Please Advise! Are You Happy Elon Musk Is the First Trillionaire?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

The SpaceX IPO has made Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.

Are you happy for him, Dr. Steve?

Signed

Penny

Dear Penny,

Have you ever fantasized about what you would do with a trillion bucks? A billion? A measly mill? Five toonies found under the car seat? Your brother-in-law finally picking up a lunch tab?

Elon Musk is the only human in history ever to ponder how to spend a trillion dollars, without subsequently waking to the sound of the bedside alarm. What do you suppose he is thinking? Dr. Steve knows. He is probably worried. Elon is concerned that all this money might affect his ability to starve, sicken and deprive the world's children.

Obviously money is handy when it comes to helping people. But what if you despise humanity? What if your fondest hope is to make Nick Fuentes clap like a trained seal?

You've probably seen heartwarming videos of celebrities doing good works — Alice Cooper serving up meals to the homeless, Dolly Parton supporting childhood literacy. Musk is like a celebrity who takes time out of his busy schedule to firebomb local food banks.

Dr. Steve does not know whether Musk is the genius his fanboys claim. But respect must be paid — Elon did find an ingenious way to use his massive wealth to make the world a shittier place. He used his money to bankroll the election of Donald Trump. In the process he gained influence, and as DOGE czar was given control of USAID, the American government’s international aid agency. Musk was thus able to access not just his own money but the U.S. government's too.

It’s one thing to avoid helping people with your own cash — any wealthy skinflint can do that. But if you can spend your way into a gig that lets you strangle the international aid paid for by taxpayers, that's some extinction-level evil genius. Author Nicholas Enrich says a conservative estimate of the deaths resulting from Musk’s USAID cuts would be 750,000.

The more traditional money-to-death transom would be via military procurement — bombs, bullets, etc. A guy like Putin is old school. Musk is an innovator.

Musk and Trump appear to be in competition for the title of “Most morally depraved person ever to have hosted Saturday Night Live.” They’re not the same though. Whereas Trump is a moral void, Musk is more of a moral defective. It's anybody’s guess why he decided to go full on with the Heinrich (Himmler) Maneuver. He’s impressionable, needy and insecure — the SNL gig was clearly a “Please love me and think I’m cool” exercise, and perhaps when that didn’t work he swung over to Team MAGA. Or it could be this is simply a dude who grew up in apartheid South Africa and is now reverting to type.

Either way, Musk is not your run-of-the-mill degenerate. He’s dangerous. Those wild-eyed socialists at the Financial Times just called Musk a “Bond villain.” It’s true. James Bond is fiction, but Goldfinger is real. It would be bad enough if Musk made his trillion selling Frosted Churro Pop-Tarts. But Musk’s empire has given him a vital role in global communications via Starlink satellites, in addition to his NASA connections, and of course his influence with Emperor “Cage Fight” Commodus.

Musk doesn't even have the courage of his loathsome convictions. He once gave a Nazi salute then whined about how everybody called it a Nazi salute. Since then he has unleashed a firehose of neo-Nazi and white supremacist propaganda via social media. Recently he has signal-boosted the extreme-right Restore Britain movement. As racist rioters burn Belfast streets, Musk’s X has sprayed gasoline on the fires. Gas may be expensive these days but hey, what else is a trillion for?

In the Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus says: “So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

Who knew he meant morally? But in the 21st century, so it would seem. The worst shall be first. AI slop is on top. The depraved will be saved. Donald Trump and Elon Musk represent the moral inversion of our age.

Musk aside, no one should ever have that much money. Spellcheck doesn't even recognize the word “trillionaire.” That puts spellcheck on the right side of history. But if someone has to be a trillionaire, why this pasty prat? Why not, say, Keanu Reeves? He’d be a great trillionaire. Keanu would know that the first job of a trillionaire is not to be one for long.

But no. We get Elon. Money may not buy happiness, but Musk knows it can buy acres and acres of misery. May he choke on it.