Tools, Methods, and Political Games in the Age of Musk
with Stuart Shulman, PhD
Elon Musk, a corporate billionaire and private naturalized American citizen born in South Africa, has taken an extraordinary amount of power in government since Donald Trump took office as President less than a month ago. Trump has frequently been reported not to be in the office itself but on his golf course or at events like the Super Bowl, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in Secret Service protection over his two terms so far. Additionally, he has recently been shown sitting during a presentation by Musk standing above him and talking to the press, leaving some reporters to label the image as “powerless.” So, who or what party is additionally acting in the role of the Executive Office these days is not entirely understood. A further question is, what do we do about criminal overreach by a non-elected official acting within that role? Will the Supreme Court and Department of Justice exercise their independence despite Trump’s loyalty demands? Will they preserve the Constitutional structure for separation of powers to preserve the checks and balances? It does not appear so.
Dr. Stuart Shulman and I discussed many of these questions, including his work with ‘deep data and quantitative studies’ on this podcast episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum. Stuart is the founding editor of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics. He holds a PhD in American Politics and has done extensive teaching and leadership roles in collaborative interdisciplinary research. Additionally, as founder and CEO of Texifter, he discussed the analysis of Twitter data, his work supporting academic access to data, and federal agency review of public comments on proposed rules. He delivered a conference paper in October of last year titled “Tools, Methods, and Political Games in the Age of Musk,” prepared specifically for a conference titled Decrypting Digital Authoritarianism.
