The explanation behind the Trump–Musk scandal: the “technocracy” supported by the American intelligence community revolts against the President! - thediplomaticaffairs.com

Geneva, Switzerland

Op-Ed World June 7, 2025

The explanation behind the Trump–Musk scandal: the “technocracy” supported by the American intelligence community revolts against the President!

Photo: Mrs. Daria Gusa

Since yesterday, the entire internet has been buzzing with news and jokes about the big fight between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, a result of Musk being fired from his position at DOGE (the Department of Governmental Efficiency) and Trump’s refusal to maintain subsidies for electric vehicle buyers (subsidies that mainly benefited Musk’s company, Tesla). Trump accused Musk of profiting from government money through his electric vehicle and tech companies, blaming him for the high government spending that DOGE was supposed to limit, while Musk criticized Trump’s economic policies and dropped a media bombshell, explaining why the Epstein file hasn’t been fully released: Trump is also on Epstein’s lists. Although most public polls on X side with Musk, Tesla shares dropped by 15% in a single day. Probably both are right in their accusations: Musk’s companies earn much of their profit through contracts with the U.S. government, and Trump was seen many times publicly with Epstein (he even flew on Epstein’s infamous plane seven times). But this is not just a quarrel between the U.S. President and the world’s richest man — it’s a confrontation between the capitalist system, represented in this case by Trump, and the intelligence community, which has already succeeded in imposing techno-feudalism as a successor system to technocracy in how society is organized. But what is techno-feudalism? While technocracy, defined as governance by experts in various fields, gave rise to systems based on IT dictatorship and technology, techno-feudalism goes even further. A term popularized by the famous Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, it refers to a global reorganization not based on the free market and individual states, but on big tech companies. Thus, power is no longer held only by those with capital who finance politicians later elected democratically, but by those who possess citizens’ personal data and the advanced technologies necessary for the world to function, and who control digital ecosystems. And the most famous supporter of this model of world organization is Peter Thiel, billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir. A guru for young men around the world, with philosophical videos gaining millions of views online, Thiel has stated that he doesn’t believe democracy and freedom are compatible, since democracy — and by extension, government — limits the development of technologies that could transcend such outdated systems. His companies show exactly how data can transcend what is available to governments.

Palantir is a company created to legalize government surveillance of citizens: when hired by governments or private companies, Palantir can integrate, analyze, and use extremely large volumes of citizens’ data, this information later being used to make decisions in areas such as health (how else would you know, during a pandemic, who got vaccinated and when?) or defense (currently, the Pentagon relies entirely on Palantir’s technologies to compile information obtained from soldiers on the ground to satellites in space).

How is Thiel connected to this quarrel? Thiel is like Musk’s older brother, the two founded PayPal together, and it is widely known that J.D. Vance became Trump’s vice president at the request of his mentor, Thiel (which also explains Musk’s suggestion last night on X that his friend Vance should become the new president instead of Trump). Elon Musk, an immigrant with behavioral disorders, would never have gotten this far in the U.S. if he hadn’t entered through Thiel’s network and the big intelligence companies behind it, aka the new techno-feudal deep state. Musk’s companies complement Thiel’s: through SpaceX they took over a large part of NASA, through Tesla they became pioneers of green energy in the U.S., through X they possess even more personal data from around the world, and through Starlink they control internet access in all conflict zones on the globe, as well as in dozens of countries that accepted this technology (including Romania), thereby gaining access to even more personal and government data.

The hidden truth behind these disputes is that Trump really didn’t know about Ukraine’s attack on the Russian bombers last week, and the approvals came from the CIA and Pentagon, institutions clearly linked to Musk and Thiel, in the interest of continuing the war and thus enriching the military-industrial complex at the expense of peace and citizens. So the deep state Trump promised to dismantle is still there, represented by these tech companies controlled by the intelligence sector. The public powerlessness of Trump, the president of one of the world’s top three powers, in the face of these giant companies, shown through such second-rate online quarrels, reveals the harsh reality of an already-installed techno-feudalism.

By Daria Gusa

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