The Echoes of Fascism: Musk’s Political Rhetoric and Eco’s Fourteen Points
Although Elon Musk has either withdrawn or been removed from day-to-day oversight of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the world’s richest man’s engagement with right-wing extremism continues to raise valid concerns for pro-democracy advocates. This article seeks to analyze Musk's political rhetoric using the frameworks laid out in Umberto Eco's “Ur-Fascism,” highlighting key traits like xenophobia and cult of personality. By comparing Musk's statements and actions to Eco's model, the author aims to point out the fascistic character of Musk’s rhetoric, and the potential threat it poses to democratic governments. This is a condensed version of an essay originally presented orally at California State University Northridge.
Umberto Eco’s essay “Ur-Fascism” holds significant weight within scholarship on political extremism. His fourteen-point definition of “Eternal Fascism” was immediately utilized by scholars to help understand European fascist regimes. Scholars have continued to use “Ur-Fascism” to identify current regimes. While Eco holds no monopoly on the definition of fascism or its features, the respectability of “Ur-Fascism” amongst historians and scholars, as well as its utility and relevance, merit its use today.
Primarily a reflection on his experience in fascist Italy, Eco’s background as a semiotician also led him to discuss how fascists articulated themselves. Behind every movement lies its ideologies. In front, however, lies its rhetoricians. As fascism began to take root in Italy, Eco asserts that Mussolini “did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric”. But how can a political ideology which led to several totalitarian governments survive and spread without consistency? Eco reflects on the confusing nature of fascism:
Fascism was a fuzzy totalitarianism, a collage of different philosophical and political ideas, a beehive of contradictions… [This] contradictory picture I describe was not the result of tolerance but of political and ideological discombobulation…Fascism was philosophically out of joint, but emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations.
Eco frames fascism as a fundamentally incoherent set of ideas that, when conveniently applied, help consolidate power in the hands of a few authoritarians. Eco said, however, “It is enough that one of [these ideas] be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it”. Given this, the presence of multiple fascist characteristics in Musk’s rhetoric should give serious pause amongst democracy advocates. If we smell smoke, we must act like there’s a fire; if the alarms are going off, we cannot ignore them.
Eco first speaks of Ur-Fascism as an ideology that follows a cult of tradition which is necessarily syncretistic. While not a practicing Christian, Musk has claimed to be “culturally Christian” and a “big believer in the principles of Christianity”; he also went on to tie the decrease in religion with a decrease in population.
While he may be cherry-picking from one set of religious beliefs, he doesn’t appear to combine them with any other mythologies or religions. However, his rightward shift into the MAGA movement does give some concern. Musk has historically been moderate. But after endorsing Trump in 2024, he became the largest political donor in the 2024 election cycle, donating more than a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump and other Republican candidates running for congress. He even set up a political action committee that largely ran Trump’s ground campaign up until election night.
Eco notes the Fascist Party of Italy at its beginning was republican, and that it ultimately manifested itself as a far-right dictatorship after it was financed by rich landowners.
The rejection of modernism and anti-intellectualism are two prominent features of Musk’s rhetoric. Eco explains how the Nazis held a surface-level praise of modernism via technology, while rejecting “the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course)”. Musk has a long relationship with technology, particularly with Tesla and SpaceX. Musk has worked for decades on a plan to colonize Mars, stating that humanity should have “life insurance for life as a whole”. It’s perhaps no small coincidence that Musk was named after the alien Mars leader in The Mars Project, a science fiction novel written by Nazi rocket engineer Wernher von Braun.
A green carmaker’s climate denial
When von Braun’s book was published, the world faced an existential threat via a Cold War nuclear apocalypse; today climate change represents a similar threat to Earth. Despite his contributions to green energy technologies, he has increasingly engaged in anti-intellectual climate change denial. While scientists have agreed agriculture and other land use make up 13-21% of global emissions, Musk has claimed agriculture has “no meaningful impact on climate change”. Since his involvement in the second Trump administration, Musk has adopted his climate denialism, prompting leading experts to call Musk a “climate denier”. While previously calling for a “popular uprising” against fossil fuel industries, experts have noticed Musk’s rapid deprioritization of climate solutions since his involvement.
Much like von Braun’s utopian visions for Mars exploration helped the American public forget about his contributions to Nazi war crimes, Musk’s interplanetary irrationality has worked to pave over important climate realities. Eco notes that “distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism”. Musk’s distrust of climate science contradicts his green endeavors. Given Musk’s current political and economic positions of power, his continued rejection of modern climate science and his irrationalist rhetoric present a fascistic danger to America, and the world.
Attacks on cultural and social progress
While dismissing climate expertise, Musk has also attacked cultural and social progress. Eco reminds us that fascist intellectuals, like Goering, “mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values”. Musk became obsessed with the “woke mind virus” after his daughter Vivian transitioned into a woman. He publicly vowed to “destroy the woke mind virus,” claiming his “son was killed” by it. This rhetoric exemplifies Eco’s seventh feature: obsession with a plot. Eco notes that such a plot can come from within or without the nation, but their “followers must feel besieged”. Musk has claimed that the “woke mind virus,” its reevaluation of traditional values and gender norms, is causing civilizational collapse; he also blamed universities for indoctrinating students with “wokeness”. Considering every single major medical association recognizes the efficacy and importance of gender-affirming care, Musk’s unfounded obsession with “wokeness” threatens both the LGBTQ+ community and academia. This feature remains particularly dangerous, as Musk continues to target other marginalized groups.
Musk’s rhetoric also reflects Eco’s twelfth feature: thinking as “a form of emasculation”. Musk tends to compensate for his intelligence by playing heavily into machismo. Musk has resorted to threats of violence, such as inviting Zuckerberg to a cage match over the launch of Threads. He also flexed his unelected influence over government spending policy by waving a chainsaw at CPAC. These exaggerated masculine behaviors coincide with what Eco implies as a “disdain for women” and “condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits”. While leaning into transphobia, Musk is also misogynistic. Several SpaceX employees sued Musk for firing them based on sexual bias; they documented a “pervasive sexist culture at SpaceX” rife with routine sexual harassment and comments. SpaceX also issued a $250,000 severance, and a non-disclosure agreement, to a flight attendant after Musk allegedly propositioned her for sex. Researchers also found a dramatic increase in the pervasiveness of misogynistic content and accounts on Twitter following its acquisition by Musk. This evidence firmly ties Elon’s rhetoric to a machismo that threatens women.
Great Replacement theory
Most egregiously present in Musk’s rhetoric is the fear of difference. Eco’s fifth feature notes that “Ur-Fascism is racist by definition;” fear of difference is often the first appeal made by burgeoning fascists. Musk has claimed “illegals [are] being put in swing states” so they can “replace native-born American voters”. This unfounded claim is a nod to the Great Replacement Theory, a conspiracy theory believed by white nationalists and white supremacists. Dr. Suleiman, president of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, accused Musk of using his platform on X to blow “every conceivable dog whistle of Islamophobia”. For example, Musk used a baseless memo to spread a rumor campaign accusing British PM Starmer of being “complicit in the rape” of British women and girls by Pakistani grooming gangs; recent studies have found little evidence of such gangs, noting most offenders were white.
These examples demonstrate a deep-seated racism in Musk’s rhetoric. His rhetoric has also featured antisemitic tropes and symbols. Before his involvement with Trump, Musk agreed with a tweet claiming Jews deserved hatred for their anti-white racism by replying “you have said the actual truth”. Musk infamously performed a Sieg Heil salute at a Trump rally. While the Anti-Defamation League quickly defended his “awkward gesture,” their director emeritus disagreed, calling it a “Heil Hitler Nazi salute”. Several scholars of extremism, as well as the former head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, have condemned Musk’s fascist salute; regardless of his intentions, white nationalist organizations and commentators across the US celebrated the salute. Musk also spoke to supporters of the AfD, a German far-right party with a history of neo-Nazism and xenophobia. In his speech, he called the AfD “the best hope for Germany,” claimed multiculturalism “dilutes” German culture and values, and that Germany needed to “move beyond” the “past guilt” of the Nazi era. Musk’s racist and antisemitic rhetoric resembles Eco’s fifth and seventh characteristics, firmly tying his rhetoric to fascism.
Free speech for me, not for thee
Musk’s aversion to analytical criticism also ties him to Eco’s fourth feature. Musk has repeatedly censored his critics, despite identifying as a “free speech advocate”. After Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he suspended the Twitter accounts of journalists critical of him; in 2024 he censored at least fourteen more across the political spectrum. He also failed to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate for their coverage of X. Despite his first amendment advocacy, he hypocritically allowed the Turkish government to censor speech on X before their national elections. Musk’s tendency to critique and meddle in the democratic governments of Turkey, England, Germany, and the United States, can also be associated with Eco’s thirteenth feature. These features further define Musk’s fascist tendencies, serving as a growing list of red flags for democracy advocates globally.
If one of Eco’s features applied to the world’s richest man would be troublesome, seven is no laughing matter. In addition to Musk’s increasing economic and political power, his rhetoric has increasingly become more fascistic over time. Democracy advocates, particularly in the United States, should treat Musk’s rhetoric and rise to power as a potentially nation-ending event. Historically, rhetoricians with less wealth and influence have given birth to fascist movements and totalitarian governments. Eco implored that the rise of fascism is not obvious, that it is our duty to “uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world”. In a world of rising extremism and instability, it must be the task of the modern leader, the modern citizen, to be resiliently anti-fascist. “Freedom and liberation are an unending task”.