🤔 About Elon Musk becoming a Trump White House adviser ...

Also: A quick Q&A with … Bronwyn Howell on how to think about regulating AI 🤖

For Faster, Please!, the big political news of the week — especially given the continued possibility, even probability maybe, of a second Trump presidency — was a Wall Street Journal exclusive that Tesla/SpaceX/X boss Elon Musk and Trump have discussed a possible advisory role for Musk should Trump win the 2024 presidential election. The role would likely involve Musk providing “formal input and influence over policies related to border security and the economy, both issues on which Musk has grown more vocal,”  according to the WSJ.

What should a pro-progress, Up Wing person think about this possibility? Or, more to the point, what do I think about this possibility?

Let's start with my baseline view of Musk, as expressed in his 2021 Time magazine Person of the Year profile, for which I was interviewed. During that interview, I talked at length about the importance of Tesla and SpaceX — this was a year before the Twitter purchase —  in moving us closer to achieving the energy and space dreams of the postwar techno-optimists and futurists. And here’s the quote that was used in the Time piece:

James Pethokoukis, an economic analyst with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, thinks Musk does have a coherent politics, whether or not he articulates it. “The reason it’s confusing is it’s not on the traditional left-right spectrum,” he says. “It is a politics of progress.” At a time when segments of the right and left alike champion protectionist populism — from Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s hostility to free trade to Bernie Sanders’ redistributionism — this puts Musk at odds with both. “It is a view that says the solution to man’s problems is growth and technological progress and maximizing human potential,” Pethokoukis says. “It’s not a view fully represented by either side in this country.”

I still think my description from 2021 is basically correct. Techno-solutionism is the driving force of Musk’s worldview.