Billionaire Trump associate Elon Musk’s latest disinformation campaign is targeting the U.K. government, which Musk appears to believe is not sufficiently anti-immigrant. Musk, who has already shaped the incoming Trump administration’s economic policy by proposing cuts to government spending and tech-oriented privatization of services, signifies a “new era” in American politics, says our guest Quinn Slobodian, who is chronicling right-wing tech billionaires’ accelerating attempts to mold the world according to their “destructive” and “nihilist” beliefs. In a far-reaching conversation, Slobodian touches on Musk’s clear admiration of authoritarian strongmen, market deregulation and white supremacist rhetoric.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk posted a poll early this morning on X asking, quote, “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government — Yes or No?” The question was part of a series of misinformation-filled posts on Musk’s X social media platform that led The New York Times to report Musk, quote, “appears intent on exercising the same influence in European countries that he did during the American presidential election,” unquote.

Over the past few days, Musk lashed out at the U.K.’s Labour government, also trashed a U.K. politician he had formerly backed, the anti-immigrant populist Nigel Farage with the far-right Reform UK party. Musk’s change of heart came after Farage refused to support the release from prison of far-right, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic activist Tommy Robinson. Meanwhile, Musk also falsely accused U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to prosecute child rapists, and supported a post on X that urged King Charles to dissolve the British Parliament and call elections to remove the Labour government.

This comes after Elon Musk also backed Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant party AfD for next month’s elections and is set to host a live discussion on X with its candidate for chancellor. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded to Musk’s endorsements, saying, quote, “I don’t believe in courting Mr. Musk’s favor. I’m happy to leave that to others. The rule is: don’t feed the troll,” he said.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the richest man in the world — that’s Elon Musk — donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to President-elect Trump’s campaign. He’s now shaping policy for the incoming administration. And it’s believed he’s made, since the election, over $200 billion. Musk attended a New Year’s Eve gala at Mar-a-Lago alongside Trump and has joined him on a number of calls with foreign leaders. Musk will co-head Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Last month, Musk played a key role in pushing Republican lawmakers to kill a short-term government spending deal at the last minute. Musk also got Trump’s support for backing H-1B visas for highly skilled workers despite opposition from Trump’s anti-immigrant base.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit The Washington Post after her editors rejected a cartoon depicting billionaires genuflecting to President-elect Trump. She says it was the first time since she began working at the Post in 2008 she had a cartoon killed because of who or what she chose to aim her pen at. A draft of the cartoon depicts Big Tech owners kneeling at Trump’s feet [offering] up sacks of cash, among them Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Just two months ago, the Post featured Ann Telnaes in a video celebrating her work.

ANN TELNAES: I mean, just look at all the autocrats that hate editorial cartoonists. I mean, not in this country, hopefully, but in — you know, a lot of my colleagues overseas are thrown in jail for doing cartoons about powerful people. … A lot of people don’t realize that, you know, we’re journalists. We’re opinion journalists, but we are journalists. And that is our job as editorial cartoonists: to bring up sometimes uncomfortable truths.

AMY GOODMAN: On Friday, Ann Telnaes published an online post titled “Why I’m quitting the Washington Post,” in which she writes, quote, “I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’” Of course, she is citing The Washington Post’s motto.

This comes after Jeff Bezos prevented The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris for president and as Amazon’s Prime Video service announced it’s acquired exclusive licensing rights to a new behind-the-scenes documentary about first lady Melania Trump. Amazon also plans to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and said it would stream the event on Prime Video as a separate in-kind donation worth another million dollars.

For more, we spend the rest of the hour with a person who’s documented the power of Big Tech billionaires and the new techs, specifically, among others, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University. His latest book is Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy. He’s written several pieces for The New Statesman on Elon Musk, including one headlined “Elon Musk’s death drive.” Slobodian also recently contributed to The New York Review of Books running symposium about the reelection of Donald Trump, “The Return of Trump—II.” He’s joining us from Boston, just back from the American Historical Association annual gathering here in New York.

Professor Slobodian, welcome to Democracy Now! The power of Elon Musk cannot be underestimated, from here in the United States — and we’re going to talk........

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