The two titans have been reunited to talk about the state of American politics.
J: Hey Alex! What do you think about what Musk is doing to the government?
H: It’s even worse than I feared.
J: Why? I thought you would approve of Musk. He’s the richest man in the world. Didn’t you want American government to be run by really rich guys?
H: My position on that was more nuanced than you think. I believed that government needed to be responsive to the needs to business in order to build wealth for the entire community and power for the new nation. I also thought that America needed its own aristocracy of wealth and talent. Musk doesn’t represent business; he just speaks for himself and a few arrogant tech giants. He creates chaos and assumes he has the ability to fix it, which may or may not be true; in the meantime, business doesn’t know how to react, and the economy suffers. And as to his contribution to America, do you really think owning a social media company makes him a natural aristocrat?
J: I still call it Sewer, not X.
H: Anyway, you are more responsible for him than I am.
J: Whoa! Everyone knows I didn’t have any use for big business types. Musk would have been my worst nightmare. How can you say I’m responsible for him?
H: Look at what Musk stands for–moving fast and breaking things. He has no respect for what came before him and no concern for the people he hurts. He even makes a point of being offensive to America’s traditional friends. That makes him a 21st century Jacobin. And we both know who among us supported the Jacobins.
J: My position on that was more nuanced than you think. I supported the French Revolution in its early stages. I gave some help to Lafayette and his friends. But I didn’t support the Jacobins or Napoleon. They were thugs and terrorists. We had to deal with them, but they weren’t friends of mine by any means.
H: OK, so I guess we should call it a draw. What do you think happens next?
J: Musk keeps tearing things down until one of his decisions really negatively impacts the entire American public, at which time the polls become very negative and Trump dumps him.
H: How long do you think that will take?
J: A year at most.
H: We’ll be watching and hoping, I guess.