The legions of Elon Musk stans who have long dreamt of following in the unhinged billionaire’s footsteps will soon have an opportunity to learn directly from the master. Or, rather, they’ll have an opportunity to attend a university set up by Musk. And learn science. Or something. Maybe.
Tax filings first spotted by Bloomberg show that the billionaire is intent on setting up a primary and secondary school in Austin, Texas, that will focus primarily on STEM. An application for tax-exempt status filed with the IRS last year and approved in March shows that Musk is using $100 million of his own money to get the school up and running. The school plans to pursue accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and will eventually “expand,” developing into a university “dedicated to education at the highest levels.”
In short: Musk appears to be taking after the cadres of other intellectually disgruntled figures who want to remake higher education in their own image.
Indeed, the “intellectual dark web” crowd (of which, Musk is tangentially related) has long been critical of the too “woke” ways of traditional universities and, as such, has tried—again and again—to set up new educational systems that are more attuned to their ideological preferences. For the most part, those attempts have not been particularly successful.
Musk’s motivation for setting up his own university hasn’t been made clear at this point, so there’s no telling why he thinks this is a good idea. Knowing Musk, I’d imagine he has some grand, “humanity helping” rationale in mind.
In truth, all of the folks hellbent on remaking American education should really team up and make one giant, super weird, mega-college. Bari Weiss can handle the humanities. Musk will deal with STEM. Jordan Peterson can handle...whatever it is he’s doing these days. I’m sure the kids will love it.