Elon Musk: The great innovator and change-maker of our generation - opinion
As we begin 2025, the hope is that the world’s richest man will help America become the world’s richest nation.
By JOSEPH SCUTTS Elon Musk speaks at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024.(photo credit: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
In every generation, there is an innovator who changes the world, defies the odds, and makes what one would have thought the impossible a reality. In our generation, that man is Elon Musk.
A South African-born American businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Musk has business involvements that include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), and a role in the founding of the Boring Company, Neuralink, xAI, and OpenAI. He is also the wealthiest individual in the world. As of December 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be at $439.4 billion.
After the October 7 terrorist assault on Israel, Musk visited the country, touring a kibbutz attacked by Hamas terrorists and holding talks with top leaders. He met President Isaac Herzog and joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which Hamas terrorists stormed on October 7. Wearing a protective vest and escorted by an army of security personnel as rain fell, Musk used his cellphone to take photos and videos of the devastation. The Tesla CEO and the prime minister visited the damaged homes of victims, including the family of Abigail Edan, a four-year-old girl with dual Israeli-US citizenship who was held hostage by Hamas after her parents were killed. Read More...
“It was jarring to see the scene of the massacre,” Musk said in a conversation with Netanyahu that was streamed on X. He said he was troubled by the video and photos that the prime minister showed him of the killings of civilians, including children. They spoke broadly about the conflict, the protests it has generated, the Middle East, and more but did not touch on antisemitism online. Netanyahu, who urged a pushback of such hatred in an earlier meeting with Musk, said he hoped the billionaire would be involved in building a better future. Musk replied, “I’d love to help.” The Israeli president met with Musk as well and was joined in the meeting by some of the families of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. “Hatred of the Jews affects the behavior of people in many places around the world, and you have a huge role to play in this,” Herzog told Musk. The X owner responded that it had been a “difficult day emotionally” following the tour and that “we have to do whatever is necessary to stop the hate.”
Elon Musk's involvement in US politics
By early 2024, Musk became active in American politics as a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump, becoming Trump’s second-largest individual donor in October 2024. In November 2024, Trump announced that he had chosen Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, to co-lead Trump’s planned Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory board, which is meant to slash excess regulations and wasteful expenditures. Musk’s views are generally described as right-wing and conservative. While previously considered relatively apolitical and moderate, he has since shifted to the Right and become more vocal about his views, notably since acquiring Twitter in 2022. He is an outlier among social media executives, who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. Despite this, Musk still describes himself as politically moderate, rejecting the conservative label. US President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket on November 19, 2024 in Brownsville, Texas. (credit: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
On October 27, 2024, I had just returned from Israel a few days before and (as a leader of the Jewish Republican movement in America), I attended Trump’s historic Madison Square Garden Rally, where I heard Elon Musk speak live. At the rally, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was wearing a black MAGA cap with a Gothic-looking font and a black shirt and jacket. Musk took the stage at the event while leading the crowd in a “USA” chant and imploring those in attendance to vote early. “We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook,” he said. “It’s just going to be great. America is going to reach heights that it has never seen before.”
Musk and Ramaswamy have indicated that as co-leaders of DOGE, they will focus their efforts on trimming federal spending when the new administration takes over on January 20. Musk has set an aim to slash $2 trillion in federal spending under the initiative, while Ramaswamy, a billionaire as well, has said entire agencies will be “deleted” under DOGE’s recommendations. With Republicans holding control of both Congress and the White House, DOGE’s recommendations to Trump and lawmakers could have an easier path to passage.
While administrative law requires a lengthy process to rescind regulations in federal agencies, Musk and Ramaswamy previously said they would recommend a list of regulations that Trump could “immediately pause.” Musk and Ramaswamy are hardly the first to suggest radical cuts to government spending. President Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission, aimed at eliminating waste and inefficiency in the federal government, eliminated $22 billion in social welfare programs, which were offset by tax cuts and defense spending.
As we begin 2025, the hope is that the world’s richest man will help America become the world’s richest nation. ■
The writer is a financial adviser who resides in New York City and is involved in Israel-based and Jewish advocacy organizations.
