Most Americans aren’t familiar with the story of the Guptas, but you can bet your bottom bitcoin that Elon Musk knows it very well. Like so much of the history being made these days, it’s an immigrants’ tale.
The Guptas are three brothers who immigrated to South Africa at just the time in the 1990s when it was transitioning from the old apartheid government to Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. They were small-timers, but they arrived at a time and place rich with possibilities. The brothers’ rise and fall was so fantastic that the New York Times reported later that in their hometown in India, “their story is told like a parable.”
Starting with only a few contacts, the brothers worked their way up the ladder of influence, expanding their business interests, winning lucrative government contracts, hiring the relatives of officials and playing all sides in the struggle to succeed Mandela. When Jacob Zuma became president in 2007, they formed a relationship so close that the systematic looting of the public purse that followed was called “Zupta.”
The term “state capture” has come up in recent weeks in the United States as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency minions have taken over various parts of the federal government. It was first used early in this century to describe a new, more systematic form of corruption emerging in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, one in which powerful oligarchs undermined the governmental restraints that stood in their way.
They sought not to get around the rules but to change them in their favor.
“State of Capture” was the title of the 355-page report authored in 2016 by Thuli Madonsela as she was leaving the post of South Africa’s public protector. It exposed massive public fraud and the influence the Guptas had gained over public policy. Within two years, the scandal forced Zuma to resign and the brothers to flee the country ahead of money laundering and fraud charges.
Two of the brothers were arrested in the UAE in 2022, but their extradition to South Africa was later denied. A third brother has been arrested in India in an unrelated case. Their financial empire, which at one time included mines, nuclear plants and media outlets, is no more. But if you Google “state capture,” Gupta will be one of the first words that pops up.
The Guptas came to South Africa from India and became fabulously wealthy. Musk came to the United States (by way of Canada) and became the richest man in the world. There are obvious differences between what Musk is doing with the DOGE commission and what Zuma and the Guptas did before their downfall. But it remains to be seen if these are the important differences.
The DOGE offensive on federal agencies is much more ideological, and the administration is working hard to keep it that way. That’s why, when a 25-year-old coder quit when it was reported he’d made racist statements on social media, Musk talked him into coming back and complained that the reporter who broke the story about him should be fired. That is grist for headlines that might be preferable to ones examining how it can’t be a huge conflict of interest to gain control of agencies that oversee billions in contracts with Musk’s businesses.
There has been a flurry of lawsuits challenging the legality of DOGE’s activities, with their outcomes still very much in question. What there hasn’t been so far is a single, defining voice to address what Musk is doing and what he might stand to gain under all this ideological froth. There is no guarantee that under our system there ever will be.
Might DOGE, with its unorthodox methods, uncover waste in the federal government? Almost inevitably, it will, but in such a ham-handed way, it’s hard to believe the cuts will stick.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has offered to accept as refugees any white Afrikaners who are victims of “unjust racial discrimination,” a swipe at South Africa’s recent land appropriation act opposed by an Afrikaner group which has caught the president’s ear. No word yet on whether he’ll extend an invitation to the Guptas.
Thank you for calling what is happening “state capture” for that is exactly what is happening, state capture by self-interested billionaires. What is missing is the public recognition of, and outrage about, what is happening. For too long we have allowed our irritations in interacting with our government to stifle our appreciation for the work of dedicated public servants who keep our food safe, our markets honest and our rights protected. How else to explain allowing an incurably conflicted government contractor and his dutiful minions to take a sledgehammer to the entire edifice of government. Why are we tolerating self-interested billionaires to wage war on the poor by denying medicines to the ill, food to the hungry and shelter to our homeless, not to mention basic rights to millions of government employees who are being intimidated, terminated and vilified. You are right to point out we do not know if the courts will rise to the occasion, whether Congress will provide its checks and whether the people will side with the Constitution. Shame on us for allowing this to happen to our great nation.