Know Your Enemy17 Mars 2025

Becoming Elon Musk, Part One

If there's ever been a Know Your Enemy subject worthy of two episodes, it is Elon Musk—currently the world's richest man, CEO and leader of several pathbreaking companies, ringleader of the Department of Government Efficiency, and (for now) Donald Trump's co-president. In other words, to understand what's happening in the United States during the second Trump administration, it's essential to understand Musk: what shaped him, his enduring preoccupations and personality traits, how he made his vast fortune, and why, in unprecedented ways, he decided to go all in on Trump.

To explore the life and times of Musk, Matt and Sam read several biographies, along with the best reporting on him and his activities (especially of late). In this first episode, they offer a close reading of Musk's childhood in South Africa and the people, and traumas, that shaped him; his discovery of science fiction and teenage fixations on computers, video games, and space exploration; his escape to Canada to attend college and eventual arrival in the United States; and his early years in Silicon Valley and the businesses that first made him very rich.

As mentioned: Join Matt and Sam and Jamelle Bouie at Dissent magazine’s fundraiser on April 8 in New York!

Sources:

Kate Conger & Ryan Mac, Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter (2024)

Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (2015)

Joshua Benton, "Musk’s Anti-Semitic, Apartheid-Loving Grandfather," The Atlantic, Sept 30, 2023

Henry Farrell, "Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions," Bloomberg, Feb 21, 2025

Tony Tulathimutte, Rejection (2024)

Kase Wickhman, "Elon Musk Has Yet Another Child, According to the Mother of That Baby," Vanity Fair, Feb 18, 2025

Favour Adegoke, "Elon Musk's Trans Daughter Rips Dad For Allegedly Using Sex-Selective IVF For Her: 'I Was Going Against The Product'," Yahoo News, March 11, 2024

Jesse's podcast: Tech Talk.

...and don't forget to subscribe to Know Your Enemy on Patreon to access to all of our bonus episodes!

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(266)

The Seven Year Anniversary Mailbag Episode

Not only was May 6th the seven-year anniversary of Know Your Enemy, an occasion to celebrate your support of our work, but it's been nearly a year since we last opened the mailbag and answered listene...

11 Maj 1h 16min

Reasons To Believe [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. REMINDER: COME SEE KYE x MIKE DUNCAN LIVE IN NYC Given the string of recent episodes that, in various ways, grap...

4 Maj 4min

Peter Thiel and the Antichrist

Over the course of the past year, Peter Thiel—the Trump backing, Vance boosting gay tech billionaire—has been delivering a series of lectures on the Antichrist, using an examination of the Biblical an...

27 Apr 1h 30min

The Pope and the President [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Once more we take up religion and politics, this time a conversation about President Donald Trump's attacks on P...

17 Apr 4min

The Bund: Fighting Fascism, Fighting Zionism (w/ Molly Crabapple)

In 1897, a small group of Jewish Marxists on the outskirts of the Russian empire founded the General Jewish Labour Bund. The Bundists were revolutionary socialists, unapologetic internationalists, cha...

10 Apr 1h 25min

Misogyny, MAGA-style [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. Last month, our very own Sam Adler-Bell published a deeply reported article in New York magazine about "the wome...

1 Apr 5min

From Neocon to Never-Trump (w/ Bill Kristol)

There’s perhaps no living person who better embodies the themes, contradictions, ethos, and pathos of “Know Your Enemy” than William Kristol, this week’s guest. Today, Kristol is editor-at-large of Th...

23 Mars 1h 10min

James Talarico and the Politics of Progressive Christianity [Teaser]

Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy. In this episode, we shift our attention from the Trump administration to the winner of the Democratic primary fo...

16 Mars 4min