Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk Is Embracing Populist, Nativist, Nationalist, Anti-Immigrant Philosophy

EXCERPT:

ISAACSON: “I think that Musk, in my book that chapter is called 'The rabbit hole,' you see him really embracing a somewhat conspiracist, populist, nativist, nationalist, anti-immigrant philosophies and I think it builds up throughout his life. His father and his grandparents on his mother's side all had those ways. And as you know Andrea you see this all around the world, at the moment, there's nativist, populist, nationalistic, sometimes called right-wing, although I'm not quite sure what wings it truly belongs to. And it's happening with the AfD in Germany but of course it's happening with Marine Le Pen in France. And the rumblings of it are basically deeply anti-immigration in terms of massive asylum-seeking immigrants. But in Musk's case it's combined as you know with the desire for legal immigrants, those who get H-1B visas, those who are engineers. So I think that his views, you can see it in the book throughout his life, starting to embrace this sense but it's not all that unusual from what's happening around the world today, with this populist, nativist, anti-immigration sentiments.”