Muskism

“A whirlwind tour through the plans and inspirations of the world’s most self-important man.” –Malcolm Harris, author of Palo Alto

“Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed begins with a simple proposition. We live in a bewildering moment defined by a bewildering man: Elon Musk. Not that the book’s authors, Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, believe there’s much to be gained by peering into Musk’s soul… . The authors pluck out some themes, beginning with his childhood in apartheid South Africa… . [and] skillfully guide us through the subsequent decades, as Musk made his fortune and learned some lessons that would become foundational to Muskism.” –The New York Times Book Review

“Muskism is not a biography, although Musk’s life story informs the thesis. It is an explanation of the future we are entering.” –Jacobin

“The portrait of Musk that emerges here is that of a childish, terminally online man who desires to eliminate the messiness of contemporary life for a more rigid order.” –The New Yorker, “Briefly Noted”

“This book is brilliant in all the ways Elon Musk is not: unflinchingly honest, actually humorous, and deeply humane. Unlike their subject, these authors punch up, not down, and they do so with erudition and precision. A wholly original and insightful analysis that deserves to be read by the billions of people impacted by Musk’s pathological quest for power and wealth.” –Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecurity

“Persuasive and vital.” –The New York Review of Books

“Muskism cuts straight to the core of the man and the moment, explaining how a mercurial, conspiracy-prone, vicious bastard can inspire loyalty and billions in other peoples’ money, and the nightmare world he wants to build with those billions.” –Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification and editor of Pluralistic

“The bad news is that Elon Musk is the most powerful and influential man alive–the world-soul astride a Cybertruck. The good news is that Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian have written this sharp, stimulating guide not just to the man and his ideology but to the paradigm and ‘operating system’ he represents. Forget the hagiographies and conspiracy theories, this is the only book you need to understand Musk and the world he’s seeking to usher in.” –Max Read, editor of Read Max

“Through the life and work of Elon Musk, this impeccably researched and splendidly written book introduces us to something more than the man: Muskism, the idea of using government to pay for one’s entrepreneurship harnessed to ensuring the rise and rule of the new engineering technocracy. It is a world full of promise and fear. Technical prowess no longer seems to work for equality, but for its opposite. Startups are on their way to becoming satraps.” –Branko Milanovic, author of The Great Global Transformation

“A searching look into Elon Musk’s quest to rule the universe… . Muskism is a doctrine of wealth for the few and political and economic domination: SpaceX in space, X and Grok online, Starlink on every phone… Dystopian isn’t a strong enough word for the technocratic future the authors prophesy in this bleak but urgent book.” –Kirkus

“Slobodian is an academic historian and public intellectual. I look to him for accessible but probing takes on Cold War neoliberals, the failings of globalism, and-you guessed it, a certain world-cratering slimeball in Silicon Valley. Ben Tarnoff is a leading tech writer, known for his clarion call to deprivatize the internet. So these two feel like the perfect guides to help a layman understand the Musk phenomenon.” –Literary Hub, “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026”

“Impressive and unrelenting, [MUSKISM] grapples with a destructive ideology that seems poised to consume everything.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Slobodian and Tarnoff’s ‘guide for the perplexed’ capably and cleverly attempts to recognize the world that produced Elon Musk as well as how he became an icon and later, a political firebrand. Pithy and informative from beginning to end.” –Booklist

“In their new book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, historian Quinn Slobodian and tech writer Ben Tarnoff dig into the mindset of Silicon Valley’s most gauche tycoon and touch on science fiction more tangentially, but their firmer grasp of just what flavor of capitalism Musk and his cohort represent sheds a brighter light on the topic.” –Slate

”…[Muskism is] packed with insights about why we find ourselves in such a perilous situation in which a handful of unelected individuals exert unprecedented domestic and global power.” –Financial Times

“An illuminating book that examines where Mr Musk came from and the episodes that shaped his worldview. In many ways it is the inverse of Walter Isaacson’s authorised biography of 2023. Despite the lack of direct access to Mr Musk, the authors provide a portrait of his psyche that is arguably more revealing… . the resulting book is, you might say, a Musk-read.” –The Economist

“Slobodian and Tarnoff’s fascinating book … . sheds important light on how one man is trying to remake the world in his own image - while the rest of us haven’t even been consulted.” –The Conversation

”[A] remarkable new book … . Muskism should be on every reading list for students, contemporary politics, economics, business and media.” –Inside Story (AUS)

”[A] rare, successful effort to explain Musk both as an individual and a structural phenomenon.” –The Point (AUS)

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University, and the author of several books including Globalists, Crack-Up Capitalism, and Hayek’s Bastards. The last won the National Book Critics Circle award for Criticism.

Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts and is the author of Internet for the People and the co-author of Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do–And How They Do It. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic, among other publications.

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