Musk and this new batch of billionaires (essentially the entire plutocratic class) got rich through financialization. Unlike the railroad barons and gilded age industrialists, they did a whole lot less producing things of value and a whole lot more rent-seeking. That is to say, they hacked the economy to get fake-rich, and also bribed government officials to keep such hacking legal. (Seriously, they pushed to reverse laws to stop them from doing shit.)

Money in the US remains entrenched, and so long as it is, it cannot operate in good faith to serve the public good. We can have self-government, or we can have billionaires. We can't have both.

This batch, however, is a catastrophic existential risk to the human species. They just can't help themselves, and admit as much, investing not-small amounts into apocalypse shelters anticipating the collapse of the civilization on which they depend. Rather than, say, using their vast gains intelligently to keep the system going.

Because I like to offer deep dives, Demonetized (a spin-off of How Money Works) did a deep dive on why billionaires are so crazy. And How Business Worked (another spinoff of HMW) did one on why the uber-wealthy historically collapse civilizations they depend on.

In the meantime, now that Texas has a blue governor and a blue AG, Musk is going to have a lot of work cut out for him since he used bribes and lies to bypass zoning restrictions for his rocket launchpads, and they're shaking apart the homes of nearby neighborhoods. He really is worse than Blofeld or Luthor.