By Michael Woyton
You have to wonder when it’s going to hit the fan and the convicted felon realizes that everyone thinks that Elon Musk is REALLY running the show.
Or everyone thinks Elon Musk thinks he’s running the show.
Either way, one hopes the destroyer of Twitter and the buyer of Tesla is making the most of his $277 million investment in the barely successful presidential campaign that will bring former president Donald Trump back into the White House without even a majority of the popular vote — 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent, according to The Associated Press.
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A quarter of a billion dollars is a boatload of money even when compared to a total of $5.5 billion that was doled out by presidential candidates, the political parties and others to influence the 2024 election, according to PBS News.
When the cost of congressional races are taken into account, PBS News said the cost of the 2024 campaign increases to $15.9 billion.
But back to Musk. The $277 million lavished on Trump and other GOP candidates makes Musk the largest single donor in the 2024 election, Business Insider reported.
Other top spenders in 2024 were Timothy Mellon, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein and Miriam Adelson, who all spent more than $100 million to get Trump and the GOP elected.
Is this what democracy needs? People so rich they can simply open up their wallets and throw cash toward the candidate who will best serve their wallets?
One super PAC of which Musk apparently was the only source of funds was the RBG PAC — as in Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Musk made a single contribution of $20.5 million, according to federal campaign finance reports, to the PAC which funded ads that implied Trump’s stand on abortion was similar to the late Supreme Court justice, the AP reported.
The PAC’s ads claimed Trump would defend women’s reproductive rights while using Ginsburg’s name and likeness without permission from her family, Salon reported.
In a statement, Ginsburg’s granddaughter Clara Spera said there was no connection between the PAC and the Supreme Court justice and it was an affront to her legacy.
“The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling,” Spera said in her statement.
It was one of many lies that were foisted on the public by Trump and his campaign, aided by Musk’s money. See also: the federal response to Hurricane Helene, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border under the Biden administration and not touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
I hope that Musk is getting his money’s worth, staying at Mar-a-Lago (I thought he was relocating to Texas) and tagging along as Trump visits Paris to see the spiffy new Notre Dame Cathedral.
Being Trump’s minder is in addition to Musk’s “official” duties as co-head of a department which doesn’t exist to suss out inefficiencies in the government to the tune of $2 billion.
Talk about your conflict of interest.
Should Musk, whose business interests entail billions of dollars in federal contracts, be in charge of cutting government spending? Will he take a hard look at his contracts and say to himself, “You know, I think I’m getting too much federal money”?
Of course not.
Trump wouldn’t, so why would his billionaire underlings?
I sure hope Musk doesn’t spread himself too thin shadowing the adjudicated rapist here and there.
Time will tell, as it always seems to when Trump is involved, if this is just the beginning of a wonderful co-presidency. Sorry, JD Vance. You probably won’t be the last person in the room.
Maybe Trump will eventually realize that $277 million isn’t enough money to have to put up with the constant companionship of a South African oligarch wannabe.
Trump will turn on Musk. It’s only a matter of time.
Lead art: Screen grab from RSBN
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