Maybe. He has always though of himself as this messianic figure who would lead the masses if such a thing were to happen. Probably he doesn't want it to happen, but he certainly wants the same adoration that he thinks he would get in that event
That's literally all it is. He wants a Wikipedia infobox listing his influences, his notable ideas and those he influenced.
I'm not entirely convinced that he even thinks a civil war will happen given how contradictory his own actions are versus his words. Fundamentally, he claims that due to an assortment of empirically true factors (by his own opinion keep in mind) we will have a civil war around this election cycle, probably +- 2 to 3 years or so. Now if he believes that's true, then why does he do literally nothing about it? So, we're about to have a horrible civil war and he moves to a major city (Austin), gets a nice house and a nice car, and keeps making Youtube videos? How does that make any sense? For someone proclaiming the inevitability of a civil war you'd imagine he'd have bought a compound in northern Montana and built a self-sustaining, off-grid homestead or at least would've been extremely committed to the gym, survival training, or firearms training.
Like alot of public intellectuals he assumes civil wars emerge from a rational dispute between political philosophies and not a dispute between the ruling elites.
alas, he is only destined to be listed under Notable Examples on the Dunning-Kruger article
You know, one of those is just a real estate mogul, and the other one isn't even American.
America was founded upon liberal principles, wholly disconnected from the idea of a "landed elite". Some of the first laws literally prevent Americans from holding landed titles. After the industrial revolution, the land of the nation became less and less connected to how wealthy the nation is, and that is where Britan and Murica flourished. Rather, the success of investments, rate of inventing new tech and cultural shock and awe became better signifiers of the "fate of the nation"
Law against landed titles from foreign peerages, yes. Against just holding large tracts of land and having continuity to that land? No, and it was a meat grinder of a war and then the rapid social mobility accompanying the second industrial revolution that brought that about. Bill Gates owns absurd amount of farmland but no one thinks he's a proper substitute for the First Families of Virginia or the Boston Brahmin, and I think celebrity worship is just a symptom of a larger problem of a lack of having elites who represent you.
He just wants to be the next Napoleon, Caesar, Washington, or any other important leader in history without realizing the effort they had to put forth in order to achieve their greatness.
He should be preaching this to a south black church.
I don't see how Elon isn't an American just because he was born in South Africa.
I'll posit a question then: what do you think makes an American?
I mean, I don't know, that's a pretty vague thing to begin with. But being loyal to our nation & believing in our values is one thing I'd say is very American; I don't see Elon as some kind of foreign subverter, he's no different from other people who moved to the US from other countries.
What are our values? What is our nation? Travel around the union and you'll probably be shocked at how different the answers you get are.
I just don't quite see what you're getting at here with Elon really.
Now that's a question that's probably been asked since the dawn of time.