Episode 3: Heilon Musk, Suckerberg and other "geniuses"
Let's get straight to the point about Heilon Musk's gesture at Trump's inauguration. Nazi salute? Not a Nazi salute? I have my opinion (IT IS a Nazi salute), everyone has theirs, you have yours... Great! But we don't give a fuck, we don't care, we don't give a flying fuck!
Our opinions don't matter. None at all!
What's importantare all those leaders of neo-fascist groups and militias, in the US and elsewhere, who have been congratulating themselves on this gesture. As far as they're concerned, there's no doubt about it, they've understood. The message has been sent, loud and clear: “Your ideas are in da place! So, while we can quibble over the posts, coms and memes on the networks, the fact remains: with one gesture, Musk has rallied every neo-fascist group on the planet.
What's importantis that we've been spinning our wheels on the subject for days, while OrangeMan has been signing over a hundred measures, of which little has been said, apart from five or six, which were so inaudible that the Muskien din took up all the media space. Did you say diversion? Since then, we've begun to realize the extent and consequences.
What's importantis that, in 2024, such a gesture could be perpetrated behind the U.S. presidential lectern and broadcast worldwide on the very day of the inauguration. Then, that so many political and financial leaders came to his rescue, each with a more pathetic argument than the other. Some because they don't want to alienate their sponsor, others because they'd rather pretend they didn't see it. And I'm not even talking about the international cohort of idiots who have rushed to justify, excuse and play down this despicable act. Do they all have shit in the eyes or what?
What's importantis that this gesture comes in a context, built up by Musk himself over several months. By supporting Trump to the tune of millions, by organizing his little lottery for the well-voters in the swing states, by trumpeting that the AFD in Germany or Farage in England are the only ones who can “save” their respective countries. By loudly expressing his transphobia, his white natalism, his contempt for administrations and states. By advocating a kind of eugenics through AI that can calculate and prevent risks even before a woman becomes pregnant. By militating for the advent of a superior man, a superman, connected to AI by chips implanted in his brain. (Neuralink). Time to wake up! All he's missing at this point is a moustache and a small lock of hair! I'm not the one saying it, he is!
Heilon the nuisance
This guy is as dangerous as Trump in his own way, because he's young, billionaire rich and has his own planetary megaphone. In recent days, we've seen how he and a team of geeks, all under the age of 25, have gained access to the visualization (for now) of US federal subsidies. On February 3, 2025, Scott Bessent, Trump's Treasury Secretary, granted the Heilon-led DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) access to the Treasury Department's payment systems. This gives Musk direct visibility into federal spending and subsidies. What a mega-conflict of interest, given that both Tesla and Space X benefit from federal grants.
But that's not all! He has also applied the same dismantling methods to USAID that he used when he bought Twitter. From one day to the next, as many people as possible are fired, all aid programs around the world are shut down (malaria, AIDS, child malnutrition, water management in Gaza...), They close the website, the X account (you betcha), block computer access for 600 of the agency's employees and, as the icing on the cake, the new overlords “will consider on a case-by-case basis whether to repatriate employees abroad free of charge. Like your job sends you abroad to work, and from one day to the next, you might have to pay for your return ticket. All this without any elective mandate for Heilon or his team. This South African citizen has literally bought the job of “shadow US vice-president” and that shouldn't worry anyone?
Genius without sparkle
So you're going to tell me that he's an extraordinary guy, a self-made man, a “genius”, that he founded Space X, Tesla, Neuralink and lots of other companies, that he's about to take us to Mars...
Extraordinary? Perhaps in the original sense of the word: out of the ordinary. Self made man? When you're born into a family that owns an emerald mine in arpatheid South Africa (which he has never publicly condemned), when you're surrounded by servants (nannies, chauffeurs, cooks, maids) in a Pretoria wealthy ghetto, and when your father largely finances your entry into the world of entrepreneurship, we're entitled to doubt the “self made” aspect... Aren't we?
Now, the guy's got flair, that's undeniable (although he seems to have a bit less of it these days), but flair doesn't make a genius. The storytelling tells us that he's the founder of Paypal, Tesla and the like, but the reality is a bit different: Consider Paypal. In 1999, Musk founded X.com (yes, already), a company claiming to revolutionize banking and payments. But he and his competitor Confinity were stagnating. So in 2000, X.com merged with Confinity to become PayPal. The new company relied primarily on the work of Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek. Not Musk's! In fact, it's Thiel, who we'll be talking about later in this post, who takes the helm. Paypal proved to be a success, and was bought by Ebay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. This was a turning point for both Thiel and Musk. Both were now millionaires.
In the same year, Musk founded Space X. Yes, that's him. It's going to be a success because NASA is going to supply him with its Merlin engines (reusable), Space X is going to win big contracts with it (transporting astronauts to the ISS and working on a future new-generation LEM ( on hold for the time being)) because he's the best bidder financially.
Let's talk about Tesla again (yes, the Swastikars...), founded in 2003 by two engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk joined in 2004 and, thanks to his dollars, became the main investor with the title of Chairman of the Board. In 4 years, he ousted the founders and became CEO of the company in 2008. What a “genius”, eh?
He also put money into Sam Altman's Open AI, but leaves the ship in 2018 shortly before Open AI goes from an open source project to a proprietary one. It's from that moment on that he takes aim at AI for not being controlled enough. Sure he's not in anymore. By the way, he also created xAI, whose Grok AI lags far behind. Could this have anything to do with his demands to freeze work on AI that is “not controlled enough”?
Musk the plumber
Finally, in 2022, Musk acquired Twitter, renaming it X in 2023. He arrives there with a sink in his arms, pretending to be a “subtle humorist”. In fact, the guy goes in wearing a size 48 shit-crusher, like a big, basic badger. It's not over yet! He fires half the staff, many of them moderators (surely in the name of free speech), and brings 130 people with him from his other companies. And, the very next day, he's forced to reinstate some of the people he fired because they've proven to be indispensable. All of this took place in deplorable conditions, in a noxious atmosphere, and subsequently transformed Twitter into a veritable dustbin, with the head garbage collector imposing his tweets on the entire network. So much for freedom. Like all libertarians, Musk's defense of freedom applies first and foremost to himself. People who oppose him have no right to it. It's first and foremost the freedom to make money and do harm everywhere, in complete peace. I recommend the episode entitled “Twitter : la méthode Musk” in the podcast series “Les Pieds sur Terre” (France Culture), in which two French ex-employees of Twitter explain how the transition went, seen from the inside.
Heilon makes a lot of noise, but there's another regrettable sire who's just as worrisome: Peter Thiel (Paypal remember?). He got in with Trump in 2016 and is a true libertarian and Christian conservative. He, too, has some pretty wild ideas: eternal life, transhumanism, floating cities in international waters to escape government control... But he, too, has his feet firmly on the ground. After receiving his share of the Paypal buyout, he invested in a number of startups, including Facebook, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Spotify and SpaceX, adding to his already substantial nest egg given the subsequent success of these companies. He also founded Palantir a big data company that works with US intelligence agencies and the Thiel Foundation, among others. He sees democracy as a barrier to individual initiative and development, hence his plans for floating islands/cities and, more immediately dangerous, his desire to create “new countries”, micro-states like Singapore, Hong Kong or Lichtenstein, which would be easier and cheaper to control. Micro-states that could merge with large corporations or conglomerates, even within existing countries. I know it's a bit confusing when you put it like that, but I'll probably devote an entire post to it very soon. In the meantime, he generously financed J.D. Vance's rise to the top and his appointment as vice-president...
We also saw other ultra-rich people rallying behind OrangeMan, either out of conviction or interest, like Bezos (Amazon) and Zuckerberg, who came to the victory's rescue in the most ridiculous way possible: gold chain around his neck, moustache, three-day beard, curly hair, less pallid complexion - in short, masculinity according to Suckerberg, accompanied by a lunar speech about how FB and Meta in general should make more room for virility. In return, the majority of FB's fact checkers were fired and the teams moved from the “woke” state of California to the “virile” and, incidentally, Republican state of Texas.
MEGA? No thanks.
Here's a rather quick and messy overview, which I hope will have given you an idea of what's going on in the US. It's a real power grab by the most conservative of the super-rich, a silent coup d'état which, as we'll see in the next post, has been thought up by some, implemented in the most brutal way by others, and finally rallied by the opportunists. It's hard for me to keep up with the pace of this “bloodless coup d'état” (which is also planned and deliberate), but I think it's important and useful to talk about it, to study what's going on, to try to understand what's happening before our very eyes, to try prevent the same thing from happening here at home. Remember that Musk is already talking about MEGA (Make Europe Great Again), it's spine-chilling.
Wesh Bro!
