💥 The Fall of a Tech Titan: Musk's Empire in Turmoil

With X crashing and SpaceX and Tesla facing crises, Musk's vision is tested against practical realities.

Mar 10, 2025

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾

🚀🌍 Imagine a place where people like Elon Musk build rockets and cars that are supposed to be really cool and help the Earth. But things aren't going as planned. The rockets are not working, the cars are losing popularity, and the stock market is upset 📉. All of this is making life hard for some people, especially those who are already struggling 😓. Instead of helping those who need it most, there's still a lot of money going towards big plans 💸 that seem to forget about the people and Earth 🌱. But there's hope with people coming together to make a positive change 🤝✨.

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🗝️ Takeaways

🌍 Tech Empires in Trouble: Critical failures at SpaceX, Tesla, and social platform X highlight vulnerabilities in tech billionaires' plans.
🚫 Environmental Justice Ignored: Indigenous communities bear the brunt of resource extraction despite promises of clean technology.
📉 Economic Ripples: Stock market drops impact ordinary workers, highlighting the fragility of an economy tied closely to tech fortunes.
🌾 Trade Wars' Human Costs: Farmers and workers face job losses as international trade disputes escalate.
🔌 Border Tensions Rising: Canada's retaliation to U.S. policies underscores the complexity of energy dependence and challenges promises of energy independence.
🤝 Hope in Community Initiatives: Indigenous-led projects and tech worker movements offer sustainable, equitable alternatives amid the chaos.

Electric Karma: When Tech Empires Crumble as Borders Rise

Posted by Three Sonorans | March 10, 2025 | After the Stock Market closing, a drop of 890 points.

The Week the Future Crashed

Qué ironía. As I sit beside my Three Sisters garden in Chuk'son—this place colonizers renamed Tucson—sipping my afternoon cafecito and watching the O'odham mountains fade into the morning haze, I'm witnessing a different kind of empire crumble on my cracked phone screen.

Elon Musk—the man who promised to colonize Mars while Indigenous people fight for clean drinking water on Earth—is having what we in the barrio call "a very bad week."

Let me paint a picture for those who haven't been following the tech news (because you've been busy, you know, surviving in Trump's America). The self-proclaimed genius who once called himself "techno king" is watching his kingdom burn on multiple fronts, all while his political ally sits in the White House signing executive orders that further marginalize communities here in the borderlands, this twilight zone where ancestral ways meet modern chaos.

The Three-Headed Monster of Tech Capitalism

SpaceX: Rockets That Go Boom

Last Wednesday, March 6, a SpaceX Starship rocket—the very vessel Musk claims will take humanity to Mars—lost control and exploded shortly after launch. This marks the second consecutive failure after a similar explosion in January. Debris rained down over Florida, disrupting air traffic and leading to an FAA investigation.

But here's what the headlines don't tell you: While billions of dollars literally go up in flames, the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui communities just miles from where I sit struggle to access clean water. Workers at manufacturing plants in Nogales that produce components for these same rockets earn poor wages and have no health insurance.

At the same time, Musk's wealth could fund clean water infrastructure for the entire Arizona-Sonora borderland region.

Tesla: Stock in Free Fall

Tesla's stock plummeted 14% today, hitting $226.11—its lowest point since October. Analysts attribute this to declining global sales and backlash over Musk's increasingly visible political endorsements of Trump and far-right ideologies.

But let me translate what this means on the ground: The lithium for those Tesla batteries is mined from Indigenous lands across the Americas, depleting ancient aquifers and contaminating watersheds that Indigenous communities have protected for millennia. When Tesla stock falls, Wall Street frets. When our water is poisoned, silence.

Mientras tanto, communities in Chuk'son watch "green technology" extract our resources while we bear the environmental burden. The promise of clean energy means little when the extraction process perpetuates the same colonial patterns that have exploited Sonoran Desert lands for centuries.

X: The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter

Musk's social media platform X suffered multiple crashes today, which he dramatically blamed on a "massive cyberattack." No evidence has been provided for this claim at the time of writing.

Elon Musk’s three notable claims to success are faltering under the X-President.

The Trump Connection: Birds of a Feather

The timing isn't coincidental. Since Trump's inauguration in January, we've seen a pattern of regulatory decisions that benefit Musk's companies while undermining environmental protections and workers' rights:

Rollback of EPA emissions standards that would have required Tesla to compete on a level playing field with traditional automakers
Reduced FAA oversight of commercial space launches, despite safety concerns
Tax breaks for corporations that outsource manufacturing, while claiming to create American jobs
Renewed contracts for surveillance technology along the border, some of which uses SpaceX satellite infrastructure

The two men—both born into privilege and mythologized as "self-made"—share more than a friendship. They share a vision of America where technological progress is measured not by how it serves the most vulnerable but by how effectively it concentrates wealth and power.

Economic Aftershocks: When Walls Create Waves

Mira lo que está pasando ahora — just today, as Musk's empire crumbles, the broader economy shudders under the weight of Trump's policies. Let me break down what happened while most Americans were busy working jobs that don't allow them to check stock tickers during lunch breaks:

Wall Street's Meltdown

Today, March 10, the U.S. stock market took a nosedive that had even the most hardened capitalists clutching their pearls. The Nasdaq fell 3.6%, the S&P 500 dropped 2.2%, and the Dow Jones shed over 890 points. The so-called "Magnificent 7" tech stocks? Not looking so magnificent anymore, with losses up to 11%.

¿Y sabes qué? While Wall Street analysts debate whether to call this a "correction" or a "downturn," construction workers across Tucson are losing jobs because development companies can't secure financing for their next projects. Families don't care about market terminology—they just know there's worry about next month's rent.

The same billionaires who championed Trump's election are now watching their paper wealth evaporate. Qué lástima. What a shame.

Meanwhile, the communities along the border who have been surviving economic marginalization for generations continue to do what we've always done—rely on each other, share resources, and create informal economies that the stock market has never measured.

Agricultural Warfare

Today also marks the beginning of China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products—15% on chicken, wheat, and corn, and 10% on soybeans, pork, beef, and fruit. The trade war that Trump promised would be "easy to win" has instead become a battle with our farmers caught in the crossfire.

Farm workers across the Southwest, many of them indigenous and undocumented, are the first to feel these economic tremors. "Los granjeros están asustados." The farmers are scared. If they can't sell to China, the migrant workers who harvest America's food will be the first to lose their jobs.

The irony doesn't escape me. Many of these same farmers voted for Trump, believing his promises of American prosperity. Now they watch as their livelihood withers on the vine—or stalk, or tree.

The same hands that harvest America's food, many belonging to undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America, will be the first to feel the squeeze when farms start cutting costs.

Power Plays at the Northern Border

While all eyes focus on the southern border wall, Canada just fired back at Trump's trade aggression by imposing a 25% tariff on electricity exports to Minnesota, Michigan, and New York. That's about 1.5 million Americans whose power bills will rise by roughly $10 per megawatt-hour.

Qué ironía—the president who promised energy independence has triggered international tensions that leave Americans quite literally in the dark. Indigenous communities in Minnesota, members of the Anishinaabe Nation who have been fighting for energy sovereignty for decades, now face higher costs for basic utilities while their traditional lands continue to be threatened by pipeline projects that Trump has championed.

This is what happens when you build walls instead of bridges—the electricity doesn't flow so well when you've insulted your neighbors.

Connecting the Dots: From Rocket Failures to Failed Policies

Today's events paint a clear picture: Musk's crumbling tech empire is just one symptom of a broader disease—an economic system built on extraction, exploitation, and exclusion.

As rockets explode in the sky, markets crash on Earth, and international relations deteriorate, it's worth asking who truly bears the cost of these failures.

The money that evaporated from Wall Street today could have funded:

Clean water infrastructure for every community without safe drinking water in America
Renewable energy cooperatives in rural areas dependent on imported electricity
Regenerative agriculture programs to help farmers transition away from export-dependent monocultures
Free high-speed internet access for every tribal nation and rural community

Instead, we watch as billionaires lose billions they'll never miss, while policies designed to "Make America Great Again" leave ordinary people scrambling to adapt to economic shockwaves. Es como ver a niños ricos peleando mientras la casa se quema. It's like watching rich children fighting while the house burns down.

Living in the Shadow of False Progress

When I see Musk's rockets exploding, I don't celebrate failure. But I do question a system that pours resources into space colonization while communities like mine fight for basic necessities.

When Tesla stock falls, I don't cheer economic instability. But I do wonder why electric vehicles—unaffordable to most in my community—are considered the climate solution when Indigenous land management practices that sequestered carbon for thousands of years are dismissed as primitive.

When X crashes, I don't applaud technological failure. But I do ask why rural Indigenous communities still lack reliable internet access while billionaires build platforms that amplify hate speech and misinformation.

The Real Cost of Technological "Progress"

Let me share what this looks like from where I stand:

The water crisis in border communities worsens as aquifers are depleted for industrial use
Indigenous sacred sites destroyed for lithium and rare earth mineral extraction
Increased surveillance technology targeting immigrant communities, powered by the same innovations celebrated in Silicon Valley
Climate displacement forcing more migration northward met with walls and drones instead of compassion
Traditional ecological knowledge is ignored in favor of techno-solutions that generate profit

"Ellos hablan de colonizar Marte cuando ni siquiera pueden honrar esta tierra." They talk of colonizing Mars when they can't even honor this Earth.

Resisting with Hope: Where Do We Go From Here?

Despite everything—the border walls, the environmental devastation, the false promises of techno-salvation—I still believe in our power to create change. Not by looking to billionaires or presidents, but by turning to each other.

Here's what gives me hope:

Community-owned technological alternatives: Indigenous-led solar cooperatives are bringing renewable energy to rural communities without extractive practices.
Ancestral Knowledge Revival: Young people in the borderlands are learning traditional water conservation methods that have sustained life in the desert for thousands of years.
Cross-border solidarity: Environmental justice organizations on both sides of the border are forming coalitions to protect shared watersheds.
Tech worker organizing: Employees at major tech companies are increasingly speaking out against harmful practices and demanding ethical guidelines.
Cultural resistance: Art, music, and storytelling continue to sustain our communities and imagine futures beyond extraction and exploitation.

What You Can Do

Whether you're reading this from the borderlands or beyond, here are ways to stand in solidarity:

Support indigenous-led environmental justice organizations fighting extractive industries
Research where the materials in your technology come from and demand supply chain transparency
Amplify Indigenous voices in conversations about technological and environmental futures
Divest from companies with histories of environmental racism and exploitation
Share traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable practices within your own communities
Pressure elected officials to prioritize clean water and air for all communities

La lucha sigue. The struggle continues, but so do our resistance, our creativity, and our commitment to a world where technology serves justice rather than concentrates power.

I write this not just as a critique but as an invitation to imagine a technology that honors the earth and all her people. The rockets may explode, the stocks may fall, and the platforms may crash, but our communities will continue to build futures rooted in reciprocity rather than extraction.

Estamos aquí. Siempre hemos estado aquí. Y aquí seguiremos.

We are here. We have always been here. And here we will remain.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below:

How do you see the connection between technological "innovation" and environmental justice in your own community?
What alternative models of technology development would better serve marginalized communities and protect the earth?