Elon's retrofuturist dream comes to fruition

Presented by Consumers for Digital Progress: How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

Jul 25, 2023 View in browser   By Derek Robertson Presented by Consumers for Digital Progress A worker removes letters from the Twitter sign that is posted on the exterior of Twitter headquarters on July 24, 2023 in San Francisco, California. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Elon Musk began his long-promised rebrand of Twitter as “��” this week, kicking off the platform’s transformation from a “global public square” into the “global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities” that CEO Linda Yaccarino promised earlier this week. Zooming out to look at the big picture — how this rebrand is happening, why, and what it means personally to Elon, a notoriously hands-on tech mogul — can tell us a lot about the future he has in store for us, and how it might come to fruition. First of all, this has been a long time coming. If you’ve been on Twit — er, sorry, �� — the past couple of days, you’ve likely seen reporters like Bloomberg’s Max Chafkin pointing out that Musk has been attempting to build some version of a company called “X” since 1999. Contemporaneous CNN footage shows Musk hawking “X.com,” his online banking company that would eventually merge with PayPal and kickstart the fortune that’s allowed him to make his megafortune and wider mark on the world. As Chafkin recounts in his book “The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power,” Musk unsuccessfully tried to convince his compatriots post-merger to drop PayPal and adopt the “X” brand. He never lost that ardor, apparently, with biographer Walter Isaacson telling Axios this morning that Musk’s desire to rebrand Twitter dates back to before he even signed the paperwork for the purchase. It’s not like he hasn’t been able to stamp the rest of his legacy, quite literally, with his preferred branding: there’s SpaceX, the Tesla Model X, and even his son with pop musician Grimes who bears the legal name X Æ A-Xii. (Read Grimes’ somewhat belabored explanation here.) Why does this brand mean so much to Musk, and what exactly does it mean? There’s an edgy, sci-fi aesthetic quality to the letter that stems from its association with the X-Men; the 1950s-era obsession with “X-ray” technology; and Gilded Age astronomer Percival Lowell’s theoretical (and now disproven) “Planet X” beyond Pluto. But the font itself that Musk chose for its X branding, along with some of the recent statements he’s made about his preferred branding for Twitter, hint at a more coherent and politically significant philosophy. As we noted in yesterday’s DFD, the new logo that’s replaced the little blue bird is simply a Unicode character of the letter “X” that has a stylish, Art Deco flair to its typography. Dating back to 2021, Musk has professed on Twitter (and then X) his love for the French art movement that married European elegance to the bold, futurist aesthetic that dominated the era of America’s great skyscrapers. It’s pretty easy to understand why an aesthetic that combines an admiration for the upper class with the glory of human progress would appeal to Musk. And he’s not alone in that, as a desire to return to Art Deco-style aesthetics has become something of a default preference on the right — an executive order issued in the waning days of the Trump administration even listed Art Deco as one of the only acceptable styles for constructing new federal buildings. In short, Musk’s rebrand of Twitter isn’t just the culmination of a lifelong obsession, but part of an overall retrofuturist shift on the right that longs to break through what they see as technological and political stagnation through good old fashioned capitalist dynamism. Only… surprise, surprise, there might be a few logistical roadblocks standing in Musk’s way. One, as law professor and blogger Andres Guadamuz Tweeted (X-ed?) yesterday, trademark experts are highly skeptical Musk can trademark a Unicode character. Second, it appears that hundreds of companies have trademarks on some permutation of the character “X,” with one lawyer telling Reuters "There's a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody.” To which Musk would presumably say, go ahead, make my day. The rebrand saga, legal dilemma and all, is almost perfectly reflective of Musk’s philosophy and tastes: A titan of industry takes over a company by sheer financial force, and then remakes it in his own highly personalized tastes and image while betting that his own fortune and momentum will allow him to steamroll any legal obstacles. To quote Musk himself: “Whatever sins this platform may have, being boring is not one of them.”   A message from Consumers for Digital Progress: Digital assets are here to stay. Congress: Act now to create a comprehensive market structure for digital assets.   help wanted What happens if the future arrives, but no one is around to staff it? That’s the question raised by a new paper from Oxford University’s private research arm and the Semiconductor Industry Association titled “Chipping Away: Assessing and Addressing the Labor Market Gap Facing the U.S. Semiconductor Industry.”’ As the government plans to spend nearly $40 billion on domestic chip production, these experts are warning that 58 percent of the jobs created by that largesse — or 67,000 positions — are likely to go unfilled, especially those requiring lower levels of credentials (i.e., a technical certificate compared to a PhD.) They recommend that the government boost regional training initiatives at technical and community colleges, widen the overall STEM pipeline at universities, and liberalize immigration policy to bring in more international students with advanced degrees. And it’s not necessarily just the chips industry they’re worried about: “The gap between the supply and demand of workers with the requisite training and education to fill the jobs in advanced technology industries poses risks to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy and to U.S. national security,” the report’s authors write.   A message from Consumers for Digital Progress:   the baron of serverton From the possibly unintentional self-awareness department: A member of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords warned his peers yesterday that AI might easily replace them. Richard John Denison — Lord Londesborough to you — said during a debate Monday that he’s worried AI chatbots will “soon be able to write my speeches in my personal style, having scraped [the parliamentary record]” and then speak “in my voice through natural language understanding, having analyzed and processed my speeches on parliamentlive.tv, and with no hesitation, repetition or deviation,” as POLITICO’s Bethany Dawson wrote this morning. Denison’s warning came a week after the House of Lords Library, the body’s research arm, published a report on AI risk and regulation that briefed the peers on thus-far proposed global and intra-U.K. approaches to the technology. No word yet on whether an AI agent will be eligible for its own peerage.   YOUR TICKET INSIDE THE GOLDEN STATE POLITICAL ARENA: California Playbook delivers the latest intel, buzzy scoops and exclusive coverage from Sacramento and Los Angeles to Silicon Valley and across the state. Don't miss out on the daily must-read for political aficionados and professionals with an outsized interest in California politics, policy and power. Subscribe today.     Tweet of the Day the future in 5 links Today’s NYSE closing bell will be a bellwether for AI’s economic punch. The contractors who moderate ChatGPT pay a heavy psychological toll. AI is already reconfiguring the entire gaming industry. How does Meta’s Threads tie into the AI arms race? Binance is seeking a dismissal of the CFTC complaint against the company. Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger (bschreckinger@politico.com); Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@politico.com); and Steve Heuser (sheuser@politico.com). Follow us @DigitalFuture on Twitter. If you’ve had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up and read our mission statement at the links provided.   A message from Consumers for Digital Progress: The challenge for the U.S. is to regulate digital assets properly by protecting consumers, nurturing innovation, and strengthening our tech-innovation leadership. The time is now for Congress to take the lead with legislation that creates a clear market structure for digital assets. Act now and help deliver a future of unlimited possibilities.     HITTING YOUR INBOX AUGUST 14—CALIFORNIA CLIMATE: Climate change isn’t just about the weather. It's also about how we do business and create new policies, especially in California. So we have something cool for you: A brand-new California Climate newsletter. It's not just climate or science chat, it's your daily cheat sheet to understanding how the legislative landscape around climate change is shaking up industries across the Golden State. Cut through the jargon and get the latest developments in California as lawmakers and industry leaders adapt to the changing climate. Subscribe now to California Climate to keep up with the changes.       Follow us on Twitter Ben Schreckinger @SchreckReports Derek Robertson @afternoondelete Steve Heuser @sfheuser   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.