As I’ve argued, I don’t think we should care that much about whether Elon Musk purchases Twitter. Having a mercurial scofflaw purchase the company should simply remind us that it’s a private company, not the 21st-century public square or anything like it. Social media companies have a deep interest in convincing us of these things and then luring the public into a faux corporatized speech jurisprudence in which they of course are always in charge. So while it seems increasingly unlikely that Musk’s purchase of Twitter will go through, let it burn is probably the best policy response. But as Musk has been all over the news and increasingly associating himself with the far-right, I’ve been increasingly interested in his main company, Tesla.

So many aspects of our corruption are so clear and so profound in their implications that most of the political class and elite publications aren’t even able to grapple with them. This article in the Times only glances at the surface of it. What was once an enduring alliance between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has transformed into something more like an alliance between the Kingdom and the GOP, with a fairly open effort to undermine the Presidency of Joe Biden on behalf of the latter. And it’s not just the GOP. There’s a particular role for Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law who is toasted in the Kingdom as something like the de facto leader’s best friend.