just like his home country – South Africa. South Africa is not only the most developed, unique, and white of the African continent, but it is also a country where pioneering strength and personal struggle have marked some of the most essential points in its recent history. It should not be forgotten that South Africans dared and rose against the English empire. It should also be taken into consideration that South Africans lived – to the last consequence – the policy of racial segregation.
Apartheid was much more than a temporary movement; it was a way of living from the most profound conviction that the black-and-white worlds that coexisted in South Africa could only live with precise regulation on who had the preference. Hence, Nelson Mandela and Madiba have been so important in modern history. To begin with, Nelson Mandela was the first to get his people and those who were against his own, de Klerk’s people, to understand each other and to know that the only way for peace and stability to reign in the land was by breaking the trend of confrontation and segregation. Amidst all that, Elon Musk was born a one-of-a-kind character.
I don’t think Henry Ford cared much about who was getting into or buying his Ford T. However, I believe the American businessman understood that the economic might he built on the first family utility vehicle in human history was a way to change world history. That said, we could all know, to some extent, Ford’s interests and ambitions, but what does Musk honestly care about? Seeing him at the primary focal points of his recent personal residence in Texas is impressive. He has been seen visiting the borderlands to see firsthand the immigration situation, which directly impacts the area where he resides, pays his taxes, and pursues his most extraordinary adventures.
Musk does not live by theories or reading what is published in the press. He likes to smell the battles and be on the front lines where the world’s major conflicts are raging. Elon Musk wants to gather as much information as possible to determine whether the world in which he cohabits with more than eight billion human beings is worth saving. That is why it is vital to keep track of him, see what he is doing, and try to figure out the relationship of his actions with his various action plans.
Musk’s visit to Israel and the Gaza Strip is much more important than it seems. Except for Joe Biden’s visit – which is not comparable because of different elements ranging from the position held by each to the interests in the area – or the visit made by the current president-in-turn of the Council of the European Union and of the government of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, no one else has paid an official visit to Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is not only that Elon Musk is much more provocative than Sánchez, but also that his provocations are always based on an issue that is still not entirely clear. And it is that if the South African tycoon did not mind losing more than 44 billion dollars for the purchase of Twitter (now “X”) nor the fact that the company has been increasingly detrimental since its acquisition, it gives the assumption that his true interests and ambitions do not lie in earthly pleasures or trifles.
Elon Musk’s realm is not of this world. He, who focuses on going through life and making decisions as if it were a kind of video game in which he is the clear protagonist, wants to have a clear idea and battle about why it is necessary to move to Mars. In other words, he seeks to explain why the planet Earth, with its limitations and inhabitants, is either not worth saving or has no salvation. For this, Musk needs – as he has always done in all his activities – to invest or buy the technology and get involved to such a degree that he can influence the technological structure as never before.
Undoubtedly, Elon Musk is a unique character. How much does he care about money? Not much, I’m afraid. How much does he care about power? If it’s the earthly kind that can be bought with paper money, business deals, or missiles, I doubt he cares much about it. What drives and motivates Musk in his actions? Undoubtedly, one of his main drivers is establishing and having a program that will allow him to ensure the salvation of the human race on planet Earth. Perhaps that is why he is searching and trying to understand the elements of collective destruction under which we live.
Is Tesla planning to build a factory in Palestine? No. Is Elon Musk looking to make inroads in the increasingly competitive and irrelevant to him arms world? No, he isn’t. His life is a kind of video game in that what might have one justification or meaning for us has an entirely different one for him. From all this, what is essential to know is what he intends to do from here or, in other words, to determine what will be the consequence of anti-Semitism of his visit to Israel. Equally important is to decipher who he will support in the following US elections, what he intends to do with the important Jewish lobby established in Washington, and what he is genuinely concerned about and trying to understand all that is happening today. In the meantime, he will continue to develop his rockets from Corpus Christi; some will go off, and some will explode.
What matters most to me about Musk, and what should matter most to all of us, is what he wants or seeks to understand. Make no mistake; for him to make or not make a Gigafactory in one country or another is irrelevant. He strives to escape the terrestrial cloister, looking for life in space. And to get there, the first thing to understand is the highly refined and advanced capacity of human self-destruction.
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