Elon Musk and Israel… Imran Jan

Any American president is the most powerful man on earth. Yet, at home in America, he is not as powerful as he is globally. He can invade nations, unleash hellfire missiles at people in far flung territories, topple governments, and so forth. But at home, he cant even express any anger if any ordinary US citizen called him names. That is so because of a common word called democracy. Likewise, any US president behaves as the weakest person at home for totally undemocratic reasons as well. The magic phrase is Israeli lobbying. A US president can never criticise Israel. Criticism is one thing, he goes to horrible lengths to prove his credentials of being an Israeli sympathiser.

The off and on richest man on the planet is no exception. Elon Musk is a man who made his career by changing how people do things. People dont fuel their cars now, they rather charge them. Nobody has to wait for payments to clear after several business days, they can just use PayPal, which Elon made. He is even working on providing a solution for the immense time consuming traffic jams. Will get to SpaceX and Mars later.

A man who always disrupted any industry he focused on is somehow just another ordinary man when it comes to Israel and the mind boggling power Israel wields over America. The leading entrepreneur is just a disciplined servant when it comes to Israel. No more bashing against the walls and no more questioning the status quo. Elon went to Israel shortly after Israel invaded Gaza and was also seen with Netanyahu just days ago during a tour of the Tesla factory.

I dont remember if it was Elon himself or just a famous question being asked on his platform X, that the best way to understand who controls you is to realise who it is that you cant criticise. I see Elon tweeting about Venezuela and their tumultuous election result. He does foray into the world of politics and global politics. However, this status-quo-questioning man who made major oil corporations and car manufacturers run for their money, just simply cannot criticise Israel. When he was told about how some major corporations threatened to leave his platform X, he showed so much defiance that he had to use profanity on a live show. Yet, once again, this man seems to lose the ability to question the destructive role that Israel plays in Palestine and especially in the United States politics and media culture.

Elon even talks about how the US dollar would be of no value in future. He popularised digital currencies such as Dogecoin and Bitcoin, which were created with one chief ingredient: defiance to governmental control over currency and fiscal matters. Yet, that trait of his personality dies when he sees the role that Israel plays globally and especially in the American political landscape. Elon Musk simply does not question Israel. He talks about colonising Mars so as to establish another home for humanity. He says that he wants to make humans a multiplanetary species so that they wont go extinct as a result of threats such as climate change and population collapse. Yet this man has no qualms when Gazans lose their houses, their children, their livelihood, and everything else. Is that not population collapse? Home for humanity on Mars but not for Palestinian humans right here in Palestine? It is as if Elon Musk has a split personality or he must think the Palestinians are unpeople.

The Internet and many social media platforms were chiefly created to allow people to express their thoughts and ideas without having to go through the gatekeepers of information. However, those are merely nice sounding myths. Try criticising Israel on Elons social media platform X and you will understand how his gatekeeper (algorithm) is even more ruthless. Israel is like a blackhole of American society. Even Elon Musk cannot escape it.

Courtesy The Express Tribune