Victor Davis Hanson: Elon Musk Is Powering the American Renaissance

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Victor Davis Hanson (0:37)

Much of the success of the United States' current Renaissance in digital media, in satellites, in electrical vehicles, in AI, in software, is due to one person.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal.

There's a lot of controversy about Elon Musk. His reputation took a big hit, we remember, right after the election, because half the country voted, roughly 48% voted against Donald Trump. Elon Musk had flipped from a former Hillary Clinton supporter and Joe Biden supporter to a firm MAGA adherent and voted for Donald Trump in 2024 As a result of that and his comments opposing illegal migration, there were people who not only were demonstrating against ICE but attacking Tesla dealerships. Everybody said that Elon Musk brand had suffered accordingly, that Tesla was on the way down, that European and American EV makers along with Chinese EV would dominate the market given the tarnishing of the Musk brand and in conjunction with the end of the federal subsidy for electric vehicles. So people were suggesting that the era of Elon Musk was over. He was very controversial, and he was outspoken on his own platform X on conservative issues such as illegal immigration, green energy, AI, and ways that infuriated the left. And the left, we remember, was considered the natural consumer of electric vehicles. So are we watching the decline of Elon Musk? No, no, no, no. It's the exact opposite is happening. In the second quarter of 2026, Tesla had a rebound, and it captured 52% of all the EVs sold in the United States. It has a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion. The other big three automakers are beginning to exit the EV market. China cannot send their EVs in to the United States.

Why did Tesla rebound? Was it because all of a sudden Elon Musk had a fight with Donald Trump for a while? No. Was it because he apologized to the left? No. It's because when you buy a Tesla and you drive it, and you compare with other brands of the big three in terms of distancing, acceleration, safety, appurtences, it's not just better, but it keeps getting better geometrically at a geometric rate, not just in arithmetic. It has the best program for self-driving. It's the safest. It has the longest range. It's the most fun to drive, and people like it regardless of their politics. If you move to SpaceX, 67% of all the satellites in low orbit around the world today are associated with Elon Musk, SpaceX company. 67%, over 12,000 satellites. The market capitalization of SpaceX is well over $2 trillion.

SpaceX, with its various rockets, has saved a morbid, calcified, ossified NASA. It alone, with its rocketry and space vehicles, has put the United States not just back into the so-called space race and return to the moon and eventually to Mars, it's made it pre-eminent over the Europeans, the Japanese and the Chinese.

More importantly, it's given the United States enormous technological advances in rocketry ballistic missiles that which have a definite military component to it. When Elon Musk paid an exorbitant fee for X, people felt that he had made an enormous mistake, that it was overpriced. And yet, people were saying that users would abandon him and go elsewhere. In fact, that has not happened. That has not happened. There are 560 million users of X today. Blue Sky, the alternative that was supposed to break X, 3 million users, 3 million versus 560 million users. And remember that his Starlink platform, satellite platform, has captured 97% of all satellite internet usage. There's 12 million people who have a Starlink receiver and are subscribers in 160 countries. Most of the US military and our allied military, including the Ukrainians, the Israelis, count on Starlink to guide their missiles, their drones, to protect them from incoming attack. Let's just put all of this in some kind of perspective.

In terms of market capitalization, Elon Musk has well over $3.5 trillion in his various companies. SpaceX is the largest. And it's the most dominant. And it will either ensure that the United States is first in space exploration and satellite launching. And by the way, more satellites were launched on Elon Musk rockets last year than all of the satellites elsewhere put together.