Channel: TIME

Category: News & Politics

Tags: twitterperson of the yearpoy2021muskbuying twitterelon muskelondemocracy

Description: “We have democracy?” Elon Musk interjected, with an impish smile. He’d just been asked how worried he was about the state of the American system of government. “We have a sort of democracy, I guess,” Musk went on, balancing his toddler son on his knee at a party marking his selection as TIME’s Person of the Year last December. The exchange was a revealing one, both for the answer Musk provided and the question he avoided. His interviewer, TIME editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal, had hoped to engage him on the concern, widely shared among political experts, that our democracy is in danger—that the rule of law and free, fair elections are under threat from creeping authoritarianism, disinformation and institutional deterioration. But Musk seemed to regard American democracy as merely one of many temporary, inevitably flawed political arrangements undertaken in the course of our ongoing struggle for human progress. If he were starting over, Musk volunteered, he might structure things quite differently. “People have asked me, say, a Mars society, what are my recommendations for that,” he mused. He said he would favor a direct democracy where the people voted on issues, with short, simple laws to prevent corruption. Pressed again on the problems facing the current system, such as citizens’ ability to access good information and express their preferences at the ballot box, he again redirected, suggesting such concerns are the gripes of congenital pessimists. “It’s easy to complain, but the fact of the matter is, this is the most prosperous time in human history,” he said. “Is there really some point in history where you’d rather be? And by the way, have you actually read history? Because it wasn’t great.” Read more about Elon Musk and Twitter: ti.me/3KnwTkm Subscribe to TIME’s YouTube channel ►► ti.me/subscribe-time Subscribe to TIME: ti.me/3e7Uqs3 Get the day’s top headlines to your inbox, curated by TIME editors: ti.me/the-brief Follow us: Twitter: ti.me/3e9LS3L Facebook: ti.me/3FjmYus Instagram: ti.me/32klSQH