Opinion – Elon Musk’s vision of fatherhood is unsettling

When Tucker Carlson warmed up a Trump rally by suggesting the former president would return like an incensed father to “spank” the nation into submission, he was invoking a pre-modern archetype of fatherhood: punitive, performative, and intensely gendered. But Musk’s model is one of capital investment rather than discipline or dispersal.

That’s hugely disconcerting in its own right, but even more so given Musk is currently one of the most powerful men on earth. He sits in on classified briefings and controls major infrastructure. While his personal decisions might seem private, they’re inherently public and political.

The problem is, reproduction under capitalism always leads to strange terrain. When wealth determines access to fertility, the body becomes another site of extraction. Take surrogacy for example, a once fringe act that’s now a booming industry among the ultra-rich.

But what does this mean for the children who are produced by this system? If conceived through secrecy and legal bureaucracy, how does a parent navigate concealing their child’s paternity because they accepted millions of dollars to do so?

There is a deep irony to Musk’s paranoia about demographic decline. If people aren’t having enough children, perhaps it’s because the world has become increasingly inhabitable for the average family. Economic and environmental decline are widening the wealth gap.

Elon Musk’s son Lil X sits on his father’s shoulders as they watch the UFC 314.

pic.twitter.com/OaSG6vIeFX

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 13, 2025

And despite fear mongering that overpopulation in poorer countries is damaging the climate, it’s largely the richest 1%, like Musk, who are doing the most damage (an 11 minute flight to space emits no less than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger – a number which could be more in the 250-1,000 tonnes range when indirect emissions are taken into account).

Elon Musk may not consider himself a god, but he is playing one all the same. And like many gods of myth, his motives are less divine than disturbingly human: fear of decline, hunger for legacy, and an unshakeable belief in the value of his own replication.

When Tucker Carlson warmed up a Trump rally by suggesting the former president would return like an incensed father to “spank” the nation into submission, he was invoking a pre-modern archetype of fatherhood: punitive, performative, and intensely gendered. But Musk’s model is one of capital investment rather than discipline or dispersal.

That’s hugely disconcerting in its own right, but even more so given Musk is currently one of the most powerful men on earth. He sits in on classified briefings and controls major infrastructure. While his personal decisions might seem private, they’re inherently public and political.

The problem is, reproduction under capitalism always leads to strange terrain. When wealth determines access to fertility, the body becomes another site of extraction. Take surrogacy for example, a once fringe act that’s now a booming industry among the ultra-rich.

But what does this mean for the children who are produced by this system? If conceived through secrecy and legal bureaucracy, how does a parent navigate concealing their child’s paternity because they accepted millions of dollars to do so?

There is a deep irony to Musk’s paranoia about demographic decline. If people aren’t having enough children, perhaps it’s because the world has become increasingly inhabitable for the average family. Economic and environmental decline are widening the wealth gap.

And despite fear mongering that overpopulation in poorer countries is damaging the climate, it’s largely the richest 1%, like Musk, who are doing the most damage (an 11 minute flight to space emits no less than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger – a number which could be more in the 250-1,000 tonnes range when indirect emissions are taken into account).

Elon Musk may not consider himself a god, but he is playing one all the same. And like many gods of myth, his motives are less divine than disturbingly human: fear of decline, hunger for legacy, and an unshakeable belief in the value of his own replication.