Today confirms what many have feared: Musk has captured the state itself. Governance has not been dismantled, it has been absorbed into his empire. Rather than merely influencing policy from the outside, Musk has embedded himself within the machinery of governance itself. The 21st century has witnessed an unprecedented centralisation of power in the hands of a few billionaire tech oligarchs. No longer content with controlling the means of communication, finance, technological infrastructure, and even space travel, figures like Musk and his neo-reactionary allies are now remodelling governance to serve corporate power. A leaked memo, titled “Capture of U.S. Critical Infrastructure by Neoreactionaries”, lays bare the scale of this transformation.
The memo’s authors state outright: Musk has not merely influenced federal power, he has “replaced it with himself.”
The memo outlines four key developments that place federal power under Musk’s direct control:
- Seizure of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – DOGE operatives “purged career civil servants and installed loyalists with ties to Musk’s private ventures,” ensuring that hiring decisions across the federal workforce are dictated by a private corporate network rather than democratic oversight.
- Unvetted operatives controlling critical agencies – The memo reveals that “DOGE has deployed unvetted hires—many under 25 years old—who now wield de facto control over sensitive government functions without security clearances.” These hires, drawn from Musk’s Silicon Valley and neoreactionary (NRx) networks, operate with no legal oversight or accountability, yet control Treasury infrastructure, federal hiring, and AI-driven governance models.
- Direct financial control over the U.S. Treasury – The most alarming revelation is that Musk has “gained read-write access over Treasury pipes and federal payment systems, granting him direct influence over the financial infrastructure of the U.S. government.” The memo warns that this level of control “creates a national security risk and a personal power lever for Musk,” allowing him to manipulate government cash flows without oversight.
- TikTok acquisition and media control – The memo highlights Musk’s ongoing “delayed congressional divestment of TikTok”, raising the possibility that he may seize control of the platform and consolidate social media power, alongside his existing ownership of X (formerly Twitter). If successful, Musk would control the dominant platforms shaping political discourse among young Americans, giving him unprecedented power over public opinion and election narratives.
The memo does not merely warn of bureaucratic restructuring—it explicitly calls Musk’s actions a private hostile takeover of U.S. governance. The authors state:
“DOGE has not reduced bureaucracy—it has privatized it. Treasury has not been made more efficient—it has been placed under a billionaire’s influence. TikTok has not been secured from foreign threats—it has been delayed so Musk can position himself as its gatekeeper.”
The memo also directly warns that:
“President Trump, far from asserting dominance over the administrative state, may now find himself hostage to Musk.”
This suggests that Musk is not merely working within the administration but supplanting its authority, wielding financial, bureaucratic, and algorithmic control over federal power structures.
From Fordism to Techno-Feudalism
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that capitalism’s inner logic is the relentless accumulation and centralisation of wealth. Under competitive pressures, capitalists do not merely seek profit—they are compelled to concentrate ownership, dominate markets, and eliminate constraints on accumulation.
In the 20th century, Fordist capitalism required a level of state intervention to stabilise accumulation. Governments implemented social safety nets, labour protections, and public infrastructure not out of benevolence, but because capital required a functional, consuming workforce to sustain mass production. The welfare state was a compromise, not a gift, a temporary truce between capital and labour to prevent systemic collapse. However, the rise of neoliberalism in the late 20th century marked the next phase: capital no longer needed a strong welfare state. Deregulation, financialisation, and globalisation allowed wealth to detach from national economies, creating a world where capital moved freely, but workers and public institutions remained bound by borders. The state was not abolished, but it was hollowed out, transformed into an enforcer of market discipline rather than a regulator of corporate excess. Now, in the 21st century, we are witnessing the final stage: the transition from neoliberalism to techno-feudalism.
If Fordist capitalism relied on the state and neoliberalism sought to weaken it, techno-feudalism no longer requires the state at all. Instead of lobbying politicians, figures like Musk become the state. Instead of manipulating markets, they replace them with private financial networks. Instead of dismantling bureaucracy, they absorb it, replacing civil servants with AI-driven technocracy.
Musk’s capture of the Treasury, AI governance, and financial flows is not an aberration—it is the logical conclusion of capital’s drive to eliminate all external constraints. This is not simply a more extreme form of neoliberalism; it is an entirely new mode of capitalist rule, one in which billionaires no longer seek to influence the state but to administer it directly, through digital enclosures, automated governance, and privatised financial sovereignty.
The leaked memo detailing Musk’s control over federal agencies, financial infrastructure, and AI governance should be understood in this historical context. It does not represent corruption or state capture in the traditional sense—it is the next phase in the evolution of capitalist domination.
This is not just a further stage of neoliberalism. It is the moment where capital no longer needs the state—because it has become the state.
- Under Fordism, corporations relied on the state to provide a functional labour force and infrastructure.
- Under neoliberalism, corporations sought to weaken the state but still required it as a regulatory shield.
- Under techno-feudalism, the capitalist class no longer relies on the state—they become the state. And their new tool of governance is not bureaucracy, but AI itself.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is a prime example of this shift. Unlike traditional privatisation, where state functions are outsourced to competing private firms, this is something far more insidious: the subsumption of governance into a single billionaire’s personal empire. The centralisation of power under Musk is not a return to classical feudalism but rather a new form of digital enclosure, a process in which public resources (in this case, governance itself) are absorbed into private, unaccountable hands.
Techno-Feudalism and the Enclosure of Governance
The concept of enclosure originates from the feudal period, when communal lands were seized and privatised, forcing peasants into wage labour. Today, we are witnessing a new kind of enclosure—not of land, but of governance, finance, and information. Musk’s consolidation of power follows a historical pattern of capital absorbing the functions of the state, but now at a far more advanced stage, where public oversight is almost entirely eroded.
- AI-driven governance replaces bureaucratic decision-making with private algorithms.
- Crypto-financialisation allows tech elites to bypass state-controlled monetary systems.
- Freedom cities and network states create enclaves where corporate sovereignty replaces democratic governance.
This is not simply a more extreme form of neoliberalism; it is an entirely new mode of capitalist rule, one in which billionaires no longer seek to influence the state but to become its sole administrators. The leaked memo should be understood in this context: the final absorption of public governance into private hands, marking the realisation of the techno-feudal dystopia.
The only viable response is not merely reform (this is now too late) but the complete dismantling of the techno-feudal order, reclaiming governance as a genuinely democratic project.
Gil Duran (a must read) has extensively critiqued the increasing involvement of tech oligarchs in political structures, noting their efforts to shape governance in ways that benefit them while eroding public oversight. His analysis of figures like Garry Tan in San Francisco, who has poured money into reshaping the city’s political landscape, illustrates how tech elites leverage wealth to consolidate power. Musk’s maneuvers at the federal level mirror these localised efforts, but on a grander, more dangerous scale.
The Corporate Enclosure of Space
One of the most insidious aspects of the tech oligarchs’ vision for the future is the concept of ‘freedom cities’ and ‘network states.’ Musk, along with fellow oligarchs like Srinivasan and Thiel (a long time member of the PayPal Mafia), has long advocated for the creation of private enclaves beyond democratic control. Whether in the form of Próspera in Honduras, Praxis’ attempts to purchase Greenland1, or Musk’s own interest in sovereign corporate cities, these projects represent a spatial fix to capitalist crisis.
The memo specifically identifies these networked governance models as part of a broader neoreactionary strategy. Musk’s acquisition of TikTok, currently under discussion, would grant him direct control over one of the world’s most influential social platforms, allowing him to manipulate public discourse while insulating his emerging digital empire from external scrutiny. Balaji Srinivasan’s ‘network state’ model is central to this vision, as Duran has observed, offering a blueprint for enclaves of capital to operate outside state intervention while dictating their own authoritarian governance structures.
Neoliberal Dream of Post-State Capitalism
Musk’s financial takeover is not just about wealth accumulation, it’s about absolute control over economic flows, state liquidity, and financial infrastructure itself. The billionaire class has long relied on financial deregulation, corporate lobbying, and crypto-financialisation to evade oversight, but Musk’s capture of the U.S. Treasury marks a qualitative shift in the capitalist mode of governance.
Rather than influencing financial policy from the outside, Musk now directly administers the monetary infrastructure of the federal government itself.
To understand the implications, consider what “owning” a nation’s financial pipeline actually means. The U.S. Treasury doesn’t just handle government payroll and military contracts—it controls every major federal disbursement, including:
- Social Security payments for tens of millions of Americans
- Medicaid and healthcare funding for hospitals and public health programmes
- Public pensions and disability payments
- Federal infrastructure spending
- Tax refunds, welfare, and emergency relief funds
- Government contracts for private businesses, including defence, energy, and tech
Control over these systems gives Musk the power to:
- Delay or halt payments to specific agencies, contractors, or even social programmes, weaponising economic flows to advance political and ideological goals.
- Access sensitive financial intelligence on U.S. expenditures, effectively making him privy to national security-level monetary data.
- Privatise and redirect funding structures, opening the door for direct corporate capture of federal disbursements.
This is why Musk’s DOGE operatives gaining Treasury access is not just an act of corruption—it is a structural transformation of power.
In traditional neoliberalism, capitalists relied on lobbying, regulatory rollback, and financial speculation to shape markets in their favour. Musk, however, has moved beyond influence, he is now executing state-level financial policy in real time, entirely outside democratic accountability.
Musk’s Treasury Takeover
The leaked memo provides chilling confirmation of this power shift:
“DOGE operatives now hold full read-write privileges for [Federal Reserve and Treasury digital ledgers]. Temporary discretion is authorized in cases of liquidity concerns or operational efficiency.”
This means that Musk now has the power to freeze, redirect, or modify federal payments at will—a direct assault on the foundations of public finance.
The memo further warns that this level of control creates massive risks of financial manipulation:
“DOGE’s Treasury infiltration enables real-time intervention in government monetary flows. The structural implications of this access remain unclear, but operatives have already moved to reprioritise federal payment sequences, raising concerns of selective disbursement and private leverage over public funds.”
This isn’t just about Musk capturing financial infrastructure, it’s about using it to entrench his own power, ensuring that economic levers function not for the state, but for a private billionaire’s empire.
Crypto-Financialisation
Cryptocurrency, long heralded by libertarians as a tool of decentralisation, has instead become the financial foundation of techno-authoritarianism. Rather than breaking state control over money, crypto has created a shadow financial system where private elites set monetary policy, operating beyond regulatory scrutiny.
Musk’s deep entanglement in Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin, and emerging “meme-coin” economies is not just a financial investment. It is a strategic move to bypass state-regulated finance altogether.
The memo explicitly warns about Musk’s use of crypto as a financial weapon:
“The fusion of federal financial control with private blockchain networks under Musk-aligned entities presents a significant risk to economic sovereignty. DOGE’s Treasury access, combined with Musk’s influence over cryptocurrency markets, creates a direct pathway for unregulated financial flows outside of state oversight.”
This is not speculation—Musk has already demonstrated his ability to manipulate financial markets through crypto:
- Dogecoin price manipulation – Musk’s tweets routinely cause multi-billion-dollar swings in DOGE’s value, demonstrating his ability to engineer mass speculative movements on demand.
- The collapse of the $Trump meme coin – This speculative asset, hyped by Musk-aligned operatives, turned into a pump-and-dump scheme, where insider investors profited while retail buyers suffered massive losses.
- Direct integration of crypto into X (formerly Twitter) – Musk’s platform now supports crypto payments, allowing him to embed blockchain transactions into social media and digital infrastructure.
The endgame is clear: having captured the federal financial infrastructure, Musk is now expanding private digital money systems that remove the state from monetary governance entirely. The combination of Treasury access and blockchain financialisation sets the stage for a world where private billionaires—not governments—set the terms of economic life.
This is the neoliberal dream fully realised: a world without public financial oversight, where money, governance, and economic control are dictated by a handful of unelected tech oligarchs. One only has to look at the $Trump memecoin, an unregulated pump-and-dump where a handful of insiders made millions while retail investors, Mom-and-Pop traders lured in by the hype, were left holding worthless tokens.
If this trajectory continues unchecked, we will witness the final dissolution of public finance into private hands. Crypto will not liberate the working class; it will enclose them in a hyper-financialised economy where every transaction is monitored, manipulated, and extracted for profit2.
Musk’s ultimate ambition is clear: a financial system where public monetary governance is obsolete, and private blockchain networks dictate economic power.
Crypto as a Class Weapon
While crypto’s early rhetoric was one of financial democracy, it has, in reality, become a tool for digital rentier capitalism. The control of financial flows, once the domain of state institutions, is being privatised at an unprecedented scale. If Musk, Thiel, and their allies are allowed to dictate the terms of economic exchange, the future will not be one of decentralised empowerment, but of corporate sovereignty over financial life itself.
Argentina and El Salvador offer a glimpse of what happens when national financial sovereignty is sacrificed to the forces of digital rentier capitalism3. In Argentina, Javier Milei’s libertarian presidency has accelerated the erosion of public monetary control, slashing currency exchange restrictions and embracing crypto under the banner of ‘economic freedom.’ By dismantling state financial oversight in favour of free-market absolutism, Milei has created the conditions for a private monetary regime where tech oligarchs, rather than central banks, dictate financial policy. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, Nayib Bukele’s Bitcoin experiment has collapsed under its own contradictions. After becoming the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, Bukele has now revoked its status to secure a $1.4 billion IMF bailout, exposing the hollowness of crypto’s sovereignty myth. The lesson is clear: where states abandon control over financial infrastructure, private capital steps in, not to democratise, but to extract. Musk, Thiel, and their allies are not pioneering financial liberation; they are laying the groundwork for a fully privatised monetary order, where the state serves merely as a compliance mechanism for corporate power.
The left must develop a counter-strategy that resists the consolidation of financial control under techno-capitalist monopolies. Rather than embracing crypto as an alternative to central banking, we must fight to reclaim financial infrastructure as a public good, free from the predation of billionaire speculators. The current trajectory does not lead to financial freedom—it leads to a techno-feudal financial order, where digital currencies become instruments of capitalist domination rather than liberation.
The Rise of Algorithmic Governance
Musk’s takeover of government is not just bureaucratic, it is algorithmic. The leaked memo reveals that DOGE operatives, many of whom lack security clearances, have been placed inside key federal agencies with unrestricted access to government systems. Their objective is not just to manage administration more efficiently—it is to replace traditional state decision-making with AI-driven automation, embedding Musk’s ideological and financial interests into the core of governance itself.
The memo confirms that Musk’s AI initiative, xAI, is already being integrated into Treasury operations, raising concerns that algorithmic systems will begin dictating government spending, tax policy, and financial disbursement priorities. This is a paradigm shift: rather than economic policy being shaped by elected officials, it will be managed by AI models optimised for corporate efficiency, capital accumulation, and financial extraction.
“Phase III deployment of [xAI-GOV] will oversee automated personnel selection, funding allocations, and strategic forecasting across participating agencies. Human oversight will be minimised to avoid inefficiencies.”
This is not just algorithmic governance, it is financial governance by machine-learning models designed to serve billionaire interests. The leaked memo confirms that AI will dictate hiring, funding, and policy decisions based on metrics optimised for profit and efficiency, rather than democratic accountability or social welfare. The result? A privatised, automated state, where Musk’s AI dictates economic priorities, suppresses regulatory constraints, and erases any avenue for public intervention.
“DOGE operatives, many without formal security clearances, now wield unrestricted access to sensitive government data and decision-making pipelines. Their authority is set to expand under a Musk-backed initiative to automate key state functions.”
This is not just a restructuring of government, it is a technological coup. AI is replacing civil servants, social spending is being redirected through private algorithms, and state power is being absorbed into an unelected, machine-driven corporate empire.
Musk’s xAI is not simply an advisory tool, it is an ideological apparatus, programmed to prioritise deregulation, corporate sovereignty, and capital accumulation. If the old state apparatus was bureaucratic, slow, and inefficient, this new system is brutally effective, optimised for private wealth extraction at an unprecedented scale. Accelerationism.
Under Fordist capitalism, state power was used to stabilise accumulation through social policies and labour protections.
Under neoliberalism, state power was weakened but still necessary as a regulatory shield.
Under techno-feudalism, the state is no longer necessary at all—AI is the new administrator, governing directly on behalf of capital.
The final enclosure is not of land or labour, but of economic governance itself.
Rise of Digital Enclosure
At the heart of this transformation lies the integration of AI, social media, and state surveillance under private control. Musk’s simultaneous control over X (formerly Twitter), his potential acquisition of TikTok4, and Wikipedia, and his influence over AI infrastructure through xAI demonstrates a terrifying consolidation of informational power. Through algorithmic governance, these tech oligarchs dictate what information circulates, shaping political discourse while rendering resistance increasingly difficult.
The memo provides concrete evidence of this trajectory. The mass replacement of civil servants5 with Musk-aligned AI (machines replacing people) and tech specialists ensures that every aspect of governance—financial systems, hiring practices, law enforcement, and information control—is subject to real-time data extraction and behavioural prediction. The result is a new form of algorithmic capitalism, where dissent is not just punished, but preemptively neutralised before it can emerge.
The Fight for Left Tech
The future of technology does not belong to Musk, Thiel, or the billionaires who seek to enclose governance, finance, and information within their private empires. It does not belong to AI-powered financial dictatorship, corporate-controlled algorithms, or crypto-enclosed economies that strip power from the public and hand it to unelected oligarchs. The choice ahead is stark: either technology is used to entrench a permanent digital aristocracy, or it is repurposed to liberate us.
The Left must reclaim technology—not to tweak its excesses, but to fundamentally dismantle its profit-driven architecture. We must build a world where technology does not serve as an instrument of corporate control but as a public commons, where AI does not extract wealth but redistributes it, where algorithms do not suppress dissent but amplify collective intelligence, where financial systems do not enrich the few but empower the many.
We have been told that AI governance is inevitable, that algorithmic capitalism is an inescapable fate, that crypto-financialisation must be accepted as the natural next step in economic evolution. This is a lie. The very technologies Musk seeks to wield as instruments of domination can be repurposed for collective liberation.
A Left Tech Utopia
The fight is not just about regulating Big Tech—it is about abolishing its control over society entirely. This means:
Abolishing the Algorithm – The opaque, privately owned AI models that dictate search results, suppress political dissent, and shape financial flows must be destroyed. No more black-box governance, no more proprietary models engineered for profit, no more Musk-owned machine overlords. AI must be open, transparent, and controlled by the people, not billionaires.
Forcing the Tech Oligarchy to Delete the Algorithm – Musk’s algorithmic hegemony over information must be dismantled. No more profit-driven social engineering. No more privatised recommendation engines manipulating elections, crushing dissent, or reinforcing capitalist ideology. All proprietary AI must be open-source, decentralised, and controlled by democratic collectives.
Taking Profit Out of Tech – Technology cannot be owned. No more privately controlled AI, no more corporate-run financial networks, no more algorithmic profiteering. Tech must be public, open-source, and oriented toward collective empowerment—not shareholder returns.
Public AI for the Public Good – AI should be an instrument of economic planning, healthcare, scientific discovery, and climate solutions—not a surveillance weapon for capital accumulation. The future is not Musk’s—it is a world where AI eliminates poverty, reduces working hours, and expands human potential without the parasitic hand of capital.
A Federated, Decentralised Internet – Social media and digital infrastructure must be taken out of private hands. No more Musk-controlled platforms. No more billionaires owning the world’s communication networks. The Left must build a federated, community-owned internet, where data is controlled by users, not sold for profit.
Crypto for the Commons, Not the Capitalists – Cryptocurrency must be reclaimed from Musk, Thiel, and their class. The alternative to state-controlled finance cannot be billionaire-controlled finance. Instead of crypto as a libertarian fantasy, we need a public, decentralised financial network that redistributes resources, eliminates middlemen, and resists corporate control.
Democratising Technology Development – We cannot allow a future where only Musk, OpenAI, and Silicon Valley venture capitalists control the development of AI. Technology must be designed by workers, for workers. The future of AI, automation, and financial systems must be determined democratically, not in secret boardroom meetings.
End AI Surveillance & Algorithmic Control – The techno-feudal state must be prevented from using AI as a tool of social control. This means abolishing AI-powered police, biometric surveillance, predictive policing, and algorithmic sentencing. Tech must serve human freedom, not corporate power.
Do You Want Musk’s Skynet?
The dominant class wants us to believe that there is no alternative, that AI is destined to rule us, that crypto-finance must be controlled by capitalists, that governance must be absorbed into a corporate empire. But history has proven otherwise. Technology does not belong to them—it belongs to us.
The fight for Left Tech is the fight for a different future, one where technology is a tool of collective empowerment, not capitalist domination. A world where AI does not automate exploitation, but eliminates needless labour. Where financial systems do not serve the whims of oligarchs, but provide for the needs of all. Where governance is not absorbed into private control, but radically democratised through technological collectivism.
Musk’s vision is a world where machines exist not to serve humanity, but to enforce the power of the digital aristocracy. We must build the alternative. The time to act is now. A Left Tech revolution is not a distant dream—it is the only path to escape the dystopia unfolding before us.
The algorithm must fall. The billionaires must be expropriated. The future must belong to us.
The Left must take technology back.
Footnotes
- Peter Thiel before Trump ↩︎
- They want your 401K ↩︎
- is the extraction of wealth through control of digital infrastructure, not production. Tech oligarchs monopolise platforms, AI, and crypto, charging rent on access while accumulating power. Rather than creating value, they extract it—turning finance, data, and governance into private revenue streams. ↩︎
- Even though recent reports suggest this is unlikely. ↩︎
- Remember they told us what they were going to do! ↩︎
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