The estimated net worth of Elon Musk is more than $400 billion, which makes him the richest man in the world. But Musk’s power is no longer just tied to his financial wealth or his control over businesses like Tesla, X, or SpaceX. Musk, by virtue of his close relationship with President Donald Trump, has now entered the U.S. government, where he is leading a spending-cuts effort called the Department of Government Efficiency.

The estimated net worth of Elon Musk is more than $400 billion, which makes him the richest man in the world. But Musk’s power is no longer just tied to his financial wealth or his control over businesses like Tesla, X, or SpaceX. Musk, by virtue of his close relationship with President Donald Trump, has now entered the U.S. government, where he is leading a spending-cuts effort called the Department of Government Efficiency.

How does physics inform Musk’s political worldview? How could he be personally benefiting from his work in the Trump administration? And what informs Musk’s support for far-right politics abroad?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: Musk often claims physics is at the very center of his worldview: He talks about the search for natural first principles as a motivation for his actions in business and life more generally. But can physics inspire anything that we would properly call political action or ethical action—or is the kind of first-principled curiosity that helps produce innovation inherently narcissistic in some way?

Adam Tooze: Yeah, this thing about first principles is a bit of a mantra in Musk world, and it definitely has got something to do with this almost childlike approach.