I’ve been hearing about Starlink Mobile. From Big Wireless stocks tanking to one of my mom’s stocks (American Tower) rising.
But while I don’t go on LinkedIn often, I heard criticism there about how Elon Musk is going to support Starlink Mobile.
This made me think, Elon Musk isn’t actually a good engineer or CEO. He makes Carly Fiorina who wrecked HP look good. Elon Musk is a good influencer, combined with lobbying power. Yes, Fiorina tried in politics, but failed big time.
Elon Musk’s products are terrible. For instance:
- Tesla makes unreliable cars
- SpaceX has defective rockets
- Starlink, while innovative, has no real customer service, just a Grok chatbot
- When X was Twitter, press inquiries got a poop emoji
But what Elon Musk is good at is maintaining a following and pushing his views.
Unlike traditional influencers such as MrBeast, Charli D’Amelio, or whoever is trending on TikTok (I don’t keep track) Musk owns a platform: X (formerly Twitter).
Even before he bought Twitter, he used it to hype his businesses. How did Tesla or Starlink get hype? Elon Musk.
Elon Musk goes further. He is one of the most effective lobbyists. For instance:
- SpaceX has major government contracts
- He got Donald Trump and Republicans elected in 2024
- He ran DOGE to do mass layoffs of any agency “regulating” and “investigating” his businesses
How does he lobby? Instead of influencing politicians via lobbying firms (although he does this too), he influences X users in favor of right-wing politics by the algorithm. Then if it goes well for Musk, they vote for the GOP.
In fact, when I set up an X account for my small business Fourplex, I got conservative content by the algorithm. I had to follow a whole bunch of liberals to not get right-wing propaganda.
Basically, if you aren’t a visible Bernie, AOC or Mamdani fan to X, you get conservative posts. My old X account (before I canned it) had left-wing posts since I was following left-wing accounts.
The political influencer can also apply to others, like:
- Donald Trump, who got elected twice, has deep MAGA fans despite his general unpopularity, and used Twitter and now his own Truth Social as a megaphone.
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who while progressive, not rich and doesn’t own a platform has a massive following and is basically a celebrity.
There are also many others.
Don’t get me wrong, as a progressive I want an AOC presidency as much as the next leftie.
But going back, in today’s world, having a successful business or political career is no longer about just being good at your craft. It’s about being a good influencer who gets 500K likes on TikTok or X.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump mastered social media, so they dominate politics. Maybe unless Democrats sweep Congress come November 3, 2026. And even after that, if you want to be president or big in politics (Musk, AOC, etc.), you need to be an influencer.
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