Elon Musk Has Always Been Like This. So Has Silicon Valley.
Musk was rewarded for his service by spending election night with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which he has reportedly barely left over the past week. Trump thanked Musk in his victory speech, calling him “a new star”—Musk has been a public figure for more than two decades and is undoubtedly one of the most famous people in the world—and a “super genius.” In the coming months and years, we’re sure to see even more of Musk, as Trump has promised him a possible Cabinet position: “secretary of cost-cutting,” which does not yet exist. Musk says he wants to slash the federal budget by a third and has welcomed as a necessity the economic depression such severe cuts would cause. As we prepare for a second Trump term, every sign suggests that Musk will act as a kind of shadow president, wielding vast power over the many areas of governance that Trump has no interest in. How did we get here?
We have the dot-com bubble to thank for elevating Musk to this position of unprecedented power. In the mid-1990s, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Musk moved to Palo Alto and did what many young men were doing then: He became a serial entrepreneur in the brand-new internet sector. The World Wide Web opened to the public in 1991 with a single website. By 1992, there were 10 websites, and by 1994, there were 3,000. In 1995, when Musk burst onto the scene, it became evident that the internet wasn’t just a fun new invention. It could make people very, very rich very, very quickly.
The dot-com bubble began on August 9, 1995, when browser company Netscape Communications had its initial public offering on Nasdaq. By the closing bell, the company was worth $58.25 a share and had a market value of $2.9 billion ($120.51 and $5.9 billion in 2024 dollars, respectively). Overnight, founders Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Thus began an unprecedented speculative boom that would last until March 2000.
