In this way, Musk isn’t just another player in the game. He’s reshaping the very field on which democracy operates. By controlling the infrastructure of public communication while simultaneously directing government functions through DOGE, he demonstrates how private power can capture public institutions without the messy business of electoral politics. It’s a techno-autocratic playbook that circumvents traditional democratic safeguards entirely—and worse, makes it look like innovation rather than what it truly is: an old-fashioned power grab using new technological tools.

The historical pattern is unmistakable for those willing to see it. Every pathway to autocracy begins with the deliberate erosion of the idea that power must explain and justify itself. Viktor Orbán didn’t announce his intention to dismantle Hungarian democracy—he simply treated democratic constraints as optional, selectively ignoring them while maintaining their outward forms. Vladimir Putin didn’t openly declare his rejection of legal limits—he simply acted as if they didn’t apply to him, daring anyone to stop him. The playbook isn’t complicated: treat constraints as suggestions, norms as obsolete traditions, and accountability as an unnecessary courtesy.

What makes our current moment particularly dangerous is how this approach has been intellectualized and justified through sophisticated theorizing. Curtis Yarvin doesn’t just critique democratic inefficiency—he provides a comprehensive framework for rejecting the very premise that power should be bound by anything other than its own exercise. His neoreactionary vision, where governance is reimagined as corporate management rather than democratic deliberation, offers intellectual cover for what amounts to the systematic dismantling of constitutional constraints.