David Farrar: The world’s first trillionaire

Elon Musk in now the world’s first trillionaire, with his net work now estimated a US$1.3 trillion.

He did not inherit even 0.000001% of this from his parents. Instead he simply:

Philip Crump: Elon Musk Filed a Prospectus. Every Journalist Should Read It.

It promises to save humanity from the fate of the dinosaurs. It may also eat your business model.

When companies decide to go public through an initial public offering, their prospectuses are, without exception, unreadable. They are designed to be impenetrable - dense wording with legal qualifications, risk factor boilerplate, and accounting disclosures that protect the issuer while revealing as little as possible to investors. They are written by corporate lawyers and analysts, and read by other corporate lawyers, analysts and institutional investors. The SpaceX prospectus filed on 20 May was prepared by Gibson Dunn, the US law firm where, many years ago, I was a partner, although thankfully I didn’t draft prospectuses.

John Klar: Elon Musk Battles for Free Speech for Artificial Intelligence

Free speech champion Elon Musk is once again leading an effort to protect commercial speech from government control. His company, xAI, filed suit on April 9 against the state of Colorado, seeking to block the enforcement of a Democrat bill that regulates the content of artificial intelligence applications to prevent unlawful discrimination. xAI asserts that the anti-discrimination statute cripples business development and is discriminatory in itself.

Ani O'Brien: RNZ’s X/Grok political hit job is not a child-safety story

X is simply the space the managerial class can't control

I want to preface this piece with a concession that RNZ’s reporting has improved a lot lately. Their articles are more fulsome and usually present a variety of perspectives. Their online written reporting is on the whole very good, but unfortunately their radio content is not and hiring John Campbell will make things worse. Private media companies like Stuff and NZME regularly republish RNZ articles to the extent that I wonder why the Herald in particular doesn’t fire all of their journalists and just syndicate RNZ content.

The articles I discuss here are not good examples of the quality of RNZ’s reporting. They are indulgences in reflecting the meta-narratives of the leftist managerial class.

Peter C. Earle: Even Elon’s Techno-Utopia Won’t Make Money Meaningless

Elon Musk recently put forth a bold vision: that within two decades, AI will automate virtually all productive activity, work will be optional, and money will lose meaning. Coming from Musk, such pronouncements carry gravitas. And noticeably, the expressed vision unsurprisingly dovetails neatly with Musk’s admittedly exciting entrepreneurial visions.

Yet variants of those claims have circulated for years, usually without reference to economic theory, institutional constraints, or political risk. Rigorously examining those assertions is essential to decouple technological optimism from the practical realities that will shape the next two decades.

Matua Kahurangi: Elon Musk is right - The world is waking up to trans ideology madness

Elon Musk has once again said the thing everyone else is too scared to say. On The Joe Rogan Experience, Musk laid out a story that is shocking, disturbing and sadly believable in today’s climate. His message was simple. The institutional push to transition children is not compassion. It is ideological madness that has captured schools, governments and entire cultural institutions. And Musk is absolutely right to call it out.

Brendan O'Neill: Elon Musk is right about the EU

The Brussels oligarchy really is a menace to liberty and sovereignty.

Europhiles – the most maddening tribe on the internet – are coming for Elon Musk. After Musk dared to blaspheme against the Brussels bureaucracy that they so fervently simp for, they called him a stooge of Vladimir Putin. ‘Putin wants a weaker EU’, said the EU-loving centrists of Renew Europe, and now Musk is doing his bidding by calling for a ‘break-up [of] the EU’. It’s the same low trick every time – utter one word of dissent against their beloved EU oligarchy and they’ll have you down as a running dog of Russia.

Philip Crump: The Assassination of Charlie Kirk - Free Speech and Billionaire Media

The death of the conservative firebrand comes at a pivotal time for global media.

On September 10, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated during a campus event at the University of Utah. The killing, carried out by Tyler Robinson who now faces the death penalty, has sent shockwaves through American politics and media.

The impact will no doubt be wide-ranging, and early signs are already emerging of the effect that Kirk’s assassination will have.

Philip Crump: Social Media and Sovereignty

Amongst social media oligarchs, Elon Musk is the man of the moment, currently soaking up huge amounts of the spotlight as he combines stunning technological innovation at his various companies with political disruption at the heart of the Trump Administration. But within that group of media titans is another billionaire who rivals Musk for uncompromising audacity - the enigmatic Russian founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov.

John Klar: Is Social Media Fueling Crime and Violence?

Burning, vandalizing, and even defecating on Tesla EVs have become commonplace despite cameras that capture culprits in the act. Such brazen behaviors are endorsed and encouraged, embracing lawlessness as a moral good. Vietnam War protesters were not this extreme, and their goal was more visible and less self-destructive. Social media algorithms seem to be fueling terrible side effects.

Musk Derangement Syndrome and TDS

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Would Elon Musk get a fail in Monetary Economics by Milton Friedman?

As much as I admire much of what Elon Musk stands for, amusingly he's now getting into economics in a big way. Seems its a hobby for him, when he's not launching rockets. Its related to his new role as boss of the Department of Government Efficiency (or "Doge"). On that note, with President Trump sitting next to him, he gives us a mini-lecture on monetary economics. It starts off, "Provided the economy grows faster than the money supply .. and the output of real useful goods and services exceeds the increase in the money supply .. then you have no inflation". Is this correct?

Dr James Allan: Dictator Trump? That’s Just Silly

In Saturday’s edition of Quadrant, Roger Partridge lambasted Donald Trump as an enemy of America’s constitutional democracy. On Sunday, James Allan, Garrick Professor of Law at the University of Queensland and the author of Democracy in Decline, took his friend and colleague to task.

Let me start this reply to Roger Partridge’s column (‘Trump’s War on Constitutional Democracy‘) by laying my cards on the table. I know Roger Partridge. He is one of the best lawyers in New Zealand. He, like me, has grave worries about the sort of judicial activism or judicial usurpation of the role of Parliament that he sees over across the Tasman (and which, in enervated form, is on clear display here in Australia too).

Dr Will Jones: Save Free Speech or Face Trump Tariffs, Farage Warns

Britain is at risk of tariffs from Donald Trump unless it eases its restriction on free speech, Nigel Farage has warned. The Telegraph has more.

The Reform Party leader, a close ally of the US President, suggested that the nation’s free speech “problem” could put it firmly in the crosshairs of the White House.

Olivia Pierson: Draining the Swamp - Hello DOGE

It is impossible to overstate the profound impact that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is having on America. His efforts are nothing short of a radical cleansing, and it is reassuring to witness Musk fielding press conference questions with President Trump seated beside him at the Resolute Desk.

This is something we never could've imagined this time last year.

Rodney Hide: Trump 2.0 Kicking Over the Swamp

President Trump promised to drain the swamp. He has turned it upside down, kicked it around, and is jumping on it.

His opponents are left defending fraud, waste and corruption, paper straws and deranged men hellbent on destroying female sports.

Bob Edlin: Musk’s mischief in the skies....

Musk’s mischief in the skies – his Starlink is impeding the journey of Maori loved ones’ spirits to the stars at Matariki

The day before we celebrated Waitangi Day, The Post published an article which took readers much further back than February 6 1840 while projecting forwards to what might happen over the next five years or so.

Written by Joel Maxwell and promoting the case for protecting Maori knowledge, it was headed They were sending loved ones’ spirits to the stars at Matariki when Elon Musk’s Starlink cut in.

It began with three “fast facts”.

Rhoda Wilson: Echoes of Zimbabwe’s land grab....

Echoes of Zimbabwe’s land grab: South Africa’s President signs law that will enable seizure of white commercial farmers’ land

President Trump has threatened to cut off all future funding to South Africa due to the country's new land expropriation law, which will lead to the confiscation of land from white farmers. Trump says it is a “massive” human rights violation against white people.

Rodney Hide: Helen Clark Declares Elon Musk a Nazi

I struggle to believe former Prime Minister Helen Clark thinks Elon Musk is a Nazi. That doesn’t stop her of accusing him of being one and of him advocating genocide.

Here’s her post on X on 26 January:

Mark Angelides: Musk, Farage, and Tommy Robinson – Here’s the Deal

An insider's look at the row heard around the world.

A public feud between X owner Elon Musk and Britain’s Reform Party leader Nigel Farage over activist Tommy Robinson has created a perfect storm of recrimination and chaos on the UK political scene. With Musk calling for Farage to step aside as frontman of the party he created, patriots on both sides of the Atlantic are torn. But there’s an element at play that this author witnessed firsthand. And it may be the very thing that has played gatekeeper against insurgent parties in British politics. It also serves as a cautionary tale to the incoming Donald Trump administration.

Brendan O' Neill: Elon Musk is neither our saviour nor our destroyer

Musk’s oligarchic fury with Britain sums up everything that’s wrong with internet outrage.

He’s being called the world’s richest pub bore. The first-ever billionaire troll. The man who has everything but still wants more, primarily Keir Starmer’s head on a platter. It’s Elon Musk, who over the past week has taken a break from reaching for the stars to lounge about in the gutter of social-media chatter and invective. He’s gunning, with every tweet, for Starmer’s government, which he accuses of facilitating a ‘rape genocide’ in the UK. Britain’s perma-online right are cheering his fit of oligarchic pique, while our liberals fret that this rude plutocrat will lay waste to our democracy. Both sides need to chill: Musk is neither our saviour nor our destroyer.