Can democracy survive now the world’s richest man has it in his sights? | George Monbiot

A vote for Donald Trump next week is also a vote for Elon Musk. The tech boss will have a springboard to greater power even than the US presidency

This is what happens when successive US governments fail to tackle inequality. While millions of people live in poverty, a handful grow unimaginably rich. Wealth begets wealth, and they acquire political power to match. It was inevitable that one of them - now the richest man on Earth - would launch what looks like a bid for world domination.

A vote for Donald Trump next week is a vote for Elon Musk. Just as Trump is using Musk, Musk could be using Trump as a springboard to perhaps even greater power than the US president can wield. Musk's secret conversations with Vladimir Putin, reported by the Wall Street Journal last week, and his contacts with other extremist world leaders, suggest a pattern of power-seeking that could be even more alarming than the prospect of a second Trump presidency.