The term “agent of chaos” has been rattling around in the back of my brain since a billionaire announced his intention to acquire a “sporadically profitable social company,” to quote the New York Times, for $44 billion, roughly 19 percent of his net worth. Some used it in the negative, but mostly it was the fandom who murmured it, admiringly, after news of the purchase broke. Their trickster king, at it again.

In this chaotic period, people like Elon Musk, who seemingly wield chaos like a lightning rod, have become lauded for such acts, regardless of their motivations, or plans, or if they even end up seeing them through. And this moniker, “agent of chaos,” has come to cloak them in a kind of neutrality—after all, they’re just sowing chaos for chaos’ sake. The label, I’ve noticed, not only seems to absolve them of any responsibility, but even holds up their pot-stirring as some kind of noble act.

The use of “agent of chaos” in this way appears to have come into vogue after the late Heath Ledger, playing the Joker, popularized the term in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

“​​Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos,” the oft-quoted line begins. “I’m an agent of chaos,” the Joker continues, “and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”

The Dark Knight, which came out in 2008, was widely considered a commentary on the American invasion of Iraq. The Joker, in turn, spoke to fans who embraced the character as the philosophical anarchist the times demanded: “He serves as a chaotic mascot for discord in an overly ordered world that ironically, to them, makes no sense,” explains a Comic Book Reviews article that gets at the character’s appeal, adding that the Joker “disrupts the status quo, standing in opposition to all society has to offer, and laughs.”

But the agent of chaos archetype is one that humans have been drawn to throughout the ages. The character appears in mythologies, folklores, and religions around the world—from the Coyote, a trickster character who frequents Native American tales, to Anansi the Spider, which originates from the Asante people of Ghana.

The origins of the literal term agent of chaos, however, is somewhat shrouded. The creation of the phrase itself arguably traces back to an 1895 book Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton by German Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel. Its arrival in popular culture appears to have come much later, with the term agent of chaos possibly debuting as late as the Cold War.

Its emergence in the 1960s came at a point when chaos was everywhere. The culture reflected this with offerings like Get Smart, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry’s parody of the spy genre, where KAOS was a literal institution, in fact, the international organization of evil. Even scientists began taking chaos seriously at this time. In 1963, meteorologist Edward Lorenz published a paper documenting observations from a computer model he’d built to predict the weather. His discovery gave rise to modern chaos theory—which holds that even apparently random systems possess some pattern or order.

It was in this moment that American science fiction author Norman Spinrad published his second novel, titled Agent of Chaos, in 1967.

“As far as I know I invented that term,” Spinrad told me over the phone about Agent of Chaos, which drew new attention during #Brexit for the name of its main character, which so happened to be Boris Johnson.

Years before the real Johnson became a global agent of chaos, Spinrad’s fictional Johnson was the bumbling head of the Democratic League, one of three powers competing for world domination. The League’s main nemesis was the powerful totalitarian Hegemonic Council, led by Vladimir Khustov, but a more dangerous opponent lurked in the background chasing them both: the Brotherhood of Assassins, led by Robert Ching, otherwise known as Agent of Chaos. The book opens with the question, “Which of these leaders would you follow?” But Spinrad cautions against making a hasty judgement. “Don’t make up your mind too fast,” he writes.

Spinrad wrote Agent of Chaos in San Francisco, with the Vietnam War on his mind. “My point was that these two things working together”—democracy and totalitarianism—“end up with a third thing, which is chaos,” he said.

Over time, Agent of Chaos has acquired a cult following, particularly among readers who are incarcerated, many of whom have gravitated toward the novel’s pushback against clear-cut power structures.

“My idea of chaos was more positive,” says Spinrad, reflecting on the work’s legacy. “It was a different idea of consciousness and politics. Now, the agent of chaos is something more negative with things falling apart. In that sense that’s not the way I intended it to be. But there it is.”

With this framing, it’s worth pausing to consider who the agents of chaos of our time really should be.

After all, reading about agents of chaos throughout history, what quickly becomes clear is that while some were bad actors, many were working to better society. I especially appreciated the perspective of professor Namorah Gayle Byrd, who is Chitimacha/Cherokee and an expert on trickster tales. In her writings, she calls attention to how tricksters are actually a force of good because they challenge the status quo and make people reevaluate their choices. That’s why she refers to them as “society’s caretaker.”

If such characters cross a line—and “become oppressors and abuse their power to transform spaces”—then, she argues, they no longer deserve the trickster label.

For those who don’t meet the requirements—because they “use their powers of chaos and transformation to destroy rather than to balance or rebalance societal norms”—they still have an important role of their own to play, according to Byrd. They’re “the types that call the real Tricksters to arms.”

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Perhaps that reaction surprises you. After all, your state leaders declared victory when Musk, chief of Tesla and SpaceX, announced the move of his personal residence from L.A. to Austin. And it may seem strange for our state to not even blink as we watch the world’s fourth-richest person walk out the door.

But our sanguine reaction is actually a sign of two things: our growing recognition of the hazards of living amongst the very rich, and the fact that we know this billionaire better than you. So with our thanks for giving the wealthiest Californian a home comes this friendly advice: Watch your back, Texas, because Mr. Musk will mess with you.

Musk’s exit is different than other California-to-Texas moves, about which we feel less good. The departures of so many company headquarters—Oracle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, McKesson, Schwab, and Jamba Juice are only the most recent—cost us high-wage jobs, and reflect real problems with high costs, heavy regulations, and convoluted governance that can make doing business here miserable.

Even worse, many younger working-class Californians—the people who once defined our state’s ambitions—have relocated to your state, where they find cheaper housing and better schools among the culturally diverse suburbs of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. This trend points to Texas’ real advantage—a governing system that gives more power to localities, some of whom skillfully employ their discretion to invest in the future.

While those losses to Texas are lamentable, Musk’s exit is of an entirely different character. California, after all, has a shortage of housing, not billionaires. And while many people leave California because they can’t afford it anymore, Musk is leaving because Californians finally figured out that we couldn’t afford him.

Musk may be worth more than $100 billion—but he’s even richer in hypocrisy and ingratitude. He cultivated the image of the lone, self-made innovator, when he was actually California’s biggest welfare case since the railroad barons.

Musk’s three signature companies—SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity—were built with billions of dollars in government contracts, subsidies, and other largesse. The federal government provided much of this, including low-interest loans that kept Tesla from folding during the Great Recession. Nevada also gave Musk more than $1 billion for a battery factory.

But it was California that showered him with money and provided regulations that favored the electric cars and solar panels his companies sell. Tesla has covered operating losses by selling other car companies the emissions credits it gets under California’s cap-and-trade market. California tax credits also subsidized the purchases of Tesla cars and the development of energy storage technology.

Yet all of California’s support did not make Musk a good citizen of our state. Musk has compromised worker safety at Tesla’s Fremont plant, flouted securities laws, and sabotaged unionization of his employees. He’s also an unrepentant peddler of misinformation to his huge Twitter following.

Most of all, Musk is California’s Frankenstein, the monster we created that then turned against us.

Even after taking so much government money, he routinely blasts our funding of safety net programs. Even after benefiting from our regulations, he’s accused California of over-regulating and demanded we “get out of the way” of innovators. And he has undermined public projects by pretending he had answers for the state’s most bedeviling problems. He touted unproven Hyperloop technology as a cheaper alternative to high-speed rail (his paper on the subject stopped before detailing how it would work), and he claimed he could solve traffic problems by digging giant tunnels underground.

When the pandemic hit this year, his behavior toward California turned from hostile to unforgivably cruel.

He railed against the federal economic relief packages that millions of Californians needed—and then took money from those same packages. He accused California, in pursuing COVID restrictions, of fascism and authoritarianism, while he exchanged friendly messages with the California-hating authoritarian in the White House.

Worst of all, Musk set a dangerous example by defying the stay-at-home orders that required the closing of his Tesla factory in Fremont. He reopened the plant, a decision which may have produced a COVID-19 outbreak there. (Musk himself would later get the virus.) Unbowed, Musk kept criticizing California’s COVID-19 response, and added the threat to leave for Texas, where SpaceX already had two facilities. This fall, he made good on that threat.

On his way out, he broke all world records for chutzpah. He claimed he was leaving because California didn’t sufficiently support companies and innovation, despite all the backing the state has given him. He portrayed his departure as a righteous protest against California’s infringement on freedom—never mentioning Texas’ lack of income taxes, and recent increases in his compensation package. And in a pot-calls-out-kettle moment, Musk had the gall to accuse California of being “entitled.”

So we shouldn’t be sad to see him go.

But his brash brand of nonsense and blame-shifting seems perfect for you, Texas. The state that asked the Supreme Court to cancel millions of votes of people in other states—while demanding that its presidential choice be ratified—is a fitting home for a billionaire who routinely calls for denying others the government assistance that made him rich.

But, Texas, don’t be surprised when he betrays you. Some of your communities have given him subsidies, but you should know that his companies often fall short on their promised job numbers. Neighbors of the SpaceX facility in South Texas are already complaining about community impacts. And a few conservative editorialists have noticed that Texas just welcomed America’s corporate welfare king.

When you point out Musk’s broken promises, he will lash out at you. And, Texas, you offer him plenty of Twitter-friendly targets: your depraved political class, your oil and gas industries, and your failure to legalize cannabis.

SpaceX and Tesla headquarters will remain in California—for now. But if Musk decides to take them with him, it might merely be a short-term blow. If government support for Musk’s businesses dries up, or if Musk gets in deeper trouble with the law, those companies could prove to be houses of cards. (Tesla, after all, has the highest stock value of any car company, even though it doesn’t make that many cars.) In that event, Texas would have to handle the human and corporate carnage of the eventual Musk meltdown.

Lone Star leaders often warn against all things California, as our people turn your suburbs politically blue and fill your boulevards with In-N-Out Burger locations and Trader Joe’s stores. But, Texas, you don’t seem worried—yet—about Musk and his companies.

California, meanwhile, has only one new reason to worry: that, much like the SpaceX Starship test earlier this month, Musk will attempt to return to us… only to end up in flames.

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To: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
From: Joe Mathews
Re: Acquisition and Reputation

Have you two lost your minds?

Both of you are suffering through long-running, self-inflicted public relations crises. Mark, Facebook’s self-serving and ever-shifting policies, the way its platform polarizes politics, and growing alarm about the health effects of social media, have turned you into a lightning rod.

Elon, you are over a barrel for strange behavior, including attacking financial analysts, crying during a New York Times interview (which included the revelation that you use Ambien and recreational drugs), and tweeting yourself into a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

Neither of your predicaments is really surprising, given the way the two of you combine planet-sized ambition with questionable management. What is puzzling is your failure to escape these crises.

Why haven’t you taken advantage of the obvious, cheap, and proven way to launder your reputations and curry favor with the media?

That method is straightforward:

Buy your local newspaper!

There’s no better balm for a billionaire’s press clippings than saving a newspaper.

Exhibit A is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who was known for tax avoidance and cold-blooded ruthlessness in remaking the American retail landscape until he purchased The Washington Post for some loose change ($250 million). Despite being the world’s richest person—the sort of thing that used to make you a target of media types—Bezos is now described as a defender of democracy (“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the Post’s Bezos-era motto) against the madness of President Trump.

In California, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is taking the reputation-burnishing possibilities of media ownership to the next level. Soon-Shiong has long received bad publicity—for questions about the drug business that made him a billionaire, for self-dealing in his philanthropic and cancer test endeavors, for a troubled L.A. hospital chain he bought, and for allegations of financial improprieties lodged by people including his brother and Cher.

But then the good doctor rescued the L.A. Times and San Diego Union-Tribune from the clutches of a Chicago-based entity called Tronc. Now Soon-Shiong is being celebrated by hard-bitten reporters for restoring local ownership and investing in investigative reporting.

Sure, buying a paper isn’t free, but it’s cheap for billionaires, and can even pay for itself. Soon-Shiong had to overpay—$500 million—to wrest the Times and the Union-Tribune away from their Chicago owners. But the purchase has provided him a valuable ballast of virtue that could reduce questions about his other businesses.

In Boston, billionaire John Henry—who was educated in California, and built his investment company in Orange County—purchased The Boston Globe essentially for nothing, since he made back more than its $70 million purchase price by selling its headquarters land for more than $80 million.

Likewise, owning the Post sure hasn’t hurt Bezos’s business. The state government of Maryland, which the Post reports on, has offered an astounding $8.5 billion in tax incentives to convince Amazon to build a second headquarters there.

Of course, there are other rewards for buying newspapers, if you care: namely, that you’ll be doing a public service. Today’s newspapers are in deep trouble, struggling for revenue and constantly shedding staff. By buying papers, you two—if you’re willing to spend a little on the product—would provide stability to vital if weakened institutions that still try to get the facts and bind communities together.

Think of the opportunity—you could do a good deed, and help your public image in the process.

Now, to be fair, you’re still rich and famous and will face public scrutiny. And if you too blatantly deploy your newspapers to serve your other interests, you could run into trouble. (Soon-Shiong’s reported habit of using his philanthropy to serve his business ventures suggests that conflict with journalists at his papers is likely.) But once you own the paper you’re likely to be less of a target. Journalists have limited time and money to go after subjects; they’re not keen to devote precious resources to biting the hand that feeds.

So what should you buy? For you, Zuck, the obvious target is your hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. You once told the paper’s editor, Audrey Cooper—according to an open letter she wrote to you—“how important The Chronicle’s work is in the Bay Area and how invested Facebook was in helping us to do it.”

Of course, in that same letter, Cooper called you out for not dealing honestly and consistently with the Chronicle and other publishers, and abdicating your responsibility to improve the public discourse. The good news is that, by buying the paper, you could work with her to show your commitment to said discourse. It would be a chance to demonstrate that the days of “move fast and break things” are behind you.

Since your press is even worse, Elon—your nasty habit of attacking reporters and suggesting you’d produce a rating system for journalists has predictably backfired—you’ll need to buy a tougher target: Digital First Media. That’s a newspaper group owned by Alden Global Capital, a New York-based hedge fund.

You don’t have to buy the whole chain. It would be enough to grab the pieces of the chain from Southern California, where you live; this means everything from the Orange County Register to the Los Angeles Daily News.

Alden, which has ruthlessly cut its staffs and newspaper offerings, is one of the few institutions with a worse reputation among journalists than yours. That’s good news for you. If you bought the papers and restored staffing and investment in the news product (maybe your Saudi buddies could help), you’d find yourself transformed overnight into a journalistic hero.

And if the papers lose money, well, they’ll fit in well with other pieces of your portfolio, like Tesla, which still isn’t profitable.

Yes, I know that newspapers are not the business you want to be in, but they still shape public narratives. So, Mark and Elon, you face a choice. You can keep complaining about all the bad press you get. Or you can buy your own newspapers, and, in the process, give a boost to media and civic life in your own state of California.

If you two are as smart as you’re supposed to be, your next moves are obvious.

The post Why Two California Billionaires Should Buy Newspapers appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.