Bonus - Musk and Silicon Valley in the Government w/ Becca Lewis and Eoin Higgins (Preview)

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, Politics, News

4.8 • 705 Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Derek welcomes to the program Becca Lewis, postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Department of Communication, and Eoin Higgins, journalist and author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, for a discussion about Elon Musk, his role in the new Trump administration, and how Silicon Valley has interacted with the government since the 1990s. They talk about what exactly Musk seems to be doing, how he is leveraging his new access for business interests, the precedent of unelected positions in the executive branch, the reactionary tech industry showing its true colors, the self-delusion of Silicon Valley oligarchs, the atomization of media allowing for opportunities to shape narratives around tech, and more. Subscribe now for the full episode! Be sure to read Becca’s piece for The Guardian, “‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley”. Also subscribe to listen to our series with Margaret O’Mara “The Making of Silicon Valley”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:24.2	Head to vanta.com slash Spotify to learn more.
0:31.0	That's kind of conversation between your soul.
0:35.8	That's conversation.
0:51.9	It's home. Thank you. Hello, Hello, American Prestige listeners.
0:57.6	It's Derek, and I am joined today by two very distinguished first-time guests.
1:02.4	We've got Becca Lewis, a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Department of Communication.
1:07.3	She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the rise of reactionary politics in Silicon Valley.
1:29.2	She's also the author of a recent article on techno-fascism in The Guardian that will help inform what we're about to talk about. You're getting the sense of what this interview is going to be about. We've also got Owen Higgins, journalist and author of Owned, How Tech Billionaires on the Right, bought the loudest voices on the left. He's also written a recent MSNBC column on dislodging Elon Musk, and that's another big clue about where we're headed.
1:30.0	But thank you both for coming on the program.
1:32.5	Pleasure.
1:33.2	Thank you.
1:34.0	We're really happy to have you both.
1:35.9	And basically, yes, my opening question is, what is Elon Musk's job now?
1:43.5	How would you describe what he's doing as the director of Doge slash the
1:50.6	unelected co-president of the United States slash I don't even know at this point.
1:56.9	He's got his team of Wunderkin teenagers going into various government departments and just
	...

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