Quinn Slobodian
Professor of international history at Boston University; author of "Globalists," "Hayek's Bastards" and co-author of "Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed"
Quinn Slobodian (Professor of international history at Boston University; author of "Globalists," "Hayek's Bastards" and co-author of "Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed") has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include SpaceX, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Nationalization of Starlink.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
SpaceX
Slobodian notes Musk has no real succession plan and holds 85% of SpaceX voting shares.
“Actually, he has no real plans for his succession. It's one of the extraordinary things about SpaceX from a corporate law point of view”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 48:59
Slobodian argues that, as SpaceX's prospectus risk factors show, Musk fears national legislation and projects invulnerability as a political strategy.
“his impression of invulnerability is actually part of his political project”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 24:01
Slobodian agrees that critics err in dismissing Musk as merely a liar or crony capitalist, since he pushes the technological frontier.
“it's a real stumbling block for many critics who simply want to short circuit to this idea he's just a liar and a grifter”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 19:28
Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
Slobodian describes a European 'three-R' strategy toward Musk: regulation, replacement and reimagining what the technology is for.
“there was a kind of a three-R strategy that we were discussing and people were discussing. One is regulation”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 57:24
Slobodian attributes Musk's soaring valuations to 'financial fabulism,' the promise of vast future revenues rather than current fundamentals.
“something he's perfected in practicing, we talk about in the book as financial fabulism”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 17:42
Other remarks
Slobodian argues Musk learned on Twitter that polarization accelerated rather than hindered his wealth accumulation.
“polarization is actually, rather than being a kind of handicap for his accumulation model, is actually real accelerant for it”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 14:10
Slobodian contends that Musk's purchase of Twitter, often called a business failure, has proven effective at creating an echo chamber of his making.
“So his purchase of Twitter in October 2022, long described as kind of one of the biggest business failures in American history, has proven to be actually probably quite effective”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 3:21
Nationalization of Starlink
Slobodian argues Musk's proposal to give SpaceX stock to every American child via Trump accounts would raise Americans' stake in his businesses to about half.
“If he goes through with his plan, then that number of American citizens goes up to about 50%”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 1:03:18
Artificial intelligence
Slobodian disputes Musk's claim of AI inevitability, citing local moratoria slowing data-center construction.
“So it's actually not true that there's inevitability to the world that he's imagining. It actually is true that we have options”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 57:58
Musk Foundation
Slobodian states the Musk Foundation routinely fails to spend the 5% of assets required of U.S. private foundations.
“Because they routinely don't spend the 5% of their assets that they're required to do as a 501c3 philanthropic foundation in the United States”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 37:48
Immigration to Europe
Slobodian says Musk's notion of suicidal empathy echoes the European far right and concerns refugee and immigration policy and 're-migration.'
“that precise notion of suicidal empathy is all about refugee policy and immigration policy and is at the heart of his demands for what he calls re-migration”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 34:24
Woke mind virus
Slobodian says Musk fully adopted Dawkins's memetic 'mind virus' framework as his way of understanding politics and consent.
“Musk has absolutely swallowed this notion whole to the point that I think if you want to understand how he understands politics”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 27:13
xAI
Slobodian says Musk responded to his fear of a 'woke' LLM by creating xAI and Grok as an anti-woke AI.
“You create an anti-woke AI, and that is precisely what XAI is and what Grok was”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 12:34
Campaign finance in the United States
Slobodian argues that Musk's political spending aims to entrench the dependency that governments and markets already have on him.
“Well, I think he's trying to entrench the dependency that he already enjoys”
The Ezra Klein Show: Elon Musk’s Endgame (Oct 30, 2026) · Listen from 3:21
Appearances
Elon Musk’s EndgameThe Ezra Klein Show · Oct 30, 2026 · 1 h 11 min
Ezra Klein and historian Quinn Slobodian examine Elon Musk's record campaign spending, AI vision, ideology, and the political dependencies his companies create.
Often appears with
- Ezra Klein · 1 shared episode
- Elon Musk · 1 shared episode