Politics is NOT exactly rocket science(高深的事，尖端科技). How interesting, then, that Elon Musk is so bad at it. Unlike the two or three industries—and still counting—where Mr Musk has done as much or more than any other human this century to advance the species, politics does not require much technical sophistication(复杂性，精密性) or even rigour(严谨，严格). The maths tend to be simple addition or division. Yet the calculations matter: the flourishing of the civilisation whose multiplanetary future preoccupies Mr Musk requires a healthy politics, much as his own companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, counted on far-sighted government subsidies and contracts, not to mention the principled rule of law, to succeed. But unlike the other fields Mr Musk has shaped, his contribution to this bulwark(堡垒，防御物) of civilisation is to make it not more imaginative and optimistic but more atavistic(原始的，返祖的) and fearful, and just plain dumber.
政治并非严格意义上的火箭科学。那么，有趣的是，埃隆·马斯克在这方面却如此糟糕。与本世纪他在两三个行业（而且还在增加）中为推进人类物种所做的贡献——几乎超过任何其他人——不同，政治并不需要多少技术复杂性甚至严谨性。其数学往往是简单的加法或除法。然而，这些计算至关重要：马斯克先生所关注的文明的多行星未来需要健康的政治，就像他自己的公司（如特斯拉和SpaceX）依赖有远见的政府补贴和合同，更不用说有原则的法治才能成功一样。但与马斯克先生塑造的其他领域不同，他对这个文明堡垒的贡献并非使其更具想象力和乐观精神，而是更原始、更恐惧，而且更愚蠢。
In politics, in contrast to other industries, Mr Musk has not chosen the path of revolutionary entrepreneurship. After falling out for a time last year with Donald Trump over his “Big Beautiful Bill”—Mr Musk called it “utterly insane and destructive” for its profligacy(挥霍浪费，恣意妄为) and cuts to clean energy—he announced a new political party, the America Party, “to give you back your freedom”. Maybe if he had committed to this party the creativity and drive he somehow applies to his six companies, he would have contributed to politics the constructive competition Tesla brought to the auto industry. The two major parties are surely as uninspired as the Big Three carmakers(① 背景资料：美国汽车工业历史上由通用汽...) ever were. But he did not.
在政治领域，与其他行业相反，马斯克先生没有选择革命性的创业道路。去年，他曾一度因特朗普的“大美丽法案”而与他发生争执——马斯克称该法案“完全疯狂且具有破坏性”，因其挥霍无度并削减清洁能源——随后他宣布成立一个新政党“美国党”，旨在“把自由还给你”。也许，如果他把用于自己六家公司的创造力和干劲投入到这个政党，他本可以为政治带来特斯拉给汽车工业所带来的建设性竞争。两大政党无疑就像当年的三大汽车制造商一样缺乏灵感。但他没有这样做。
Politically, Mr Musk thinks inside a very old box(想法非常守旧（改编自think outside the box）). The bosses who ran America’s 19th-century political machines might marvel at the scale of the $1m lottery-style payouts he offered voters in battleground states before the 2024 presidential election, but the transactions themselves would be familiar to anyone who ever offered “walking-around money” to get their voters to the polls. Those bosses would also respect his approach to creating a more congenial(合意的，适宜的) news media by buying his own printing press, Twitter, now X. They would even recognise the apocalyptic(世界末日的，灾难性的) tone he brings to campaigns, the dark inverse of the hype with which he sells his visions of imminent technological transformation. He claimed last year, for example, that the election of a state supreme court judge in Wisconsin was “going to affect the entire destiny of humanity”. Despite another “lottery” dangled before voters by Mr Musk, his candidate lost; humanity soldiers on.
在政治上，马斯克先生的思想非常守旧。那些经营美国19世纪政治机器的老板们可能会惊叹于他在2024年大选前向摇摆州选民提供的100万美元抽奖式支出规模，但这种交易本身对任何曾提供“走路钱”以拉拢选民投票的人来说都并不陌生。那些老板们也会尊重他通过购买自己的印刷机——也就是推特（现X）——来创造更友好的新闻媒体的做法。他们甚至还认得他给竞选带来的末日论调，这种黑暗面与他兜售即将到来的技术变革时所用的炒作形成鲜明对比。例如，他去年声称威斯康星州最高法院法官的选举将“影响人类的整个命运”。尽管马斯克向选民抛出了另一个“抽奖”，但他的候选人输了；人类继续前行。
Where man has, sadly, gone before
可悲的是，前人所至之处