The President of the United States openly fantasizes about putting a Trump luxury resort in Gaza. Praxis — a company funded by Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel — wants to build a tech-owned city on Greenland. Elon Musk just got his own private city, called Starbase, in Texas. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has urged the president to make good on his campaign pledge to build ten so-called “Freedom Cities” on federal land.
Why do Trump and some of his most fervent tech billionaire backers want to take land and create privately-controlled zones? Their dystopian visions reflect an ideological project called “The Network State,” which seeks to create private, corporate-controlled cities that operate as “startup nations”—places where democracy, regulations, and taxes won’t apply. It’s billed as innovation, but it’s really about escape: a billionaire bunker system to opt out of democracy and public accountability.
These aren’t just company towns, and they certainly aren’t zones of “freedom.” They are better described as fascist cities — autocratic playgrounds where the ultra-rich and corporations make all the rules. The core concept was formalized by Balaji Srinivasan in his 2022 book The Network State: How to Start a New Country. But many of his ideas resemble earlier work by Curtis Yarvin, sometimes referred to as Peter Thiel’s “house philosopher,” who in 2008 wrote a notorious essay called “Patchwork.”
This is the Network State in its most ghoulish incarnation: a tech-fascist casino built atop genocide and displacement.
we have tech-fascist casino built atop genocide and displacement at home.
Even military bases are in play. Palmer Luckey, founder of the defense firm Anduril, proposed turning Guantanamo Bay into “Liberty City”—a “tropical brain-drain machine that accelerates regime collapse in Havana.” He described it as the “Singapore of the Caribbean.” Armstrong amplified the idea on Twitter.
That’s a human version of the roach motel. How are the most worst ideas being spun as gold ?
