The fall of U.S. diplomacy in the age of Musk

Billionaire's obsession with 'efficiency' risks decades of American influence

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Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw onstage during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, U.S., on Feb. 20, 2025. © Reuters

Nancy Snow is a fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University Japan. Her latest book is "Propaganda and Persuasion" (Sage, 2025).

In the 1990s, I was a Washington bureaucrat at the United States Information Agency (USIA), an independent foreign affairs agency tasked with "telling America's story to the world" through cultural and educational exchange programs, international broadcasting and advocacy for U.S. foreign policy goals like the North American Free Trade Agreement.

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