Learning Elon Musk’s Media Playbook. Plus, Silicon Valley’s Rightwing Roots.

Summary

Podcast Summary: On the Media – "Learning Elon Musk’s Media Playbook. Plus, Silicon Valley’s Rightwing Roots"

Release Date: February 21, 2025
Host: Brooke Gladstone and Michael Ohinger
Production: WNYC Studios

---

1. Elon Musk’s Media Strategies

A. Manipulating Social Media for Influence

The episode delves into Elon Musk's adept use of social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), to shape public narratives and propagate his agenda. Musk's strategy involves leveraging influential voices and media outlets to amplify his messages swiftly.

• Influence Chain: Musk retweets content, which is then amplified by Joe Rogan on his podcast and broadcasted by Fox News, reaching millions (00:00–03:34).

  Elon Musk (00:00): "Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions have seen it."

B. The Fort Knox Conspiracy Theory

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Musk's propagation of a conspiracy theory regarding the US gold reserves at Fort Knox. Despite official audits confirming the gold's presence, Musk persisted in questioning its legitimacy, thereby fueling skepticism and mistrust.

• Musk’s Assertion: Musk suggested a hidden agenda behind the maintenance of Fort Knox's gold reserves, prompting widespread doubt.

  Elon Musk (05:04): "The question that everybody wants to know from the Treasury Department, is there actually still gold in Fort Knox?"

• Counteraction by Media: Washington Post's Will Oremus debunks the conspiracy, clarifying that Musk misrepresented the facts.

C. Weaponized Transparency and Narrative Control

Musk employs what Alexander Howard terms "weaponized transparency," strategically disclosing selective information to advance his agenda and sow division.

• Example: Musk accused Reuters of "large scale social deception," a claim later debunked as a misinterpretation of contractual obligations.

  Elon Musk (06:28): "He's using X as a sort of propaganda machine."

• Impact: These tactics blur the lines between genuine information sharing and deliberate misinformation, challenging traditional media's role.

2. Silicon Valley’s Rightwing Roots

A. Historical Conservatism in Tech

Contrary to the prevalent image of Silicon Valley as predominantly liberal, the episode uncovers its deep-seated conservative and reactionary roots dating back to the 1980s and 1990s. Becca Lewis, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, provides a historical perspective on this phenomenon.

• George Gilder’s Influence: Gilder, a prominent economic guru, was instrumental in fostering the culture of entrepreneurship as a solution to societal issues, blending reactionary politics with technological optimism.

  Becca Lewis (22:14): "George Gilder was one of the biggest evangelists of Silicon Valley... he helped create this cult of the entrepreneur in the 1980s."

B. Shift Towards Conservative Politics

The narrative explores how the relationship between Silicon Valley and liberal politics began to shift, especially post the Trump administration, leading to a resurgence of conservative ideologies within the tech sphere.

• Tech Leaders Supporting Trump: Figures like Marc Andreessen endorsed Trump for deregulating industries like AI and crypto, highlighting a strategic alignment with conservative policies.

  Becca Lewis (33:03): "Andreessen did endorse him over the summer... they also have a shared resentment towards feminism and DEI politics."

C. Reactionary Futurism and Techno-Authoritarianism

The episode introduces concepts like "reactionary futurism" and "techno-authoritarianism" to describe how Silicon Valley leaders are leveraging technology to pursue agendas that may reinforce older social orders rather than progressive change.

Becca Lewis (34:07): "These tech leaders see overpowering regulating governments as the true authoritarian threat, positioning themselves as disruptors."

3. Librarians and Spies: The Untold WWII Heroes

A. The Role of Scholars in World War II

Transitioning from contemporary media dynamics, the podcast highlights the crucial yet overlooked contributions of librarians, historians, and academics during World War II. Historian Elise Graham’s work, Book and Dagger, serves as a foundation for this segment.

B. Recruitment and Espionage

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited unsuspecting academics to serve as spies, utilizing their skills in research and information management to aid the Allied war effort.

• Unlikely Spies: Individuals like Joseph Curtis, Sherman Kent, and Adele Kyber exemplified how ordinary scholars were transformed into effective intelligence operatives.

  Will Oremus (40:05): "Joseph Curtis was given a surprising new job... tracking down German spies and turning them into double agents."

C. Operation Mincemeat and Propaganda

The discussion covers specific operations like Operation Mincemeat, which showcased the strategic use of misinformation and storytelling to deceive the Axis powers.

Will Oremus (49:59): "Operation Mincemeat convinced the Germans to believe in a coincidence that was ridiculous... it was just another example of the power of stories."

D. Lessons on Information Warfare

The segment underscores the significance of narrative control and information literacy, drawing parallels to modern-day concerns about media manipulation and the erosion of humanities.

Elise Graham (51:58): "It's important to have a plurality of stories out there so that we can arrive at a better and more useful truth."

---

Conclusion and Reflections

The episode intricately weaves together the strategies employed by contemporary tech magnates like Elon Musk with the historical underpinnings of Silicon Valley’s political leanings. It draws a line from the past's information warfare tactics to today's media manipulation, emphasizing the enduring power of narrative control. Additionally, by spotlighting the unsung heroes of WWII's intellectual front, the podcast advocates for a deeper appreciation of the humanities in shaping societal outcomes.

Notable Quotes:

• Elon Musk (00:00): "Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions have seen it."

• Becca Lewis (22:14): "George Gilder was one of the biggest evangelists of Silicon Valley... he helped create this cult of the entrepreneur in the 1980s."

• Will Oremus (40:05): "Joseph Curtis was given a surprising new job... tracking down German spies and turning them into double agents."

• Elise Graham (51:58): "It's important to have a plurality of stories out there so that we can arrive at a better and more useful truth."

---

This comprehensive summary encapsulates the episode's exploration of Elon Musk's influence tactics, the historical conservative threads within Silicon Valley, and the pivotal yet uncelebrated role of academic spies during World War II, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of media manipulation and its historical echoes.

Transcript

[Elon Musk]

Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions have seen it.

[Michael Ohinger]

Doge talking points are taking a familiar route across the right wing web. From WNYC New York, this is on the media. I'm Michael Ohinger. Also on this week's show. Silicon Valley has often been considered a liberal force, but its reactionary roots go way back.

[Becca Lewis]

Oh, quasi authoritarian politics has been there all along. The idea that technology can bring us into the future by restoring an older social order through these charismatic powerful men.

[Michael Ohinger]

Plus, as the new administration cuts federal funding for museums, archives and libraries, a look at the untold history of how scholars helped win World War II.

[Will Oremus]

The library is full of about spies. But none of those stories are about spies in the library.

[Michael Ohinger]

It's all coming up after this.

[Brooke Gladstone]

On the Media is supported by Doubleday Books, publisher of Strangers in the Land, New Yorker writer Michael Woe traces the epic history of Chinese exclusion and their struggle to truly belong in America. Spanning from the 19th century to modern times, Strangers in the Land is a must read for anyone interested in American history and understanding the current anti immigrant moment. Available wherever books are sold.

On the Media is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Elon Musk]

Kick off summer with Memorial Day savings at Lowe's. Right now get five Scott's Naturescapes one and a half cubic foot mulch bags for just $10. Plus get up to 40% off select major appliances and save an extra $50 on every $500 you spend on select major appliances. $396 or more. Lowes we help you save. Valid through 528 mulch. Offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Selection varies by location while supplies last. See Lowes.com for more details.

[Brooke Gladstone]

From WNYC in New York, this is ON the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Ohinger]

And I'm Michael Ohinger. For weeks now, Democrats in Congress, in state houses and at rallies have repudiated the actions of this new administration. Are you guys watching this? We have a private takeover of the federal government that is being labeled reform. It is clearly in violation of a number of federal laws.

[Will Oremus]

Elon Musk seizing the power that belongs to the American people. We are here to fight back.

[Michael Ohinger]

You mean to tell me a man.

[Elon Musk]

Worth over $400 billion is going to.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Decide what happens with my grandma's Social Security check.

[Michael Ohinger]

But the question is, as ever, who are they reaching? We are waging a 21st century information.

[Elon Musk]

Warfare campaign against the left and they are using tactics from the 1990et.

[Michael Ohinger]

Earlier this week, Jesse Watters on Fox News offered a lacerating breakdown of how the Democrats have managed their messaging. They are holding tiny press conferences, tiny little rallies.

[Elon Musk]

They're screaming into the ether on msnbc. What you're seeing on the right, it's like grassroots guerrilla warfare. Someone says something on social media. Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it.

[Michael Ohinger]

Waters is on. Consider this storyline taken up by the President.

[Brooke Gladstone]

We're going to go into Fort Knox.

[Michael Ohinger]

To make sure the gold is there. You know that we're going to go into Fort Knox. Do you know about that? Donald Trump speaking with reporters on Air Force One Wednesday.

[Will Oremus]

If the gold isn't there, we're going.

[Elon Musk]

To be very upset.

[Michael Ohinger]

Why is the president bracing us for potentially pilfered gold reserves? Perhaps because last Saturday, Zero Hedge, a far right account, posted on X, quote, it would be great if Elon Musk could take a look inside Fort Knox just to make sure the 4580 tons of US gold is there. Last time anyone looked was 50 years ago in 1974. Musk replied, surely it's reviewed every year. Zero Hedge followed up. It should be. It isn't. All right, so this morning to talk about going for the gold, Elon Musk and Doge setting their sights on the country's largest gold reserve, Fort Knox in Kentucky. Fox News a couple days later, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul joins us now.

[Becca Lewis]

You know, I've been trying to go.

[Michael Ohinger]

Down and see the gold, make sure it's all there for about 10 years. From there, Breitbart, Alex Jones and legions of Musk fanboys on X piled on.

[Elon Musk]

The question that everybody wants to know from the Treasury Department, is there actually still gold in Fort Knox?

[Michael Ohinger]

Right wing talk radio host Don o' Donnell interviewing Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant on Wednesday. We do an audit every year. So the audit that ended the year September 30, 2024, all the gold is present and accounted for, but of course not even Trump's own cabinet member could squash the makings of a good conspiracy theory. After that interview, Musk continued posting on X that he would investigate Fort Knox himself and livestream the whole thing.

[Elon Musk]

I appreciate the fact that Elon is so psychotic in his drive.

[Michael Ohinger]

It's bizarre, but. And also in the face of overwhelming hate. Joe Rogan this week playing defense for Musk and Doge with his guest Mike Baker. Oh, my God. Everybody you would think would agree that.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Oh, you're going to go through government spending with a fine tooth comb.

[Michael Ohinger]

You're going to find the waste and abuse and fraud fantastic. Fine tooth comb. After Doge shared a list of government contracts that it had slashed, several news outlets reported that its claim that it had cut $55 billion worth of programs was wildly inaccurate. The largest cut, a contract Doge said was worth $8 billion, was actually worth 8 million.

[Elon Musk]

He's using X as a sort of propaganda machine.

[Michael Ohinger]

Washington Post technology reporter Will Aremus.

[Elon Musk]

That might sound a little extreme, but I think there's a reason I use that word. He's using his platform On X as essentially the communication strategy for Doge. And this ties in with Musk's consistent claim that the legacy media are outmoded and that X is the media.

[Michael Ohinger]

Now, let's go through some examples of how Musk is using X to shape the narrative about Doge and control the kinds of stories that are being reported in the press. For instance, he recently made a claim about Reuters, the news organization, and its relationship to the federal government.

[Elon Musk]

Yes, this isn't the most consequential of Musk's claims, but it's one that I think is really illustrative. Last week, the actor and director Ron Howard posted On X an article by the news agency Reuters that was headlined, Musk's Doge cuts based more on Political Ideology than Real Cost savings. So far, Musk replied on X. I wonder how much money Reuters is getting from the government. Let's find out. Musk has built this coterie of followers and hangers on On X that often spring into action. Those followers went out and started looking for evidence that Reuters is getting money from the government. And one of them soon turned up what looked like a smoking gun. They had a screenshot of a government website that shows spending and contracts, and it showed that Thomson Reuters Special Services was getting money from the U.S. defense Department for a scope of work that included the phrase large scale social deception.

[Michael Ohinger]

Large scale social deception is like catnip for a conspiracy theorist, but also, what the hell is large scale social deception?

[Elon Musk]

Well, you should ask what the hell is large scale social deception? Because that is the question that Musk himself appeared to not ask. So Musk reposted the screenshot, saying Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US Government for Large scale social deception. Well, my colleague at the Washington Post, Drew Harwell, started looking into this. Cause that just sounded a little off. And sure enough, it turns out that the contract was A, it's not the news agency, it's this different branch of the Thomson Reuters parent company. But B, the contract was for finding ways to defend against cyber attacks and in particular a type of cyber attack that relies on social decept, you know, tricking people into giving up credentials, that kind of thing.

[Michael Ohinger]

So just to be clear, another company owned by the Thomas Reuters conglomerate was contracted to do this work. But as you wrote in your piece, he's had a long standing issue with the outlet.

[Elon Musk]

Yes. Reuters is not a left wing outlet, which by the way is how President Donald Trump later described it when he reposted Musk's claim. Reuters is a very down the middle objective news agency that has its store, is picked up by news outlets around the world. But it has done investigative reporting on Musk and his companies that Musk has objected to in the past.

[Michael Ohinger]

Yes. Musk had also criticized Reuters for its award winning investigation last year titled Musk Industrial Complex. In March he called the news agency the most deceptive news organization on earth. Which reminds me of Musk's recent targeting of Politico, an incorrect claim he made on X that the government is like secretly funding the outlet. This conspiracy theory is a little hard to follow, so I'm going to ask for your help. It began two weeks ago when Politico staff had received an email acknowledging that paychecks had not been delivered on time. And the leadership of the organization said, you know, this is just a technical error. But users on X saw the reporting and thought that it was connected to the government's dismantling of usaid, which just happened to be happening at that same time in the news. So how did this lead to Elon Musk saying that the government has a hand in funding Politico? Can you make this make sense?

[Elon Musk]

What was in fact happening was that the government agencies, including usaid, were paying for subscriptions to these Politico products that are really aimed at people in the policy world. These professional news products that update you on the minutia of legislation moving through the subcommittees. And you know who's proposing what bill at the state level.

[Michael Ohinger]

You're talking about Politico Pro.

[Elon Musk]

Yes, Politico Pro is their name for it, correct?

[Michael Ohinger]

I mean, any of us could pay for it and read it, but it's so in the weeds that it's probably better for people who Spend all of their day thinking and talking about policy.

[Elon Musk]

Yeah, exactly. And people in government understandably want to keep an eye on this stuff. Politico and several other outlets, including I think the Washington Post, my employer does this. They charge extra for access to this kind of hyper specialized information. Again, as with Reuters, not to say that these outlets never make mistakes or that there isn't bias. There are always flaws in any media outlet's coverage. But Politico, and especially Politico Pro, this is a product that is explicitly designed to appeal to both Republicans and Democrats. You know, this is not left wing propaganda by any stretch of the imagination. But in the hands of the conspiracists on X and in the hands of Elon Musk, it becomes yet another example of how the government is secretly funding the liberal media to push lies to the American people.

[Michael Ohinger]

I want to ask you about another example that arose this week. We've seen Musk claiming to have discovered people of impossible ages on the books receiving Social Security benefits, saying, quote, maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security. What's going on there?

[Elon Musk]

Right. You can see how this is becoming sort of a template as Musk and Doge target one agency after the next for cuts. There's always a claim that not only is there waste here, but there's this outrageous, obvious fraud going on that justifies the cuts. So apparently the coding of the Social Security database is done in this sort of ancient language called cobol. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

[Michael Ohinger]

Yes, it's 70 years old and it's used by the Social Security Administration. And it's just kind of stuck around.

[Elon Musk]

It has. And there are some serious flaws in this programming language. And one of them is that if somebody applies for Social Security without a birth date, they could get miscoded in the database as being 150 years old. Now my colleague talked to experts on Social Security and they say, yes, this is a known issue. And in fact, back in 2015, the Social Security Agency put in place software that automatically cuts off any beneficiary at age 115 so that even if there is this mistake in the coding where somebody's birth date isn't in there and it might be misread as them being 150 years old, they're not going to actually be getting Social Security checks. And so you can see how a quick glance at the Social Security database would make your eyebrows shoot up. Oh my God, we're paying all these 150 year olds. And the issue is just lack of curiosity as to why that might be, other than just leaping immediately to the conclusion that it's this horrific waste or fraud or abuse that no one before you has ever noticed or thought to do anything about.

[Michael Ohinger]

So as Elon Musk gains access to critical government databases, he has both the opportunity to set the narrative about the activities of these organizations and or ask his supporters for help in coming up with narratives to seed into the conservative media to continue making a case for Doge as a righteous cutter of government waste.

[Elon Musk]

That's exactly it. Alexander Howard, who is an author and open government advocate, called this weaponized transparency. It's when you strategically disclose information in order to push an agenda or to intimidate people or sow division as opposed to actually trying to elucidate the issue. And we've seen this before from Musk with the Twitter files. This was an exercise shortly after he bought Twitter where he invited some like minded journalists and bloggers to comb through internal records from the company looking for evidence of collusion. And it became sort of this wonky reality show on X for a while where every night there would be a new installment of the stuff they had found that showed the liberal bias of Twitter's content moderators or how they were colluding with the FBI to censor Americans information. And some of it was true, and some of it was even troubling to people who really follow this stuff. But the vast majority of it actually had completely innocent explanations and there were very good reasons for it. This is basically the Twitter files playbook, but now they're running it on the US government.

[Michael Ohinger]

What in your mind can fact based media and honest experts and civil servants do to combat what we're experiencing?

[Elon Musk]

Well, it's gonna be hard now without getting all that secret funding from government.

[Michael Ohinger]

Don't do that, Will.

[Elon Musk]

In seriousness, I think it's an uphill battle. I mean, the legacy media, as Musk calls it, is in fact losing influence. And that has opened the field to all sorts of new actors. Some of it is good. I mean, people on social media call out biases that are real in the mainstream media, but it has also opened the field to conspiracy theorists and grifters and propagandists and public figures who thrive on obscuring the truth and telling people that you cannot trust the fact based media like so many of us. Honestly, Musk seems to be being led these days by confirmation bias. And that's a human impulse. We all do that. And social media really caters to it. Our personalized feeds exist to serve us evidence that reinforces our worldview. But the only counter to that, I think, is to slow down, consider the source to and don't leap to conclusions just because they feel true. Because sometimes the ones that feel the most true at first glance are the ones to be suspicious of.

[Michael Ohinger]

Will, thank you very much.

[Elon Musk]

Thanks Micah.

[Michael Ohinger]

Will Oremus is a technology reporter for the Washington Post. His recent article is titled Musk Accused Reuters of Social Deception. The deception was his.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Coming up, the Right wing Roots of Silicon Valley.

[Michael Ohinger]

This is on the media.

[Brooke Gladstone]

WNYC Studios is supported by Ground News. Ground News is a platform that makes it easy to compare news organizations and break free from algorithms. With Ground News you get details about the source of your information, empowering you to compare how different news sources from around the world cover the same story. With over 9 and a half thousand 5 star reviews of their app and website, Ground News is a top platform that allows you to discover how any news story is being covered, giving every perspective all in one place. Expand your view of the news. Sign up for your Ground News account today and get access to the mobile app, website, browser extension and exclusive newsletters so you can have a well rounded view of the world. Think critically about what you read and find common ground between perspectives. Go to groundnews.com wnyctoday to get 40% off the ground News Vantage Plan and get access to all of their news analysis features. That's groundnews.com WNYC for 40% off the ground News Vantage Plan for a limited time only.

[Michael Ohinger]

How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi Vehicle Discount Safe Driver Discount New Vehicle Discount Storage Discount how many discounts.

[Will Oremus]

Will you stack up?

[Michael Ohinger]

Tap the banner or visit usaa.com autodiscounts restrictions apply.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Airwick Essential Mist Diffuser transforms your space, creating your perfect ambiance with a wide range of inviting fragrances that make your guests go airwick Essential Mist Diffuser's easy to change. Refills allow you to choose your perfect fragrance for any occasion, like lush honeysuckle and raspberry and vibrant island coconut and warm sands. And if guests start shifting from the table to the couches, no worries. It's perfectly portable and cordless. Airwick Essential Mist Diffuser Always inviting.

[Michael Ohinger]

Ever wonder whether stoicism is actually as terrible as all those red pilled bros on TikTok make it seem? I'm Tanner Campbell, American philosopher of stoicism and host of the Practical Stoicism Podcast and I'm here to tell you that thankfully those bros couldn't tell the difference between their you know what's and a hole in the ground, let alone teach anyone anything about any proper philosophy. Stoicism is an ancient Greek virtue ethics philosophy all about developing a morally just character. And you can learn more about it by listening to my podcast, Practical Stoicism. Search for it today in your podcast player of choice and give it a go. I'm certain you'll find it, at the very least, informative.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is on the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Ohinger]

And I'm Michael Ohinger. The head of DOGE is being lauded by right wing commentators for bringing a startup mentality to his thwacking of government agencies.

[Elon Musk]

Elon Musk, I consider him with bringing in all those young geniuses. This is Revenge of the nerds.

[Michael Ohinger]

Mike Huckabee, recently nominated by President Trump as ambassador to Israel, speaking with Sean Hannity earlier this week.

[Elon Musk]

These two incredible human beings who love this country, who have nothing to gain by what they're doing and everything to lose, and yet they're doing some things that will save this country. Not just save it, some money that will save this country.

[Michael Ohinger]

Elon Musk is no stranger to fawning media coverage, but it used to come from legacy outlets and liberal elites. People have called you the real Tony Stark. Stephen Colbert, interviewing Musk in 2015.

[Elon Musk]

Are you sincerely trying to save the world?

[Michael Ohinger]

Well, I'm trying to do good things, yeah. To the casual observer, Elon Musk has taken what seems to be a major pivot to the right, one we've seen echoed by his peers in Silicon Valley.

[Elon Musk]

Front and center at President Trump's inauguration, a lineup of billionaire tech titans led.

[Becca Lewis]

By the world's richest man, Elon Musk, sitting with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Google's Sundar Pichai. For a long time, there has been a certain form of liberal politics that has been really prominent in the Valley. Gay marriage absolutely is a big piece of it. So is lean in style feminism promoted by Sheryl Sandberg.

[Michael Ohinger]

Becca Lewis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University.

[Becca Lewis]

But what we saw at the Trump inauguration is a really conservative and at times quasi authoritarian politics that has traditionally been a minority of folks within Silicon Valley, but a very powerful minority.

[Michael Ohinger]

There is a narrative in the media now that this is a new rightward turn for Silicon Valley. But in your research you found that conservative thinkers were always there and even helped shape some of the fundamental politics of Silicon Valley, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, you've pointed to George Gilder in particular. What role did George Gilder play in the early days of the dot com boom?

[Becca Lewis]

So George Gilder was one of the biggest evangelists of Silicon Valley. He ran arguably Silicon Valley's most successful investment newsletter. In the second half of the decade, there was this phenomenon named after him called the Gilder Effect, which basically meant if he endorsed a certain technology or stock it, it immediately increased in value as his subscribers would go and invest in it. And he had gotten his start as a mentee of William F. Buckley, kind of the godfather of modern conservatism. He had really made a name for himself in the 1970s as a provocative anti feminist.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The female headed families of today create an unending chain of burdens for tomorrow as their children disrupt classrooms, fill the jails, throng the welfare rolls.

[Becca Lewis]

And then in the 1980s, he remade himself as a supply side economics promoter.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The more I examined capitalism in anthropological terms, the more it became clear to me that capitalists give, and capitalists are people who are continually giving to their wealth, to others.

[Becca Lewis]

And he became one of the biggest economic gurus of the first Reagan administration. So there were stories of his book being on every desk at the omb. And he really determined that there was a crisis of masculinity happening and a crisis of the American nuclear family that was really caused by feminism, caused by women in the workplace, and caused by welfare. And he thought that the way out of this crisis of masculinity was entrepreneurship. So he really helped create this cult of the entrepreneur in the 1980s that traveled really far and wide and became a part of the broader American mythos.

[Michael Ohinger]

So much of what you're saying feels familiar to this moment, especially this part you wrote. Gilder claimed that entrepreneurs were better suited to lead the country into the future than the experts found in academia or government.

[Becca Lewis]

And he specifically blamed the rise of feminism. You know, he talked about feminism's tyranny of credentials. And so entrepreneurs were this answer to that problem, that they didn't have to have traditional educations, they didn't have to have official roles in government. They were supposed to be these naturally genius men.

[Michael Ohinger]

And how did the press at the time write about George Gilder and his ideas about entrepreneurship?

[Becca Lewis]

Even if it wasn't articulating Gilder's exact ideas about feminism, they would still take the ideas about entrepreneurship at face value. They still ended up amplifying a lot of his ideas and really helping to turn certain entrepreneurs into the celebrities that we know today.

[Michael Ohinger]

One of these celebrities that was called a golden geek by Time magazine on its cover in 1996 was Marc Andreessen. He was a part of a group of students at the University of Illinois who developed an early web browser called Mosaic. And then he went on to make a lot of money as co founder of the Netscape web browser. He also started a big venture capital fund. You've said that Andreessen was, quote, the first entrepreneur who got the media treatment in the era of the World Wide Web.

[Becca Lewis]

So he was what people called the first netrepreneur and entrepreneur of the Net. There was already this media apparatus that was starting to become hungry for new success stories. You already had Steve Jobs, you already had Bill Gates, and now the media was looking for more and more success stories to be able to feature. And Marc Andreessen provided that. There was also a phenomenon happening in Silicon Valley where it was turning more and more away from hardware, which could take years and years to develop, and more and more towards software. There was a much quicker turnaround, and it meant that within a year or two of coming to Silicon Valley, Marc Andreessen was able to have an ipo, become a multimillionaire, and get this instantaneous media treatment that called him the Next Big Thing. And this was all before the age of 25.

[Michael Ohinger]

In 2023, he wrote the quote, unquote, techno Optimist manifesto, in which he lays out a lot of his thinking and also a long list of people he calls patron saints. Read the works of these people, he writes, and you too will become a techno optimist. On that list is George Gilder, who we just spoke about, Adam Smith and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who was a founder of the Italian Futurist movement. Who were the Futurists? And why is it significant that one of their principal thinkers is being featured so prominently on Andreessen's reading list?

[Becca Lewis]

The Futurists were a really fascinating group of artists in Italy at the start of the 20th century who became really big supporters of Mussolini and Italian fascism. They embraced technology and particularly automobiles, and they were obsessed with this idea of speed and modernity. They also very openly rejected the feminists, and they glorified war and violence. It unsettles this assumption that we have in the United States that somehow technological progress must necessarily be linked to social progress. Fascist regimes in Italy and Germany specifically believed that new technologies could help restore older social orders. And in Germany, the new motorways, the autobahn, was this hyper modern thing that they also believed would help return German people to the countryside and kind of come into contact more with the Volk history of Germany. So technology can be used as this way of enacting reactionary politics. And I think that's what Andreessen is.

[Michael Ohinger]

Getting at here after this last election. Barry Weiss, founder of the Free Press, interviewed Marc Andreessen on her podcast. And in this interview, Andreessen says that there was a deal, a social compact between liberal elites and the tech ultra.

[Elon Musk]

Rich, which was somebody like me basically, could start a company. Everybody would think that that was great. And then you could go public, you could make a lot of money. That was great. You would pay your taxes, and then at the end of your career, you be left with this giant pot of money. And then what you would do is donate it to philanthropy. And then, by the way, along the way, the press loves you.

[Michael Ohinger]

And then he says the deal between tech leaders and liberal politicians was broken.

[Elon Musk]

So basically, every single thing I just said is, you know, for the last decade, has been now held to be presumptively evil. Just the whole idea that there are certain people who merit a greater economic outcome than others is itself evil. You know, technology, of course, is held to be presumptively evil. Tech companies are held to be presumptively evil.

[Michael Ohinger]

What do you make of this?

[Becca Lewis]

To a large degree, what he's saying is true. That in many ways, both the Clinton administration and the Obama administration were so keen to work together with Silicon Valley that they didn't have any interest in holding them accountable in any way, in regulating them in any way, or in questioning kind of the underlying assumptions of the accumulation of this power. And it's easy not to have the reactionary streaks come out when everyone is agreeing that you should be the one running the world. It's easy to kind of be this magnanimous face of generosity and the future. And I think that the Democrats did start turning against Silicon Valley, particularly in the wake of Trump's election in 2016. And people started looking for answers around disinformation, starting to move away from seeing Silicon Valley's technologies as inherently good. And then from there, you had the Biden administration start to turn towards regulation of technology. All of these things were, I think, very startling to people like Marc Andreessen.

[Michael Ohinger]

But it wasn't just Democrats. Right wing members of Congress supported antitrust investigations into these companies. We heard members from across the aisle talk about the potential effects of these Silicon Valley products on children and young people. Do you think that the open embrace of President Trump from all of these tech billionaires is opportunistic because he's the guy who won. Or do you think it's tech billionaires finally being honest about what they've been believing secretly for a long time now?

[Becca Lewis]

Andreessen did endorse him over the summer, along with his business partner David Horowitz. They talked about wanting Trump in office because he would deregulate AI, because he would deregulate crypto, because he would lower capital gains taxes. A lot of them were supporting him beforehand. Of course, you have figures like Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook and others who I think are more belatedly supporting him. And there ultimately are these shared reactionary resonances, right? This resentment towards feminism and the challenging of male power, this resentment towards what in the 90s was called multiculturalism, what now is being called kind of DEI politics. And I think that that also is allowing this kind of shared coalition to be built.

[Michael Ohinger]

You quote tech journalist Michael Malone, who wrote in the 90s, quote, forget digital utopia. We could be headed for techno fascism. This term techno fascist feels a little bit strong for that time. Do you think it's useful and applicable for understanding this moment?

[Becca Lewis]

Now, I tend to shy away from using the term fascism, not because I don't think there's accuracies there, but because it is. Is such a broad term and can refer to so many different things that it can lose a little bit of its precision. I've tended to refer to these sets of ideas as reactionary futurism, the set of ideas that technology can help bring us into the future by way of restoring an older social order. I also think that techno authoritarianism can be a useful way of talking about it, because the way that they see that happening is through these kind of charismatic, individual, powerful men.

[Michael Ohinger]

Well, yeah, help square this for me, because when I listen to and read Marc Andreessen, he sees technology as a force that will free people from authoritarianism. I don't see in his worldview any sense that he and these other tech leaders might be participating in authoritarianism.

[Becca Lewis]

Well, I think they have very different understandings about what authoritarianism is. The way that he or other tech folks talk about it, it's an overpowering regulating government that is authoritarian. And it also refers to what they think of as the overpowering, you know, what they call wokeness or dei. To them, that is authoritarianism. And I think that it's so fundamental in their viewpoint that they are the ones up upsetting the norm, that they are naturally disruptors, they are naturally outside of the mainstream, that it's impossible to think that they are the ones being authoritarian.

[Michael Ohinger]

How does this history of conservatism in Silicon Valley help explain what Musk is doing right now?

[Becca Lewis]

The very culture of Silicon Valley since the 80s and 90s contained seeds of what we are seeing now. Elon Musk is operating under the assumption that he is better suited to run the government than the people who have been working within the government for decades. That Silicon Valley and its way of doing things is better suited for America than federal departments are. No one elects a tech founder. The tech founder goes in and establishes himself. Elon Musk is taking these assumptions that are built into Silicon Valley culture and exploding them to the nth degree.

[Michael Ohinger]

Becca, thank you very much.

[Becca Lewis]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Michael Ohinger]

Becca Lewis is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University and author of an article for the Guardian called Headed for Techno. The Right Wing Roots of Silicon Valley.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Coming up, the librarian spies who Helped win World War II.

[Michael Ohinger]

This is on the media. This is on the media. I'm Michael Loewinger.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We're living in history all of the time. Nevertheless, some times seem more historic than others.

[Michael Ohinger]

Well, President Trump fired the head of the National Archives last night, keeping a campaign promise.

[Elon Musk]

That agency alerted the Justice Department in.

[Michael Ohinger]

2022 that Trump had potentially mishandled classified documents. The president signed an executive order that dissolved the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

[Becca Lewis]

Trump has frozen all federal grant funding for libraries, museums and archives by rescinding Biden's Executive Order 1408.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I mean, could there be more blatant examples of waste and fraud than museums and archives, libraries, humanities, or the arts? Oh, wait, academia. That's got to be worse. But history could tell us, if we chose to listen, that at times the very future of the world depended on those very institutions. Historian Elise Graham, professor at Stony Brook University, has delved into the moment when the US government, staring into the abyss of World War II, was in desperate pursuit of historians, librarians, artists, and academics. It was a pursuit led by what was then called the Office of Strategic Services and later the CIA. Graham describes in her gripping history book and Dagger how scholars became unlikely spies during World War II. And she argues that without this unheralded corps of peculiar recruits, that war might very well have been lost.

[Will Oremus]

The library is full of stories about spies, but none of those stories are about spies in the library.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You say that the war was one on the front lines, but it was one with books.

[Will Oremus]

We often think of World War II as the physicists War. It was finally won by a bunch of physicists in New Mexico who dropped an atomic bomb that itself was a successful misinformation campaign.

[Brooke Gladstone]

How so?

[Will Oremus]

In early 1945, a fellow named Henry DeWolf Smyth was called into an office in Washington and asked if he would write this book that was about a new kind of weapon that the US was developing. It was published by Princeton University Press about a week after the bomb was dropped. It explained how the US made the bomb. It told the Oppenheimer story that you see it in the movies where a group of shaggy haired physicists figured out how to split the atom and all of this stuff. And the thing is, the physics of building an atomic bomb is in some respects the least important part. More important, if you actually want to make the thing explode, is the chemistry, the metallurgy, the engineering that were left out of the story. The book was published the way it was so that it would satisfy people's curiosity, but not give other countries the information that you actually need to build a bomb. It was a misinformation campaign, the very last one of the war and the most successful because it still utterly dominates the way that we think about how the war was won. This wasn't just the physicists war, it was also the Historians War, the book Collector's war, the Artists War, the Professor's War. The war was fought on battlefields, but it was won in libraries.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You know, we think of James Bond, we think of Jason Bourne, suave or brutal. But you show that the OSS's Research and Analysis branch were recruiting people who were very different.

[Will Oremus]

So these spies, these librarians and professors During World War II, they were chosen precisely because they would be overlooked. A lot of them went undercover and nobody suspected them of being spies. Rumor has it that to this day, the CIA does recruiting at the annual American Library association conference.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Now, you touch on so many characters in your enthralling narrative, but there are three you return to again and again. Joseph Curtis, Sherman Kent, and Adele Kyber. Your book starts very cinematically with the recruitment of the very unlikely.

[Will Oremus]

Curtis people who were in charge of recruiting spies into the OSS at the beginning of the war, drew on spy stories to tell them what to do.

[Elon Musk]

So.

[Will Oremus]

So someone came up to Curtis and said, listen, you need to go to the Yale Club in New York City tomorrow. Wear a purple tie. You're going to see a man who's smoking a cigarette. When he sees you, he'll put it out. He has an important message for you. And that's how he got recruited.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But why Curtis in particular?

[Will Oremus]

Curtis was A professor of early modern literature. And Curtis was the sort of guy who wouldn't be able to get the attention of a waiter. Students didn't remember him later on. If you're going to send someone behind enemy lines as a spy, it is useful that this is someone who nobody would look at twice. Not the kind of guy who's wearing a tuxedo and everybody knows takes his martini shaken, not stirred.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But why was he assessed as having the right stuff?

[Will Oremus]

When you go undercover, it's important that you be as competent in your cover as you are in the spycraft. Joseph Curtis's cover was going to be. He was going to Istanbul in order to collect books for the Yale Library, which meant he had to be competent in collecting books. Of course, in the meanwhile, he was tracking down German spies and turning them into double agents. But that's definitely not the kind of thing you would expect someone like Joseph Curdes to be doing.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So he was sent to supposedly neutral Istanbul just as whatever spying that was going on there by the Allies was falling apart.

[Will Oremus]

The OSS branch in Istanbul was falling apart because the guy in charge of it thought that he was in a James Bond story. He was sleeping with his sources, and his sources turned out to be enemy agents. Agents. His cover was blown so thoroughly that every time he walked into one of the city's nightclubs, the band would start playing a song called Boo Boo Baby, I'm a spy. That was letting McFarland come. Curtis actually tracked him down. He got tired of not being contacted. And maybe McFarland was hanging on to his own jobs by his fingernails. People were getting fired from the Istanbul outpost left and right. Whatever the case, Curtis was given a surprising new job, which was to build a counter intelligence operation that would find enemy agents, turn them into double agents, and would also spread propaganda, rumors, misinformation. He turned out to be surprisingly good at it. I know that there's a lot of lying and backstabbing in academia, but this is something else altogether.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Tell me how these unlikely agents were trained.

[Will Oremus]

The Americans had these camps with tents in national parks where they would learn how to do quick draws like cowboys. So you'd be standing in a muddy field and there would be a fighting instructor teaching you how to use ordinary objects as weapons. You'd learn how to use somebody's trousers to restrain him, or how to fold a newspaper in such a way that it turns into a deadly weapon. You would learn, if you were a woman, how to use a makeup compact as a knuckle duster. The assumption was that you'd be out in the field with only your wits to protect you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I was really struck by the meticulous creation of persuasive pocket litter.

[Will Oremus]

As a general rule, you can have either a weapon or a cover, but not both. Because if the Gestapo catch you with a gun or a knife, you're not going to be able to persuade them that you're an ordinary civilian. Everything on your person, including the stuff in your pockets, should agree with your cover. Your breath should smell like the toothpaste in the area that you're supposed to be from. If there are grains of tobacco in your pockets, they need to be tobacco that is sold in the place where you're from. I mean, it was really, really specific.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So let's move on to another notable character you return to again and again. Sherman Kent, Less Casper Milquetoast and more. Or Humphrey Bogart, maybe.

[Will Oremus]

So he was a tweed wearing history professor at Yale. He was brilliant, but he was always looking for a fight. When he was teaching, he would throw chalk past the heads of his students, which they don't let us do anymore. If a student was yawning, he would throw the chalk right into the student's mouth. So when he gets recruited, he goes to a spy training camp. He learned how to throw daggers and he became so good at it, for the rest of his career he was famous for being able to throw a dagger better than a Sicilian. That was the phrase that was said about him. He didn't end up going into the field. He wound up going to Washington, where he worked in intelligence analysis, also known as the Chairborne division. This is professors of literature and history and economics who are pulling out of novels and newspapers strategic intelligence that can be used to fight the war. But all the work of those professors and librarians would have been nothing if Sherman Kent hadn't been their spokesman. What he was trying to persuade the military of was that most of what an intelligence agency needs to know can come from public sources. Paper can be more effective than bombs. It could tell the right reader what factory should be bombed to stop the production of ball bearings. It's more useful to stop the production of ball bearings than to stop the production of fighter planes. Because ball bearings are used to create fighter planes. How do you know what factory? By comparing minute fluctuations in railroad rates. And then you find its address by looking at a street directory. It was really adventurous and imaginative reading in the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress that allowed the Allies to come to these insights.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And now talk about Adele Kyber.

[Will Oremus]

So Kyber had, without knowing it, been trading all of her life to be a spy. She had a PhD in classics from the University of Chicago. And because women couldn't really go into the professoriate in these years, she became a professional architect, hopping from archive to archive across Europe, earning money by taking photographs of rare texts for scholars back home in the States. Khyber became the most productive document acquisitions agent, working for the Allies. She was working undercover in supposedly neutral Sweden. Sweden could continue to be neutral as long as no spies operated in Sweden. So Khyber had to work completely undercover. And the Swedish police had trained with the Gestapo. So this was actually still a very dangerous place to be a spy. She acquired and sent home on microfilm a massive number of documents that went all over the world on behalf of the Allies, including into the library at a little place in New Mexico called Los Alamos.

[Brooke Gladstone]

In Adele, you actually have a kind of movie spy. She used charm, she used guile. She also used the technique you describe of saying something wrong in order to be mansplained. The secret reality.

[Will Oremus]

Kaiber was aware that she was the sort of woman who appealed to men who think two things at the same time. One, that they're attracted to smart women, and two, that they're smarter than the women they're attracted to, which is a very dangerous combination. Kyber changed her Persona to suit the people that she was talking to. So when she was trying to get documents from professors. Oh, I Myself got a PhD at the University of Chicago. When she talked to people who were sympathetic with the Germans, she seems to have represented herself as being sympathetic with the Germans. She reflected what they wanted.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You also found that a lot of other women who worked for the OSS were left out of these histories, and that was about 35% of the OSS. A lot of the work that these spies did revolved around changing the narrative. One very effective tactic involved, quote, whispering.

[Will Oremus]

So whispering was a subspecialty of propaganda. Now, you might think that spreading rumors means talking as loudly and widely as possible, but that's not true. The coordination of loose lips had to be as tight as the coordination of Special Forces. I'll tell you how it worked. The Allies put together rumors at something called the Rumor Factory. The head of this section had the enviable title Master Whisperer. And the whispers would go out through strategic networks in a given region. A chief whisperer would organize the whispers, give them to agents, they would give them to sub agents, mostly. Sub agents were ordinary civilians. You could be a reliable sub agent in a propaganda network and not even know it. So the rumor factory classified whispers in two categories. One, smokescreen, rumors that were designed to deceive the enemy about the Allied war position or the Allies intentions. And two, rumors that were designed to attack the morale of the enemy. There's one that goes, this is 1941 in Germany. A woman in black committed suicide with a revolver on the steps of the Reich Chancellery, which is Hitler's headquarters in Berlin. She held in her hand a newspaper announcing the death of her husband and son. This is to make people think about the despair of the German people.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Of course, one of the most famous coups pulled off by this corps of irregulars was Operation Mincemeat. British Intelligence dressed up a corpse as a Royal Marine to deceive the Germans about an upcoming invasion.

[Will Oremus]

Operation Mincemeat convinced the Germans to believe in a coincidence that was on its face, ridiculous simply because it was a compelling story that this British Marine fell in the ocean carrying a suitcase of plans that showed the Allies planned to invade Greece instead of Sicily. The British worked up a whole background for this guy. You know, he had pocket litter, he had a photograph of his fiance Pam, an overdraft slip from the bank showing he had spent too much on the engagement ring for Pa, and they dropped.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The corpse so that it would wash.

[Will Oremus]

Up in Spain, whom the Germans trusted. They successfully laundered the operation into a trustworthy source, which was also done with whispers. If you could get a whisper printed in a small newspaper, then a big respectable newspaper would print that the small newspaper was saying it. And then suddenly it was respectable. This is something that tells us about how important it is to teach people how stories work.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But do we have that kind of literacy about stories today? I mean, you say stories won the war, but the humanities now are under attack.

[Will Oremus]

Before the war, US libraries were underfunded. They had very thin collections compared to what was available in Europe after the war. Both university libraries and public libraries were invested in heavily by the US government, which was determined to never be caught so badly. Lacking a again. The US had learned the value of libraries not just as centers of community and education, but as something that's integral to national security. These are some of the lessons that the US self consciously brought away from the war. Of course, 80 years have passed since then and we've largely forgotten that lesson.

[Brooke Gladstone]

In your book, you highlight the world changing contributions of the people that Hitler despised, the members of the French resistance that destroyed critical railways that helped turn the war, and all the people that he rejected who wound up being responsible for turning the tide of the war.

[Will Oremus]

Yes, I mean, Hitler, he had an authoritarian regime. And the thing about authoritarians is they have an incredibly limited outlook, an incredible need to conform, a conviction that anybody who's competent must share their exact way of thinking, which is a huge weakness. I wrote a piece for the Globe and Mail a while ago saying authoritarianism is a catastrophic military disadvantage. The US military and others have conducted tons of studies showing, for instance, that diversity is a big military advantage. It improves things ranging from resilience to unit cohesion and more broadly, agile military thinking because they value outside perspectives. During World War II, Hitler and his cronies were constantly hobbled by the fact that they excluded did violently. So many people who wound up contributing marvelously to the Allied side of the fight. So anyway, I write this piece and then a very belligerent guy writes to me and says, what about the Spartans? And I guarantee that everything he thinks he knows about the Spartans he got from the movie 300. The stories we tell matter. A ton of guys watched that movie. It came away from it thinking, well, the best fighters are a small group of guys who have 12 packs and don't wear ships shirts, but in a totally straight way and fight against these dark skinned Persians using the power of their own conformity. The stories we tell matter. Of course, the 300 guys should make their movie, but it's useful to have historians out there too, talking about how it really worked. All of these things are in the end, stories. It's important to have a plurality of stories out there so that we can arrive at a better and more useful truth, including about what happened during World War II and how we want it.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Elise Graham is a historian and professor at Stony Brook University and the author of Book and Dagger. Thanks so much for being here.

[Will Oremus]

Thanks for having me.

[Michael Ohinger]

That's it for this week's show on the Media is produced by Molly Rosen, Rebecca Clark Callender, Candice Wong and Katerina Barton.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Our technical director is Jennifer Munson. Our engineer is Brendan Dalton. Eloise Blondio is our senior producer, and our executive producer is Katya Rogers. On the Media is a production of WNYC Studios. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Ohinger]

And I'm Michael Oinger.