Who do you think is the most influential and potentially the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Donald Trump? Is it President Xi of China? Is it President Vladimir Putin of Russia?
In my view, none of the above. I believe we need to take a very hard look at Elon Musk.
This man is the richest person in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, with a net worth of $400 billion. He owns Telsa and SpaceX and took over Twitter in 2022. There is a good chance that he now has his eye on TickTok, a popular website especially for younger people that is currently in the hands of China.
He has held Canadian citizenship and in the United States has shifted from a Democrat to the alt-right of American politics.
Although never holding elected office, Elon Musk can knock on any door of the rich and powerful, and it will be opened. He spent tens of millions to help Donald Trump again get elected as President of the United States. He was his largest donor. He is also one of the biggest government contractors, if not the biggest. There are few, if any, to whom Trump listens more carefully than Musk.
Some media have described Musk as Co-President with Donald Trump. When asked about that by a reporter, Musk answered, “Not officially.” The fact that Elon Musk has an office in the White House, just down the hall from the Oval Office, begs that question. It is pretty clear that, at least for now, he is the power behind the throne.
At Trump’s Inauguration, Elon Musk was accused of giving the NAZI salute, not once but three times. It may or may not have been that, but it certainly looked like it and Musk, who is brilliant, would have known that is how his gesture would be interpreted. Certainly, the alt-right Proud Boys liked it, and it is interesting to note that Musk himself, although asked several times, has never denied it was a NAZI salute.
So, this is the man currently inside the White House who is pulling many of the strings. But Elon Musk is interested in much more than that. In my view, this unelected man wants to change the world order and completely reorganize global financial practices.
In spite of his mantra about freedom of speech, he uses his huge media platform to influence others toward his right-wing views. More importantly, perhaps, in recent months, he has interfered in the political process of England, Germany, France, and, yes, Canada.
In Germany, just a few days ago, during a federal election, he addressed the alt-right party there, currently leading in the polls, and encouraged them to effectively forget about the Holocaust and to move ahead with their right-wing agenda for Germany.
With no small thanks to Elon Musk, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with the super-rich. He listens to them and is influenced by them, and in most serious political moves, Musk is in the room representing them. Some media sources have described this as a rule by oligarchy in the United States, and they may be right.
It is my belief that Donald Trump would not be consistently and increasingly more aggressively talking about expansionism without the support and encouragement of Elon Musk.
In a video speech to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, late last week, Trump boasted that the United States would very soon be “much larger.”
He may have been talking about the Panama Canal, or Greenland, or Canada, which, by the way, is geographically larger than the United States, or he could be talking just about Canada.
But it really doesn’t matter. Canadians should take his threats against our sovereignty very seriously, more so even than the threatened tariffs, which may be just a tool in Trump’s bag to gain control over Canada.
There are several reasons why we should pay intensive attention to this. First, in the next few months, Donald Trump will be meeting with the Presidents of China and Russia, a summit between arguably the three most powerful nations in the world, all of whom are territorial in their objectives.
China wants Taiwan and total control over the South Chinese Sea. Russia wants to control Ukraine and perhaps more. Putin has also been threatening Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. These three leaders, either separately or together, may talk about friendship, peace, and tranquility, but behind closed doors, they could well be carving out new territory and agreeing not to take issue with one another if or when it happens.
Who then would protect Canada?
Certainly, this is not an extreme probability, but the nuts and bolts are all in place to make it happen, much like they were in Europe immediately before World War Two.
There was an interesting and somewhat compelling Editorial in the Globe and Mail on January 25th titled, “It’s time for Canada to finally grow up.” It starts by saying, “It may seem odd to say that Canada, the world’s fourth oldest continuous democracy, needs to start behaving like a grown-up, but that is precisely the moment in which this country finds itself.”
The thrust of the editorial is that Canada has complacently relied too long on the United States militarily and economically. It states, “This lack of maturity is a result of an over-reliance on the United States for military protection and a built-in source of export revenues.”
It goes on to say, “What matters is that it is now clear that the starting assumption for economic and defense decisions in the future can no longer be that the “U.S. will always be there for Canada. We must stand on our own. It will require making tough decisions, adult choices, but we can do it.”
I pretty well agree with that. Canada needs to view all the posturing from the President of the United States and his henchmen as a serious wake-up call, not just opening our eyes but jerking us completely out of bed.
We need to find a way to meet our military and defence obligations to NATO now and not many years from now. We need to increase our trading partners outside of the United States and form new strong alliances that will respect our sovereignty. We need to ramp up the things that Canadians can both produce and use themselves without depending so heavily on other countries. We must respect and protect our copious natural resources which are coveted by many of those outside of Canada. And all of that is just for starters.
One major problem, though, is that in all of this, time is now of the essence. With Trump in power across the way, surrounded by his cronies, including Elon Musk, anything could happen at any time.
A much bigger problem is that Canada is now somewhat rudderless. Never, in my view, has there been a more important time for unity and leadership. It is a fair and urgent question to ask where that is now.
Donald Trump likes nothing more than a perceived adversary that displays weakness. He loves to use the kind of leverage provided by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Kevin O’Leary to boast loudly that Canadians would be better off controlled by the United States and that many of us want that to happen.
I am a proud Canadian and always will be, and I do not believe that Canada is broken. We will always be proud and strong. But there can be little doubt that we are in quite a mess right now, and we allow that to continue at our peril.
I agree with what Doug Ford’s hat says: that Canada is not for sale, and we are most certainly not here for the taking. I also believe that we have a lot of work to do very quickly to avoid unwanted consequences, however severe that work might turn out to be. We need to grow up.
And by the way, I want one of those hats!
Hugh Mackenzie
Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.
Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.
In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.
Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
I read the wikipedia page on Mark Carney. He is in fact a global influencer, and probably has been the most influential behind the scenes influencer in Canadian politics in recent history. Which means that he will be just the same as Justin Trudeau (because he helped craft liberal policy), which what polls said Canadians don’t want. Apparently he was employed by the liberal party when Brookfield Asset Management solicited 10 billion dollars from the federal government. He was not employed by the PMO so he did not have to declare a conflict of interest. There also was mention of an association he had with a person convicted of child trafficking. (The person was not convicted at the time of the association with Carney). I would imagine that the other people in the liberal leadership race will bring up all these things up when they start trying to prove who should win the race……which 14 year olds will be voting in. It is speculated that some liberals are actually circulating pictures of Carney with Ghislane Maxwell. Time will tell. I won’t be voting for Mark Carney, but I will defend his right to defend himself.
And by the way if anyone is interested the liberals are apparently looking for someone to run as a candidate in Parrysound Muskoka.
Several Canadian MPs and Ontario MPPs have and are making the bold Canada case on MeidasTouch (run by the Meidas brothers, one a California lawyer and Professor) You Tube podcasts. We need to choose our media sources well in this day and age of no-fact-checking.
We needed to hear this – all of it. Yes, Elon Musk is a very dangerous, rich and influential loose canon.
Hugh, if you buy one of those hats please make sure it’s Made In Canada!
Always loved history. Can remember when Tom Glassford and I both got perfect papers from Paul Cavanaugh our Gr. 12 or 13 History teacher.
I was captivated reading of the struggles of nations to gain or keep their independence and identity. Always mesmerized when the old soldiers in our camp would get to exchanging stories. Constantly told that war was neither glorious ‘nor reasonable, just damn hard on friends and soldiers.
It was a bit of a let down to read that Canada’s independence had been peacefully negotiated! What the heck!! It would have been better in my estimation, if someone had plunked a rock off one of those departing ships. A moment of belligerence. But we seemed to be peaceful people. Not that we wouldn’t stand and fight, because we certainly have. But generally as an ‘also showed’ part of an alliance.
In my days I have seen successive governments make grand purchases of aircraft, tanks, heavy lifters, subs artillery, helicopters and on …………. The best! But never enough or consistently. Our forces have melted away. I’ve seen more aircraft on a single American carrier than we have in our entire air-force. And they were all airworthy. It’s unlikely we could muster the resistance that the Ukraine has shown against Russia. And we sure wouldn’t be getting American arms or the parts to fix what we have.
An alliance with ‘the donald’ would be illusory. Maybe an ally. Maybe not. An untrustworthy individual on the fringes of —what? Dictatorship?
But Mr. Mackenzie: Elon Musk is just one wrong word beyond the point of a ‘sharpie’. Musk has an ego that his knees can barely manage; perhaps the first rich and powerful American oligarch. He may bring the multitudes to the master. But if ‘the donald’ should feel his thunder is being usurped, Musk better have a friendly place picked out to land.
‘the donald’ has a ‘sharpie’ and the keys to a place called Guantanamo.
Indeed, Canada has been significantly weakened and now we are leaderless, with a lameduck government. Trump feeds on weakness. & billionaires like Musk are certainly taking advantage of this..
Trump claims the US doesn’t need our natural resources, a lie of course. There is little doubt he wants and they need our oil & gas reserves most. He knows theirs is nowhere near adequate, lasting at best a decade before prices will rise sharply. Its consumption continues growing, and it still comprises over two-thirds of primary energy consumption today.
Just behind oil & gas sits our vast critical mineral reserves, and without huge amounts of them, any energy transition is impossible. China dominates them today, and they sit strategically close to vast Russian and Middle-East oil and gas reserves, securing their energy future. This puts the US in a strategically weak energy security place, in a fast shifting world order where China’s power & influence is growing. So Trump is not far off the mark when he declared an “energy emergency”, but his “drill baby drill” hastens that emergency. His team & Musk in particular know this. So they stoke the chaos, divide Canada and make it easier to isolate & pick off resource rich, less liberal and worried western provinces.
In this scenario, how would Canadians fare with a Mark Carney led Liberal government? Carney is all-in on Net Zero policies, is unpopular and untrusted in the oil & gas industry, and has deep ties with similar thinking global institutions. A Carney government would fit well into Trump’s divide and conquer scheme. Fortunately for Canada, that’s not likely to happen.
Very tough negotiations ahead, regardless.
Mary Anne: Yes I am philosophically a centrist Conservative. That is just who I am. However, I do not always agree with everything under the Conservative banner.. I am not a robot. I will decide who I will support after the federal election is called and I see and asses Party platforms. I will say however that Mr. Poilievre has been far more succinct in outlining his plans to meet the challenges coming from Donald Trump than the current Liberal government has. As well, while I stand by my comments on Elon Musk I don’t see how he can “Financially support” Poilievre beyond the strict limits imposed by the Canada Election Act which thankfully, is very different from that in the United States.
Musk and Trump are masters at saying outrageous things to get the attention they crave. The difficulty of navigating this David and Goliath relationship rises and falls depending on who is in the White House. Trump has made many reckless statements that are at cross purposes. But he cannot back off without losing face. Bannon’s MAGA base is at war with Musk’s billionaire base on immigration issues. Pundits say Trump will try to be faithful to both his billionaire base and his MAGA base until the stock market tanks affecting his own finances. That could happen sooner rather than later.
Trump is already up to his ears in domestic problems. To make the federal budget look better, Trump threatens to make disaster relief a state responsibility. But FEMA acts as a huge national insurance policy and as climate change advances, elimination of the federal relief program could bankrupt the mainly Republican tornado-prone states including his now home state of Florida, exposing the folly of his cancellation of environmental programs.
Canada is the #1 source of US imports of oil, steel, aluminum, lumber, and some minerals. His tariffs will raise the cost of those products for US buyers. The rebuilding of LA alone needs every bit of lumber Canada can supply, and with a 25% tariff and the deportation of low cost labour, the cost of replacement homes, schools, and businesses would jump beyond affordability for many.
Canada is committed to meeting our NATO target. Most of that money would go to US military manufacturers, but they can’t deliver on time to solve our trade deficit in four years. So, the only solution is to our cut oil exports, which would turn US supply chains upside down in the short term.
Oxfam has predicted there will be five trillionaires in the next ten years. It’s a bit scary to think of so much power concentrated in the hands of so few. Elon is predicted to be the first. Hopefully he will get fed up or bored or whatever and leave the Trump team to concentrate on Mars?
You are absolutely correct when you say we are rudderless. And we can thank the liberal party of Canada for that. Trudeau did not have to prorogue parliament, but he and the liberal party chose to put the party ahead of Canada. And talk about unelected people in power. If Mark Carney is chosen leader of the liberal party, he also becomes our prime minister. The most powerful person in Canada unelected. But liberal supporters think that’s okay. He won’t be able to sit in parliament but he can sit in the gallery and have one of the liberal puppets speak for him. Before people start jumping on the Carney Caravan they should know if he will actually change anything or will it just be the same old liberal government with a new leader. I think we need an election ASAP so the people of Canada can make a choice. Polievre has been vague in what he would do if he were prime minister, but so have the people in the liberal leadership race. An election would make the parties put up or shut up!
I read your commentary on a regular basis and I often agree with your points. I have never voted Conservative in my life. However, I still learn from what you write about and sometimes even concede that you have made valid points. Many times I surprisingly find myself agreeing with you.
My grandfather, one of the kindest men I have ever met, was a life long Conservative. That was in the time of Stan Darling though. I remember when if a Conservative government won an election, I would be disappointed but not fearful. Donald Trump is a horrible human being. He often says things just to get a reaction. However, he now likes the idea of taking over Canada. Musk has repeatedly tweeted about it. It’s a real threat. Pierre Poilievre and his version of the Conservative party are supported and financially backed by Elon Musk. He is copying the entire strategy of Trump’s Republicans, including constantly saying how bad Canada is.
I have wanted to ask you a question on many occasions over the past months. After this commentary I can’t resist any longer. How can you continue to support Pierre Poilievre and his version of the Conservative party in spite of Trump’s and Musk’s plans for Canada, everything we already know about him and what he says about this great country?
(I want one of those hats as well. The designers wanted to provide an entirely made in Canada version but ran into many problems trying to do so. Worth a Google search)
We are in complete agreement, Hugh. I just hope PP is too, and up for the job, since it’s likely going to be his to lead. We need strong and effective leadership ASAP. Very unsettling times.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Hugh. Musk is a real and imminent danger to us all.
As a liberal, I am very alarmed by the concentration of so much power in the hands of one individual. I see it as the fundamental purpose of liberals – both capital and small L – and other like-minded people to hold the powerful to account and put real power in the hands of the people.
Somehow, we must dismantle concentrations of power, whether it’s Elon Musk’s control of X or Mark Zuckerberg’s control of Meta; we are in a time when social media and AI are concentrating enormous power in the hands of a few incredibly wealthy people. The size of that problem cannot be over-estimated.
So, how do we both harness the many benefits of social media and AI while preventing the serious harms they can cause at the same time? It can only be achieved by democratic governments, working together for the common good – not by un-elected oligarchs interested only in amassing obscene levels of wealth and power for themselves.
You may have seen the recent article in the Economist that says Canada should join the EU,, that Canada is more like Europe than it is like the USA, Canada has so much space and resources but not enough people optimally.. Europe has people. We already have a flourishing trade agreement, CETA, with Europe.
We know Trump has threatened Denmark with military action over Greenland, which lays some doubt about NATO unity. You’re right, Canada needs to increase spending.on its military, for self protection.