Talk about “business techno”: corporate techno appropriation continues, as Elon Musk has evidently opened an employee-only club space at the Gigafactory Berlin. And it’s emblematic of some political storm clouds gathering over the German capital.
It’s not an unprecedented move. Back in 2021, Musk had a 9000-person festival-style “techno” opening for Gigafactory, one that required Tesla to get special permission to exceed COVID-19 capacity restrictions at the time.
Maybe the best news here is that this is an employee-only experience – and that, for now, the greater Berlin area is safe from Musk as techno impresario. But the space looks about as you’d expect. The vibe is sort of “Tron ride” – the lame sequel, not the original, plus Imperial Star Destroyer hallway, plus cheesy tourist-trap nightclub (extra lasers!). The Berlin reference would be less Berghain or Tresor, more Matrix.
Oh, and apparently taking its reference from EDM rather than Detroit or Berlin techno, the club free-associates club music and rodents – sorry, deadmau5 – and we get some kind of futuristic hamster. (Hamster in German slang can also refer to hoarding behaviors, so that may be part of the joke?)
And yeah, of course an awful remix of Strauss. Via the plant manager:
Giga Berlin rave cave (aka HAMSTER) now alive! Party on… https://t.co/T3wN4PMJZl
— André Thierig (@AndrThie) June 28, 2024
And all this from the CEO who has been accused of allowing rising antisemitism on his platform, chimed along with white supremacist, anti-migrant, antisemitic sentiments, and doubled-down on the great replacement theory. I’m not finished, either – Musk, while “making East German great again,” has come under fire for draining Brandenburg’s protected water supply, cutting down forests, and pricing out locals. But that hasn’t stopped him from backing far-right AfD and even racist anti-migrant sentiments that describe a “European suicide”.
With Tesla growing as the major employer in Brandenburg – a district that overwhelmingly voted for AfD in the recent European elections – these connections should probably not be seen as incidental. Despite some gestures of pushback, Berlin and federal politicians have been all too quick to pose for photos with Musk – even as the same politicians and press have labeled pro-Palestinian activists antisemitic, Musk’s overt antisemitism seems to get a free pass. (Olaf Scholz even joined for the factory opening, following delays.)
That’s even before we get into the question of whether children are mining cobalt for Tesla’s batteries. Germany has half a million refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. To me, rather than repeating the dated “easyJet set” discussion of techno tourism, any real discussion of society in Berlin and Germany at large should start with the massive refugee and migrant surge. (The text of the UNESCO application for Berlin techno largely ignored the migrant story of the music; of course, many outside observers just filled in the blanks and saw it that way anyway.)
And that’s relevant to music. Berlin attracted musical creativity and music tech (like Ableton, Native Instruments, and SoundCloud), I believe, primarily because of its politics. Despite the usual explanation that the city was “cheap,” there have long been cheaper places – and recently, the city has seen rocketing costs and limited housing availability. But a culture of openness was part of the city’s brand. Now, with individuals like Musk, the major power brokers, and far-right politics on the rise, that’s changed – and could change the perception of techno and the reality of the city’s friendliness to the immigrants that drive the scene.
I’m not sure that Brandenburg factory workers having a pricey on-campus party space really matters much in this larger landscape. But it seems likely that moments like this may, in retrospect, become symbolic down the road.
If nothing else, it’s metaphorically charged.