埃隆·马斯克因SpaceX、X和特斯拉再次成为焦点，但他的政治立场已削弱了人们对其工作的敬畏。
Elon Musk is back in the spotlight for SpaceX, X and Tesla, but his politics have reduced the awe around his work.
他对特朗普的支持及其极右翼观点损害了他的形象，而DOGE削减开支助推了美国国际开发署的解体，并导致数十万人失业。
His support for Trump and hard-right views have damaged his image, while DOGE cuts helped dismantle USAID and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
马斯克至少向共和党竞选活动捐款2.76亿美元，这可能是一项旨在保护SpaceX和特斯拉与联邦政府关系的投资。
Musk has given at least US$276 million to Republican campaigns, which may be an investment to protect SpaceX and Tesla’s ties to the federal government.
AI生成 华盛顿——一辆在空中翻跟头的跑车，让埃隆·马斯克再次因技术大胆登上头条，但他投身政治并重返美国总统唐纳德·特朗普身边，意味着世界首富不再享有过去那种毫无保留的赞誉。
AI generated WASHINGTON – With a sports car that somersaults through the air, Elon Musk is back in the headlines for technological daring, but his plunge into politics and his return to US President Donald Trump’s side mean the world’s richest man no longer enjoys the unqualified praise of years past.
“自20世纪50年代以来，我们被承诺的所有事情，太空旅行和飞行汽车……他都在做这些事，”佛罗里达大学社交媒体教授安德鲁·塞莱帕克说。
“All the things that we were promised since the 1950s, of space travel and flying cars... he’s doing all of those things,” said Andrew Selepak, a social media professor at the University of Florida.
“然而，我们并没有给予它应有的关注，也没有给予它可能真正应得的敬畏，”他补充道。在过去几周里，马斯克似乎无处不在。
“And yet we’re not giving it the attention, we’re not giving it the awe that it probably truly deserves,” he added. In recent weeks, Musk has seemed to be everywhere at once.
9月28日，SpaceX的星舰巨型火箭首次进入轨道，部署了26颗星链卫星，随后溅落在太平洋——这是马斯克火星雄心的核心火箭的一个里程碑。
On Sept 28, SpaceX’s Starship megarocket reached orbit for the first time and deployed 26 Starlink satellites before splashing down in the Pacific – a milestone for the rocket central to Musk’s Mars ambitions.
他在地缘政治中的核心作用也已展露无遗，乌克兰抱怨其军队依赖的星盾卫星通信系统出现中断。
His central role in geopolitics has also been on display, with Ukraine complaining of disruptions to the Starshield satellite communications system its military relies on.
即使是曾名为推特的平台，也正经历某种复兴，马斯克的X如今已成为硅谷内部人士的首选社交媒体应用，以及人工智能话题的主要市场。
Even the platform formerly known as Twitter is enjoying something of a renaissance, with Musk’s X now the go-to social media app for Silicon Valley insiders and the main marketplace for talk about artificial intelligence.
但尽管他继续取得成功，马斯克对右翼政治的不懈承诺已付出代价。
But despite his continued success, Musk’s unrelenting commitment to right-wing politics has taken a toll.
2025年2月，马斯克在舞台上挥舞着链锯的那一幕堪称最具象征意义的画面——这把链锯是阿根廷总统哈维尔·米莱送给他的礼物。这一举动象征着他作为“政府效率部”（DOGE）部长，在特朗普第二任期初期试图大幅削减美国政府开支的决心。通过这个部门，马斯克的盟友们渗透到了联邦政府的各个机构中，推动了大规模的裁员行动，最终导致美国国际开发署（USAID）被解散，数十万个工作岗位因此丧失。
No image captured that shift more than Musk brandishing a chainsaw on stage in February 2025 – a gift from Argentine President Javier Milei – as a symbol of his drive to slash the US government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the early months of Trump’s second term. Through DOGE, Musk’s allies fanned out across federal agencies, driving cuts that effectively dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and contributed to a net loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
这种好斗的形象与马斯克在社交媒体X（前称Twitter）上的言论如出一辙：他的帖子中既包含强硬的反移民观点和右翼阴谋论，也有关于火箭发射和特斯拉自动驾驶汽车的宣传内容。
‘National treasure’That combative imagery has been matched by Musk’s posts on X, where hardline anti-immigration views and right-wing conspiracy theories sit alongside posts about rocket launches and Tesla robotaxis.
2025年5月从“政府效率部”离职后，马斯克与特朗普的关系一度恶化。然而如今，他们又重新恢复了友好关系。上周，特朗普授予他美国最高科学奖项，称他为“国家瑰宝”和“现代版的托马斯·爱迪生”。
Now he is back in Trump’s good graces, after a spectacular falling-out that followed his exit from DOGE in May 2025. Last week, Trump presented him with the nation’s top science medal, calling him a “national treasure” and “our modern-day Thomas Edison”.
这种关系的修复发生在马斯克为共和党中期选举投入了大量资金之后——他至少花费了2.76亿美元（约合3.532亿新元）用于支持共和党的竞选活动。其中1.58亿美元用于在德克萨斯州（他的家乡）开展大规模的广告宣传，而当地的共和党候选人在此次选举中的支持率处于劣势。
The renewed relationship comes as Musk has spent at least US$276 million (S$353.2 million) on Republican political campaigns ahead of the midterm elections, in which the president’s party is expected to struggle. Of that, US$158 million is funding a massive advertising campaign in Texas, Musk’s home state, where the Republican candidate is trailing in the polls.
对于左翼评论家来说，马斯克如今越来越被视为特朗普及其科技富豪盟友的代理人，而非一个真正为人类利益服务的科技天才。这一观点在奥斯卡获奖导演亚历克斯·吉布尼制作的纪录片《Musk》中得到了充分体现。这部长达四小时的纪录片详细记录了这位出生于南非的亿万富翁的生平与事业。
For left-leaning pundits, he is now increasingly seen as an agent of Trump and the tech billionaires, rather than a technology savant working for the good of humanity. That opposition plays out in Musk, a four-hour documentary by Oscar-winning film-maker Alex Gibney now in US theatres, which traces the life and career of the South Africa-born billionaire.
“我曾形容他是一个‘能在悬崖边跳下去，然后在下落过程中发明降落伞的人’；我认为他就是在混乱中才能获得成就的人，”马斯克的第一个妻子贾斯汀在接受播客主持人卡拉·斯威舍采访时说道。
“I once described him as somebody who can jump off the edge of a cliff and invent a parachute on the way down. I think he thrives on chaos,” Musk’s first wife Justine, who features prominently in the film, told podcaster Kara Swisher.
她补充道：“我总是认为他的疯狂背后一定有方法，而他许多喧闹的举动实际上可能只是转移注意力和‘手法’的表演。”同样的情况也可能适用于马斯克与华盛顿的往来。很少有企业家像他那样如此依赖联邦政府。
She added: “I always assume that there’s a method to his madness” and many of his loudest actions may in fact be deflections and “sleight of hand”. The same may be true of Musk’s dealings with Washington. Few entrepreneurs depend as heavily on the federal government as he does.
SpaceX——该公司在6月以历史上规模最大的首次公开募股上市——每年通过NASA和五角大楼的合同赚取数十亿美元，而特斯拉对机器人出租车的押注则取决于监管机构允许无人驾驶汽车上美国道路的速度。
SpaceX – which went public in June in the largest initial public offering in history – earns billions of dollars a year from NASA and Pentagon contracts, while Tesla’s bet on robotaxis hinges on how quickly regulators allow driverless cars onto US roads.
从这个角度来看，马斯克对共和党的数百万美元捐助可能更像是一项投资，而非政治立场的转变。
Seen in that light, Musk’s millions for Republicans may be less a political conversion than an investment.