Elon Musk is a trillionaire again after SpaceX stock surged nearly 8% on Monday, and the establishment press is seething.
Why it matters: The man building rockets, electric cars, and satellite networks that serve hard American interests crossed the 13-figure threshold once more, and outlets like Gizmodo responded by comparing him to a body-horror movie monster. That tells you everything about who the media fears and why.
Business Insider kept it to the numbers: Musk's net worth hit an estimated $1.046 trillion per Forbes after SpaceX stock climbed to $171.09 on Monday. The SpaceX IPO in June made him the first person ever to reach trillionaire status; a stock dip knocked him below it; now he's back. His wealth peaked at $1.32 trillion on June 16, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The second-richest person on Earth, Jeff Bezos, sits at $371 billion — less than a third of Musk's holdings.
Gizmodo, by contrast, couldn't get through the lede without a David Cronenberg reference. The outlet framed Musk's wealth as an "absolutely incomprehensible number" and devoted the bulk of its coverage to his personal life and political leanings. Gizmodo called his adoption of Trump's "Super Intelligence" terminology for AI "obsequious worm" behavior and suggested Musk is currying favor for federal contracts — as though every major defense contractor in the country doesn't already do exactly that through lobbying shops on K Street.
Here's what Gizmodo buried and Business Insider reported straight: Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas called SpaceX stock "cheap and getting cheaper" on Sunday, and the market corrected upward the next day. The financial story — a company advancing American space dominance being undervalued by Wall Street — got a fraction of the ink that Gizmodo devoted to Musk's relationship drama.
The press sneers at Musk's wealth while saying nothing about the government-subsidized failures burning through your tax dollars. Intel took $8.5 billion in CHIPS Act subsidies and still can't compete with TSMC. Nobody at Gizmodo is calling that "self-debasement." The difference is simple: Intel answers to Washington. Musk answers to no one — and that's what terrifies the gatekeepers.
Musk's fortune comes from companies that actually build things in this country: rockets, cars, satellites, tunnels. He's not a consultant class parasite billing the government for slide decks. He's a builder. The establishment press treats builders as threats because builders don't need permission from the people who write the opinion columns.
The real question isn't why Musk is rich. It's why the people who aren't building anything can't stop talking about him.
