One of the most stubborn misunderstandings about Elon Musk—who has become the world’s first billionaire—is that he is a libertarian. In fact, despite the frequent embellishments of Milton Friedman or Thomas Sowell memes, Musk has never subscribed to the basic principles of freedom. Its main goal is not individual freedom. It is about the achievement of the goals of civilization, to which the energy and wealth of everyone needs to be deployed. His attitude towards the government has never been one of rejection, but rather – as we saw in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – a desire to radically reform it to better suit his goals and make his own services indispensable.
Indeed, from Musk’s beginnings onwards, he has relied on the government for support, subsidies, and requirements. This was clear from his first venture Zip2, a city directory service that relied on free data from a GPS constellation that had just been completed by the military. PayPal, the source of its first fortune, was only profitable because it moved money between consumer accounts covered by federal deposit insurance. Even as an intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Musk encouraged his boss to invest in Brady bonds—Latin American debt backed by U.S. Treasury securities—reminding him that they were “backed by Uncle Sam.”
One of the most stubborn misunderstandings about Elon Musk—who has become the world’s first billionaire—is that he is a libertarian. In fact, despite the frequent embellishments of Milton Friedman or Thomas Sowell memes, Musk has never subscribed to the basic principles of freedom. Its main goal is not individual freedom. It is about the achievement of the goals of civilization, to which the energy and wealth of everyone needs to be deployed. His attitude towards the government has never been one of rejection, but rather – as we saw in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – a desire to radically reform it to better suit his goals and make his own services indispensable.
Indeed, from Musk’s beginnings onwards, he has relied on the government for support, subsidies, and requirements. This was clear from his first venture Zip2, a city directory service that relied on free data from a GPS constellation that had just been completed by the military. PayPal, the source of its first fortune, was only profitable because it moved money between consumer accounts covered by federal deposit insurance. Even as an intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Musk encouraged his boss to invest in Brady bonds—Latin American debt backed by U.S. Treasury securities—reminding him that they were “backed by Uncle Sam.”
But the most obvious connection between Musk and the US government has always been SpaceX, the company he founded in 2002, which went public today as the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. It came after a change in US strategy known as the Rumsfeld Doctrine, which saw the old bureaucracy of the US Department of Defense as an enemy that survived the Cold War and needed to be replaced by reformed and disruptive practices from Silicon Valley. The “cyber-based warfare” that characterized the global war on terror relied on small, easily deployed satellites to coordinate mobile special forces and guide bullets to their targets. Musk’s SpaceX was at the top of the rocket field, and became a key provider of putting those satellites into orbit. Musk had to sue the government in 2014 to defeat the legacy provider but only so he could embed his business more deeply within the government apparatus. Palantir used the same logic in 2016.
In its early years, SpaceX relied almost exclusively on government contracts. Over time, that reliance decreased relative to the overall business, especially after the launch of the Starlink satellite internet service in 2020. There are now nearly 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, accounting for more than 70 percent of all satellites in space. This division of SpaceX has been very profitable, boasting 12 million members and generating the conglomerate’s only profit last year. In contrast, the rocket launch business, although successful, remained very expensive, resulting in an operating loss of $657 million. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s artificial intelligence unit—which includes xAI, the creator of Grok—burned even faster, losing more than $6 billion.
Where do Musk and SpaceX stand now in terms of their dependence on the government? The fact that Musk is so closely identified with MAGA poses a serious risk to his business. The choice of favoritism versus ingenuity is consistent with what was the most effective part of Musk’s business model until a few years ago. When Musk built a Giga Factory in Shanghai and another in Brandenburg, he was able to serve the needs of China and Germany without his own politics interfering too much.
We describe this phenomenon in our book as “liberty as a service”: increasing the power of the state through technological means in a way that builds the dependence of individual technology oligarchs but also increases the potential of its clients. Now that Musk is in the spotlight with MAGA, his political identity could undermine his status as a military contractor in three ways.
The first is domestic. Although Musk has received almost 7 billion dollars in contracts from the Trump administration already in 2026, making SpaceX the main supplier of the Golden Dome missile defense project, a change of government – either in the next mid-term or the next presidential election – could make those contracts the targets of competitive bidding. Musk gained notoriety through his plan to destroy DOGE in 2025 and has only partially offset the decline in demand for Tesla through his robotics and AI pivot. It would be an easy move for the Democratic nominee to use attacks on Musk as a way to rally support. Once in office, a Democratic president could end Musk’s contracts or transfer them to one of his competitors.
Outside the United States, Musk’s relationship with Trump has made other countries worried as well. One of the biggest markets that Starlink has not been able to enter, despite Musk’s best efforts, is India. This week, India indicated that it would extend the approval process because of the use of Starlink technology in the US-Israeli attack on Iran, a war that is seen in India as reckless and unnecessary. The war has serious consequences for the cost of living for ordinary Indians, many of whom are heavily dependent on imported oil and energy. . If Musk is OK with MAGA, then he also takes the blame for MAGA’s security failures.
A third danger is Musk’s polemical and militant enthusiasm for Europe’s most extreme right-wing groups. For the past year and a half, Musk has been gambling, either consciously or unconsciously, that he can use his 240 million followers on X, as well as his celebrity and wealth, to influence politics outside the United States toward his candidates. Those candidates, in almost every case, sit on the right side of the political spectrum. Musk has adopted slogans on immigration that, until recently, were considered extreme even by members of Alternative for Germany. Last week, he responded to a shocking post that read: “If I ever get beheaded by an African/Please make my killing political/Please use it to push the rightist agenda/Please start a Reconquista.” Musk posted two fire emojis and one word: “Okay.”
Musk has been very active in his attempts to stir up right-wing unrest in the UK, such as calls for early riots during the anti-government campaign in late 2025 and the promotion of racist stories surrounding violent crime in the UK. This intervention has led public figures and analysts to tell Musk, once again, to distance himself from the politics of the country where he does not live.
Surprisingly or not, this intervention has not yet resulted in the commercial exclusion of Musk’s products. Tesla was recently granted a license to start supplying electricity to British homes. But after six months or a year of such behavior, it is highly likely that his actions will become a liability rather than an asset. In addition, figures such as Nigel Farage and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have increasingly put Musk at arm’s length because the South African-born American billionaire’s reliance on him could affect one’s commitment to national self-governance. Here too, Musk’s fandom could undermine his credibility as a foreign and domestic government contractor.
What’s behind all this, however, is a point Musk made to his boss as an intern: the benefits of Uncle Sam’s backing. When SpaceX goes public, it will immediately be among the 10 largest companies in the world, joining Musk’s other company, Tesla. The failure of both companies could create not only a huge hole in the stock market, but also a downward effect on investor confidence in the technology sector as a whole. By pretending to be too big to fail, Musk has made it more likely that the US government would bail him out if needed. The price of it and the SpaceX IPO is that a more complete integration with Uncle Sam is enough to outweigh all other risks arising from his increasingly different behavior and business decisions. America’s status as a global hegemon may not be as unchallenged as it once was, but its government’s willingness to bow unconditionally to jeopardize the ventures of its corporate giants remains unprecedented.
