In yesterday’s DM, we learned that one of our current co-occupants of the White House is the grandson of a pro-apartheid activist from South Africa, while we already know that the other is a son of a father active in the KKK.
Character matters and values matter in those who work in government and run for public office and advise those in office or have the means, thanks to Citizens United, to buy their way into powerful positions in office.
Yesterday we considered the story of Mr. Musk and his grandfather who greatly influenced his worldview. Our source was a well-researched study by Jill Lepore, professor of history and law at Harvard, and host of the BBC podcast “X-Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story.” Her article on “The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk,” is a revelation.*
She observes that even if Musk were to depart Washington, his ideology—which she calls Muskism—would not be diminished since its “superannuated futurism is Silicon Valley’s reigning ideology.”
Behind it lies the philosophy of venture capitalist Marc Andressen, who has been active in Musk’s DOGE project in Washington, having helped with its staffing. DOGE has been notoriously secretive, but Lepore has found clues to its essence by uncovering a document Andressen wrote in 2023 called, “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”
It predicted the emergence of “technological supermen” and includes the following credo:
We can advance to a far superior way of living and of being.
We have the tools, the systems, the ideas.
We have the will….
We believe this is why our descendants will live in the stars….
We believe in greatness….
We believe in ambition, aggression persistence, relentlessness—strength.
One of Mr. Andressen’s mentors was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who wrote “The Futurist Manifesto” in 1909, which “glorified violence and masculine virility and opposed liberalism and democracy.” Its credo read like this:
We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist…
We want to sing the men at the wheel…
We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism….
Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!
Ten years later, the same person co-wrote “The Fascist Manifesto,” the “founding document” of Mussolini’s party.
More proof that Musk and his buddies in Silicon Valley, while busy making big bucks on new gadgets, are stuck to very old—and dangerous and disproven–philosophies and values.
I find Lenore’s research to be super important. It helps answer why even librarians are being attacked today. And universities (not that academia does not need a complete do-over—it does—for in my opinion it fails to teach values. But DOGE is not the do-over it requires). It also explains the rising movements of manosphere and other expressions of reptilian brain excess posing as masculinity; and today’s headline: “The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a ‘death sentence.’”**
And the current wannabe-dictator telling his followers during the presidential campaign that his might be the “last election they ever have to vote in.” And Project 2025. And the compulsion to control women’s bodies. And so much more.
Character and values and belief systems: Let us consider them all when we vote, run for office, resist, or practice our other democratic responsibilities.
* Jill Lepore, “Opinion | The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk,” The New York Times, April 4, 2025.
**Ellen Knickmeyer, Samy Magdy, and David Biller, “The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a ‘death sentence.’” AP News, April 8, 2025.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and Hot It Can Be Saved.
And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the World.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Banner Image: “Aeroritratto di Mussolini aviatore,” fusing an aerial Umbrian landscape with the face of Italian dictator Umberto Mussolini, by Alfredo Ambrosi, 1930. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What does it mean to you to learn that Musk’s philosopher from Silicon Valley is inspired by Mussolini’s political manifesto? And that demolishing museums and libraries and promoting “technological supermen” and combating feminism is part of DOGE’s secret agenda?
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The final section in the book focuses on birthing a truly catholic Christianity.
“This book should be read by everybody, not only for its ferocious courage, but also for its vision for what needs to be saved from the destructive forces that threaten authentic Christianity.” ~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope.
“In the gripping The Pope’s War, Matthew Fox takes an unwavering look at the layers of corruption in the Catholic Church, holding moral truth against power.” — Jason Berry, author of Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
