The Soros, Musk Models of Politics

Two billionaires, with two value systems, and two different modes of doing politics dominate public imagination. Rarely have two private citizens held this influence

- Prashant Jha

Elon Musk's net worth is $421 billion. George Soros's net worth is $6.7 billion. Musk spent $270 million to help Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election, almost all of it in the past six months. Soros has given $32 billion of his wealth to promote "open societies" globally over the last 40 years.

Both the world's richest man and the world's 469th richest man, have strong convictions. Both claim to believe in free speech, democracy and individual rights. Both believe their convictions have universal value. Both are naturalised American citizens who appear to passionately believe in the idea of America as a home of freedom and opportunity. And both think they can change the world.

Elon Musk is 53. Born to a White South African father and a Canadian mother in Pretoria, Musk moved to Canada and then the United States (US) in his 20s. Skipping a graduate course, he worked illegally in America on his first start-up, before going on to set up Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, all of which reveal a remarkable ability to think big and combine science, tech and markets. George Soros is 94. A Jew, he survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary, studied and worked in London, and then moved to New York. A refugee-turned-financial investor, he understood the markets, made the right bets and accumulated wealth.

Soros is a Democrat at home. He is a political liberal who believes in exporting his ideological worldview gleaned from his tutor in London, the philosopher Karl Popper whose work on open society and its enemies remains a classic. Musk is a Democrat-turned-Republican at home. He is a mix of a political conservative and political libertarian who too believes in exporting his ideological worldview, gleaned largely from his personal experience, to the rest of the world.