Could Musk’s authoritarian streak trace back to his Canadian grandfather? Before Joshua Haldeman brought his family to South Africa, he made waves as part of the radical 1930s Technocracy movement. And while the two men’s lives only overlapped for three years, we find echoes of Elon’s worldview in Haldeman’s pro-tech, anti-democratic ideology.
Guests in this episode include:
- Geoff Leo, senior investigative journalist for CBC
- Derek Proudian, early investor in Zip2.com
- Will Shoki, South African journalist and writer
- Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic
Topics in this episode include:
- The life and lasting influence of Elon Musk’s Canadian grandfather, Joshua Haldeman; his influence within the Technocracy movement and his historical context (the Great Depression and the dust bowl)
- Elon Musk’s early career moves, including his time at Zip2.com, PayPal and the “PayPal Mafia,” and the Baasskap (bossism) management style
- The relationship between techno-optimism and authoritarianism, and Marc Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”
Authoritarianism (en), Broligarchy (en), Canada (en), Elon Musk (en), Racism (en), South Africa (en), Technocracy (en), Technology (en), The Far Right (en), The Far Right in Canada (en), The Far Right in the US (en), White Supremacism (en)
Views: 22
More content from this blog
- The ‘America First’ Masquerade, by Danny Postel – 25 March 2025
- The History Is More Complicated: On the Past, Present, and Future of Left Jewish Identity, by Josh Yunis – 13 June 2025
- The Uses and Abuses of the Anti-Colonial in Global Reactionary Politics, by Gorkem Altinors, Priya Chacko, Miri Davidson, Aliaksei Kazharski, Sivamohan Valluvan, Chenchen Zhang – 30 April 2026
- The Backstory Behind the Fall of Aleppo, by Hassan Hassan and Michael Weiss – 2 December 2024
- Stop Racist and Misogynist Attacks on the Emergent Indigenous, Eco-Feminist Left in Latin America: An open letter – 1 March 2021
Except where noted otherwise, original writing and translations produced by the Left Renewal Blog Collective are published under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Republished and translated material remains subject to the licence and terms of its original publication.