America's Technate

May 1, 2025

What do Greenland, Canada, Panama, and chainsaw Elon Musk have in common besides President Donald Trump? All are key elements in a modern version of the 1930s “technocracy” movement, founded by Utopians who believed that governments and economies should be run by scientists and engineers, not politicians or businessmen. They proposed merging these countries to form a “technate,” or an entity governed by technocrats. In 1919, Technocracy Incorporated was founded by a New York engineer named Howard Scott and gained popularity and notoriety in the US and Canada as an antidote to the carnage caused by the Great Depression. A key believer was Elon Musk’s maternal grandfather, Joshua Haldeman, who lived in Saskatchewan. He became a leader within the organization and was arrested in 1940 because the group was illegal in Canada and was considered subversive to the war effort. After release, he took his family and beliefs to South Africa. Today, his grandson, Elon, and other Silicon Valley leaders have convinced Trump to annex independent nations and adopt other technocratic policies.

Technology Inc.’s 1930 map of the Technate of America with countries that would be self-sufficient, resource-rich, and run by scientists and engineers

Trump’s interest in Greenland has been head-scratching, along with his musings about annexing Canada as well as Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico. But his ambitions match those mapped out by Technocracy Inc. in the 1930s. But today, Trump’s “target” countries like Greenland and Canada have issued blanket rejections of his acquisition hopes, so he threatens the use of force, both economic and military, if necessary. He may not realize that his ambitions mirror the aforementioned North American Technate, but this is the influence behind Musk and others, who have also convinced him to shift to digital currency and transform the United States into a “digital state.”

Greenland has been in America’s sights for some time for surveillance and military reasons. Truman offered to buy it from Denmark after the Second World, and Trump did too in his first term, but neither followed through. In 2024, Trump resurrected his interest after his re-election, then added to that his desire to make Canada the 51^st state and regain control of the Panama Canal. Musk and Silicon Valley luminaries have lined up in favor of acquiring Greenland. Years before, Musk’s partner and prominent Republican donor, Peter Thiel, even suggested the creation of a technocratic “colony” on the gigantic island. More recently, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates have waded in with support for mining rare earth minerals in Greenland, which are critical for high-tech manufacturing.

Greenland is also key to keeping a watchful eye on Russia, China, and the world’s commerce, but it is considered essential to retain technological dominance. Its vast territory provides enormous opportunities for data storage and computing power facilities. It is easily accessible by air, and its hostile climate offers an ideal environment for building and keeping secure underground energy-intensive data centers. It’s also strategic in terms of space travel. “Greenland’s importance to the United States goes beyond its frozen landscape … far into space. President Trump gets this. Elon understands it better than anyone,” said an American expert. “Telemetry, tracking, missile intercepts, early warning systems, and Northern latitude launch sites are all part of America’s Arctic past, present, and future. Greenland is key.”

Greenland is an ideal staging area for space exploration. One technology expert noted: “Greenland’s proximity to the Arctic Circle also offers an ideal trajectory for polar orbits, providing a clear path for space launches that avoid densely populated areas — unlike Florida or Texas, where safety and airspace restrictions complicate operations.”

(Canada also offers many of the same advantages, but its governments — past, present, and future — have hindered the development of its resources and ignored its Arctic. As a result, the country is underdeveloped and now relies on American military protection, which is why Trump wants to acquire it.)

The Trump team has shifted into high gear regarding the acquisition of Greenland. Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife paid a visit, which was ineffective and annoying to Greenlanders. But Ken Howery, a former partner of Musk and Thiel, has been made ambassador to Denmark, which “owns” and subsidizes Greenland. He was an ambassador to Sweden and became an expert on the importance of the Arctic Circle, as well as the ambitions and activities of China and Russia in the region. But Greenlanders fiercely oppose an American takeover, as do Canadians and Panamanians, which means there will likely be more geopolitical skirmishes and maneuvers to gain possession or permission in the future. Creating the “American Technate” would also require deals to be made with territories stretching down to the northern portions of resource-rich Venezuela and Colombia, as well as the Panama Canal, a key asset to ensure trade.

Technocracy logo. 1930

Meanwhile, back at home, Trump has unleashed Musk and his technologists to streamline government and reduce costs. However, this large-scale program and personnel cuts have caused controversy and raised concerns about surveillance breaches and the wisdom of giving technocrats access to private and highly secure government information. It’s also interesting to note that China may already be the world's largest “technate.” Engineers and scientists run it, and while politics still play a role, it’s clear that “technocracy” has overtaken “socialism” as its defining ideology. Beijing’s recent advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing underscore its emphasis on science and technology as it competes on the global stage.

In Silicon Valley, there is also an element of techno-socialism at play among technocrats, borrowed from the 1930s idealistic technocracy movement. The founders believed that traditional economic systems, such as capitalism and communism, were inefficient and prone to corruption and that only a scientifically planned economy could ensure abundance, stability, and fairness for all. They also believed that mechanization and automation could eliminate much of the need for human labor, reducing work hours while maintaining productivity.

The technocrats argued in favor of proposed basic incomes and the distribution of goods and services based on engineering and scientific calculations of need and sustainability. Today, Musk and others support Universal Basic Income for all. “We won’t have universal basic income. We’ll have a universal high income,” he has said.

Musk also hopes to ensure the long-term survival of humanity through space colonization. He dons an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt and launched his SpaceX venture to achieve this lifelong goal. He hopes to establish a self-sustaining human colony on Mars, another “technate”, with a population of one million people there in a few decades. His plan involves using SpaceX spacecraft to transport humans and cargo to the Red Planet and to create a multi-planetary species. Such Utopian idealism is also rooted in the tenets of his grandfather’s belief in Technocracy. In 2019, he posted a tweet about the movement after launching a rocket to Mars:

Musk’s and Silicon Valley’s influence in the White House accelerates and now shakes up geopolitics. This is new and worrisome: the ascension of an unelected, wealthy elite in a democracy and society that has the ear of America’s president and wants to reengineer the world. We must all stay tuned.

(Next: “Surveillance State”)