Terms of Servants

Inside the Billionaire Blueprint to Replace Rights with Contracts, and Governance with Algorithms

Elon Musk isn’t just a tech mogul with a messiah complex, he’s a case study in how unchecked power curdles into authoritarian ideology, and how billionaires, once entangled in government, can redefine democracy in their own image. But he’s not alone. Peter Thiel, with his vampiric data-mining company Palantir and his long-running disdain for democracy, is working the same angle, just in a darker register. Together, they represent a new breed of oligarch: hyper-intelligent, (at least Thiel is), radically individualistic, and deeply hostile to transparency, regulation, and collective decision-making. Their influence is no longer theoretical. It is statecraft.

Let’s start with Musk. As Tesla burns through consumer trust, lawsuits, and market value, a damning whistleblower , Cristina Balan, is finally free to speak after a decade of legal suppression. Her revelations shatter the mythology: Musk doesn’t work tirelessly on the factory floor. He showed up twice a month. He didn’t reward transparency; he punished it. Balan raised serious brake defects in the Model S, and Musk’s legal and HR teams responded by threatening to deport her entire immigrant team unless she resigned. She recorded a VP admitting it was a safety issue “bigger than the Toyota recall.” The response? Gag orders, smears, and retaliation.

This isn’t an anomaly. It’s a pattern. Musk requires all employees at Tesla, SpaceX, and his other ventures to sign away their First and Seventh Amendment rights, the right to speak, and the right to a jury trial. He silences critics with arbitration and wields NDAs like blunt instruments. And while claiming to be a free speech absolutist, he’s busy amplifying anti-trans conspiracies, undermining academic freedom, and partnering with Trump to gut civil service protections through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). His ideological core has nothing to do with freedom, it’s all about control.

Now pair that with Peter Thiel. While Musk publicly melts down, Thiel operates more like a chessmaster. He doesn’t need the spotlight, just access. Palantir, his flagship surveillance company, already has deep federal contracts and a footprint in everything from ICE to military intelligence to Medicaid fraud detection. He’s long said that democracy and capitalism are incompatible, and he’s made it clear which side he’s on. When Thiel talks about wasteful aid programs and invokes Oliver North as a role model, he’s not critiquing corruption. He’s advocating for authoritarian efficiency. He wants power without oversight, just-in-time morality for a just-us government.

Musk reposts a podcast episode titled "The Slave Trade" hosted by a YouTuber with ties to ethno-nationalist revisionism. He retweets CDC data about trans identity and pairs it with the phrase "mind virus must die." Thiel invokes the fraud of aid to Africa while their media surrogates blame wokeness for everything from famine to factory closures. These men are not merely sharing opinions. They are shaping a worldview, one in which empathy is weakness, justice is obstruction, and the only worthwhile government is one that obeys capital.

And now, that worldview is embedded in our federal apparatus. Musk’s term as DOGE’s leader ends May 30, but the damage is done: brutal agency cuts, policy by executive whim, and a culture of fear where watchdogs are muzzled and dissenters face professional exile. Thiel’s Palantir keeps expanding its reach, integrating itself into the data nervous system of America’s bureaucracy by way of privatized oversight with no democratic accountability.

They call it government reform but it’s really a hostile takeover.

This isn’t just about Musk and Thiel. It’s about what happens when billionaires don’t just lobby politicians, they become them in all but name. They write the rules, then rig the enforcement. And when they break the system, they blame it for being broken.

We can’t afford to treat these men as outliers. They are the architects of a post-democratic state where power flows not from the people, but from the platforms. Where data is currency, truth is flexible, and justice is whatever the algorithm can tolerate.

Call it techno-authoritarianism. Call it capitalist fascism. But don’t call it innovation. This is empire-building with a sleek UI.