Book Launch: Muskism
Join Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff to discuss their new book, 'Muskism: A guide for the perplexed', in conversation with Cecilia Rikap and Iacopo Gronchi.
Book Launch: Muskism
16 Mar 2026, 12:30 – 13:30
This event is organised by the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP). Explore more IIPP events here.
About this talk:
Who on earth is Elon Musk and what is he doing? Is he a hero, a villain, or does he swing constantly between those two poles? According to the constant media gush driven by his every act and pronouncement, Musk is best understood in personal terms. This book argues differently. Rather than seeing Musk as an individual, it sees him as an avatar of something called Muskism: a playbook for our new postliberal age.
It’s not that Musk himself holds a coherent set of beliefs; you could say his life is one long improvisation. And he’s certainly never used the word Muskism – just as, a century ago, Henry Ford never used Fordism to define his own postliberal modernity. In exploring the forces that have shaped Musk, from South Africa to Silicon Valley, Space X to DOGE, Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff outline the motifs and practices that have come to dominate our own crisis-ridden world.
Muskism, they show, speaks the language of crisis and emergency to invoke a less human future: where humans are purged from the productive process and, through social media and video games, merged with the machine. This is a worldview in which the technocrat is king; which piggybacks on the state to achieve supremacy; and in which only a select few deserve salvation. If you enter, this book warns you, you will grind and you will live in the shadow of one man – but the rewards could be priceless and the alternative might be extinction.
Meet the panel:
- Chair: Dr Cecilia Rikap | Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
- Discussant: Iacopo Gronchi | PhD Candidate at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
- Quinn Slobodian | Author of Muskism and Professor of International History at Boston University
- Ben Tarnoff | Author of Muskism and co-founder of Logic Magazine
Pre-order ‘Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed’here.
Head of Research and Associate Professor in Economics
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP)Cecilia Rikap (PhD in economics from the Universidad de Buenos Aires) is associate professor in Economics and Head of Research at IIPP- UCL. Until joining UCL, she was a permanent Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy (IPE) at City, University of London and programme director of the BSc in IPE at the same university. She is a tenure researcher of the CONICET, Argentina’s national research council, and associate researcher at COSTECH lab, Université de Technologie de Compiègne.
Iacopo researches how collective action can accelerate and steer socio-technical innovation. His work spans innovation, governance, management, and organisational studies, bridging academic depth with practical impact. He is also a senior policy expert at Demos Helsinki, advising actors such as the Finnish Government, Meta, and the Laudes Foundation. He holds graduate degrees from Sant’Anna School and the University of Florence, and has worked across politics, public sector, and academia.
Quinn Slobodian is Professor of International History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. His books include Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy and, most recently, Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right.
Ben Tarnoff is a tech worker, writer, and co-founder of Logic Magazine. His most recent book is Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk About What They Do—and How They Do It, co-authored with Moira Weigel. He has written for the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and Jacobin.
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