Apartheid Redux: How Billionaires Shaped by White Supremacy Are Fueling America’s Democratic Collapse
Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Sacks — and the South African blueprint behind today’s authoritarian threat
In apartheid South Africa, at a prestigious boys’ school, students still greeted each other with “Heil Hitler” well into the 1970s.
It was not hidden. It was not considered controversial. It was part of the culture, a society where white supremacy was not whispered but celebrated.
Peter Thiel spent three years immersed in that world as his family ran uranium operations in Namibia.
Around the same time, Elon Musk’s family was building wealth through emerald mines. Both families had businesses that depended on brutal racial hierarchies and the disposability of Black labor.
These men were not just products of apartheid.
They were its beneficiaries.
And the lessons they absorbed—about domination, exploitation, and the natural order of hierarchy—are the ones they are exporting today.
What is unfolding in the United States is not simply homegrown authoritarianism.
It is apartheid’s child, modernized, digitized, and scaled for global dominance.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-peter-thiel-apartheid-south-africa
The PayPal Mafia's New Power
The "PayPal Mafia," the early core of PayPal’s leadership, once disrupted the world of online finance.
Today, several of its most powerful members, shaped by the privileges and ideologies of apartheid-era South Africa, have moved openly into political power.
Elon Musk: Appointed to lead a new federal agency under Trump 2.0 plans.
Peter Thiel: Major Trump backer who funded far-right candidates.
David Sacks: Tapped to shape Trump’s artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy initiatives.
Ken Howery: Served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden during the Trump administration.
Keith Rabois: Libertarian venture capitalist aligned with the Trump and DeSantis economic agenda.
Luke Nosek: Involved in far-right venture capital activity and maintains proximity to Trump policy circles.
They are not merely donors or advisers.
They are architects, embedded directly inside the machinery of Trump's administration, steering decisions that affect global finance, national security, and the basic structures of democracy itself.
As Jim Stewartson put it:
"These are people who grew up believing that a society organized by brutal hierarchy was not just acceptable, but preferable. And now they are trying to recreate it globally through the capture of technology and the state."
Listen to the full interview here:
Elon Musk: Cracks in the Empire
Tesla’s recent struggles hint at something deeper than market correction.
They signal a fracture in Musk’s myth of invincibility.
First quarter profits dropped 71 percent year-over-year.
Tesla stock has plunged more than 50% from its all-time high in December 2024.
German Tesla sales plunged over 62 percent, even as EV competition surged.
New rivals like Jeff Bezos' Slate Auto are offering cheaper, better-built electric vehicles.
Tesla remains massive, and Musk’s access to public contracts, subsidies, and political influence is still intact.
The real shift is public sentiment.
Across the world, protests against Musk and his companies are growing.
This week, a new poll found that 57% of Americans disapprove of Musk’s role in politics and business, with disapproval surging across almost every demographic.
Musk is now less popular than Donald Trump, and Trump’s own approval ratings are falling fast as he pursues policies many see as shaped by Musk’s influence inside the administration.
Internationally, Musk’s conduct has triggered alarm.
In Ukraine, he unilaterally blocked Starlink during a critical military operation, prioritizing his own political calculations over a sovereign nation's survival.
In Canada, officials canceled a $100 million Starlink contract, citing concerns that Musk’s private control over essential infrastructure poses a national security threat.
In Vietnam, Starlink's approval was fast-tracked, a move widely interpreted as an attempt to curry favor and avoid Trump's retaliatory tariffs, now that Musk wields contracting power inside the U.S. government.
Domestically, Musk’s companies face mounting scrutiny.
Misleading battery range estimates
Steering wheels detaching mid-drive
Vehicles catching fire after rain exposure
A systematic pattern of regulatory evasion and political interference
Musk portrays himself as a libertarian innovator.
But as Jim Stewartson warned:
"Musk is a state actor now, just not one working in the interest of democracy."
The story of Musk today is not about a fallen titan. It is about how authoritarian power cloaks itself in innovation, how apartheid logic survives in new empires, and how democracy will keep losing until we confront the billionaires who believe they were born to rule.
The New Authoritarian Blueprint
What Thiel, Musk, Sacks, and their allies are building is not capitalism as we know it.
It is apartheid's logic, reborn.
Divide societies into rulers and ruled.
Suppress equality through technology as well as law.
Use disinformation, surveillance, and deregulation to hollow out democratic resistance.
Enforce hierarchy by making dissent impossible.
Stewartson calls it plainly:
"The machinery they’re building isn’t about creating prosperity for everyone. It’s about managing scarcity. It is about enforcing hierarchy. And it is about eliminating the possibility of real dissent."
In this future, elections still happen, but outcomes are controlled.
Speech still exists, but it is monitored, manipulated, and neutered.
Democracy survives only in name, stripped of its power to challenge entrenched elites.
The Fight Ahead
History teaches us that systems built on exploitation do not dismantle themselves.
They fall when people refuse to accept their inevitability.
Stewartson leaves us with a clear warning, and a call:
"It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to require extraordinary courage, extraordinary solidarity. But if people understand what's happening, if they see the through line, then history shows they can organize, resist, and dismantle it. Tyranny only wins when people accept it as inevitable. And nothing about this moment is inevitable."
I'd seen hints of this history before. All Americans need to know of it.
Hi, thank you for taking the time to write this and educate us.