IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jculte/v17y2024i3p297-313.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘To the moon!’: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Dominik Zelinsky

Abstract

This article investigates a neglected aspect of charismatic authority: the problem of economic practices of charismatic leaders and their communities. Drawing on Weber’s classical theory of charisma, I argue that charismatic communities and their ideologies economically operate on principles of gift and bounty. I demonstrate the value of this analysis on a contemporary case of Elon Musk’s charisma and his involvement with the Dogecoin cryptocurrency through Twitter. Through analysis of Musk’s performances and his admirers’ online activity, I argue that to those who believed in Musk, his involvement constituted either a gift to the community or a bounty-hunter-like feat that further enhanced his charismatic authority.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominik Zelinsky, 2024. "‘To the moon!’: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 297-313, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jculte:v:17:y:2024:i:3:p:297-313
    DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2024.2302177
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17530350.2024.2302177
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17530350.2024.2302177?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jculte:v:17:y:2024:i:3:p:297-313. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJCE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.