Great question, @Leakie. Who will investigate Pres-elect Musk? I wonder if those who watch the Inauguration will see him say the oath under his breath as his puppet says it.
The question of what I think of him and his actions are somewhere on the same scale as all the Cabinet nominees & appointments like DOGE - a bit like “on a scale of 1-10, how’s your pain?” ( which, unmedicated is usually at 25+ ).
There will be no one to investigate him except journalists who, other than Substack writers, may decide to do the job they shoulda done, absent WaPo & LATimes which won’t go back to the kind of work for which they won prizes.
Who do you & other readers here think would? And then if all kinds of info found (including way overcharging the govt on every contract) who will mete out any punishment for which the puppet won’t halt?
The problem is that the 205 million Musk followers are the largest organized constituency of THE PEOPLE. And they have found their voice in the Cult. (Not all of them are Americans, but a substantial majority are.)
Not true. More people have departed twitter, mostly for Blue Sky. Some, who post for income are still in both, but those who post for income are even leaving twitter. He's turned it into a cesspool and right wing insanity. I believe his "followers" are around 100million at most. Most of them are people decent citizens don't want to associate with.
It would be the Federal Government. They already have multiple investigations into his dumping of toxic chemicals in Texas from his plant, the fact that his cars have the highest death rate of any other brand, his improper communication with Putin. Why do you think that he wants the government shut down until Trump takes office? All of these investigations would shut down and then Trump will order them to be erased. Why do you think he wants to gut the federal regulations regarding clean water and air? He knows he is egregiously in violation every day. He needs to have his assets stripped and put in prison for everything he has done and continues to do.
Lori - you are right to question this! Trump won’t abandon oligarchs, no matter how much he dislikes them. I would not be surprised, though, if he stops Musk’s “Acting President” position after the Coronation on 20 January.
None of them will ever make it to trial. Four years later, Trump's trials have come to naught due to deep pockets and wily actions by the defendant. Trump has more legal experience than most lawyers.
First, fine him billions of dollars- and then jail him. I am more worried about what US national security information he’s passing on to Xi and Putin. He obviously would and perhaps already has.
"Power Corrupts" said 💓Professor ODean💓...did we listen?
"Do one thing every day that scares you. " said 💓Ms.FDR💓, did we listen?
"Ask all potential victims of depression:'Wanna die?'..." said Scientists, did we listen?
"Beat the Crap out of him... I'll pay the legal fees." said Trump, did we send teams of Actors in an Ambulance to stage fights at Trump rallies and sue Trump for the "injuries?"
"Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo" said the Scientists, did we listen?
"Innocuous placebos can 'mutate' into a Insidious Placebo" said 💓Moms💓 who replace baby's filthy thumb with a sterile pacifier.
MAGAs are cured by Trump, Trump is cured by Musk!?
We must modify our kids genetics to prove to the Court that Musk (or Trump) is their father... so our kids can win huge Paternity Suits and force Trump to evict all the rich tenants from his properties and move our kids (and us) in!😁😁😁🎅said The Onion😁
Musk was raised in apartheid South Africa and that racist upbringing remains with him. He practices the same racism in the United States albeit quietly but his endorsement of the MAGA movement and its racist orientation makes his position clear.
How much money does Trump owe him?
Musk is a full-on fascist and people have to start calling him such. In the legacy media. ALL THE TIME! He is not "brilliant." He is a fascist.
And I enjoy wearing these kinds of shirts in front of fascists 👇
He's terribly gullible, and has no clue about politics, diplomacy, or reality, really. David Sacks, a "Vulture" Capitalist gives him his opinion, and is his (faulty) reality translator. Remember the stupid "end the Ukraine war by giving Putin everything he wants" tweet? That was Sacks quoted later by Musk, who seemed to think it was HIS original idea.
True but it goes back further than that with a twist.
Musk’s family moved from Canada to South Africa because his grandfather was involved in the technocracy movement. Technocracy - as in scientists in charge. Although a small child when his grandfather died, Musk has proposed a technocracy government when Mars is settled. He follows many of tenets of his grandfather.
He can’t be elected in the US but his tentacles reach into the incoming administration of the Orange Menace, our economy, US defense and etc.
Our job is to help evict him and demand every elected representative and senator ignores him and his "demands" - especially those for ridding us of FDIC and the bureau that collects data on dangerous products like his self driving teslas.
I’m not gullible enough to think Rand Paul cares one bit about my “demands”. My Congressman is reliable & fortunately McConnell is too traditional to fall for a lot of this, especially destroying the FDIC. I think that is some sort of crypto lover wet dream. A bigger stupid than Gaetz for AG.
These wacko ideas & chaos before the next administration is even in office should help voters to make a u-turn in the midterms. We can work on that.
Musk is gonna dance with the one who brung him as long as trump lets him. Legislators are concerned with whether he will fund primary opponents, unleash the tweet machine mob on them & if one of his companies is in their state whether their vote will damage their voters.
Musk won when the House took limitations on investing in China out of the final CR. Interestingly the orange menace lost because all he wanted was the debt ceiling suspended for 2 yrs. The debt ceiling was not addressed.
If trump decides “President Musk” is a problem & pokes a hole in Musk’s hot air balloon, so much the better.
I agree. For me knowing this background sheds more light on the weirdness. That article says his g-father Haldeman became disillusioned and moved to S Africa. It doesn’t say that at one point the Technocracy group was outlawed & Elon’s g-father was arrested. Then he hooked up with an anti-Semitic group and became their national leader. Some of Haldeman’s papers have surfaced that he wrote in S Africa.
Ann, thanks for picking up on that point and expanding it. One area of history that I am trying to increase my knowledge of is the time after WW1 and leading up to WW2, then the impact of both those wars on the mid and later 1900s.
The Technocracy movement (using other terminology) was still influential in the 1950s, and shaped a lot of what passed for social analysis during the last half of the 1900s (and beyond). I'm recognizing that that era has never really gone away. and we are in the midst of a kind of replay- with a twist, to borrow your term for another context.
The link you provided was eye-opening. I wrote down several pages of notes and impressions, and am seeing the source of a good many threads that are re-emerging. In the forefront for me right now is the rigidity of the people involved in the Technocracy Inc movement: a lot of indications of OC/OCD both in their propaganda and in their very organization. It felt utterly creepy. Identical grey clothing, even to the style of ladies hats? Hundreds of automobiles painted the exact same shade of grey (the same grey they wore?).
I could see in the 50s, as I was growing up and beginning to mature, that though there was more than grey, there was still a uniformity that held sway: perhaps an attempt to create stability in lives that had been disrupted by the depression, WW2, the post-war recession, and the social adjustments to new ways of doing and being, and overreaction to the poverty in the emphasis on consumption and acquisition.
I've always recognized that the 60s and 70s were a rebellion against the 50s, but now am seeing the way the dynamics that began before the wars in the heat of corporate capitalism wove itself through those decades and re-emerged with Ronald Reagan and people like Newt Gingrich, creating the opening that led to P2015 and Trump, and directly to Elon.
That description makes it sound as if it was inevitable. It wasn't. At every step, we made decisions and choices that could have been different. We allowed ourselves to be manipulated, often by appealing to a sense of entitlement on the one hand and using intimidation on the other. Don't rock the boat. But the boat rocked anyway, as people began making other choices that threatened those who benefited from that thread of control. We thought it was going to be Trump, but we forgot about the billionaires behind P2025, until Elon Musk used his sense of supreme entitlement to weasel his way into a position that threatens to upend us all, not just the people trying to save democracy.
The next steps are already laid out, if we are willing to collaborate and consistently resist and openly call out the people who are pulling strings. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee set a good example for us when she called out Musk for his actions pressuring House members on the short term appropriations resolution. Elon, of course, borrowed from Trump's tactics to demean her. It backfired on him.
Trump was able to go through the first term with many of his people not having a security check. Kurchner and others, are who I'm thinking of. At this point, even Trump himself could not pass one.
It’s a bit confusing. This is a 2019 NYT article about Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump & security clearance. It appears Jared did NOT get the higher level. (Irony? Do Ambassadors not need security clearance? Orange Putz pardoned Jared’s dad who was, like Ivanka’s dad, a felon.)
Musk is an unelected, unelectable, soulless, creepy, narcissistic Nazi. He doesn’t deserve the privilege of American citizenship that has been earned by the dedication of so many committed to democracy. He is seeking to throw democracy away. He is seeking to shred the Constitution. All government contracts should be terminated, assets seized, and he needs to be deported instead of those who come here seeking asylum, opportunity, freedom, and life. He, and his cohort including Trump, are blights on humanity.
Thanks to the gullibility, resentfulness, and idiocy of many, Musk buys a large social media platform and uses it to grab power. He commits $250 million of his money to elect that traitorous felon and infiltrate our government. So many fucking stupid Americans.
He became the richest man in theworld on the dollars of the US taxpayers. As a South African illegal immigrant who had a student visa, but wasn’t a student, he should never have been given citizenship. His Top Secret clearance should be removed, his 100 contracts from the 17 agencies rescinded, and he should be deported. Not reporting his foreign contacts since at least 2021, and continuing to engage with Putin, should alarm all. Why is this not even being discussed?
Because most people aren't aware of the facts surrounding his lies when he entered OUR country. He has no degree, couldn't hack studying, questionable financial resources during that time, questionable legal startup (stolen idea?) of ZIP2, and hasn't invented or designed anything. People think he is a genius but his IQ waivers near other well-known contemporary Americans. He has money, and has always been a spoiled, racist brat.
Glad I read through comments - saved me from repeating Jan’s relevant post. He should absolutely be at the top of the “to be deported” list. OR, my fantasy: we praise the living daylights out of Musk, forego ALL mention of President-elect Bone Spurs, NOBODY goes to his inauguration, and see how long Musk lasts. My hope (…call me a cockeyed optimist…) is that ALL congressional Republicans will grow spines (remember the Doonesbury Sunday cartoon of the senator bending more and more forward until … the last panel, “I don’t like where this is going”?). And Jen Schaefer’s adjectives are spot on!
Jan, these issues are not being discussed at least publicly by those who actually might have some power to strip Musk and Trump of all of their assets. A good motivator to get these folks moving would be to imagine Trump and Musk sitting on a pair of Trump‘s golden toilets playing with themselves. Being able to laugh at narcissistic bullies will catch them with their pants down.
All valid questions. More than valid; urgent for the sake of our Democracy. I actually thought a month ago or so that the convicted twice-impeached senile monsterv who won the election was a dangerous sinister force to be reckoned with on his own. I now see Musk as the true Fascist - hell bent on destroying our country - with Trump and his cronies as lunch partners at McDonalds. He appears to have free rein and with his bigoted agenda, endless money supply, G-d help this ketamine - enforced maniac from totally destroying the United States.
I am scared to death of all this. 73 years on this earth and I have never felt this uncertain and sad for my country and our kids. This is not right, and it looks like we all have to just sit back and watch him burn it all down. An unelected foreigner is taking down United States. We can’t compete with his money. And whatever he does, will take more years than I have left, to get back to where we were, if that is even possible..going through the motions of the holidays with a sadness I’ve never felt before.
I can so relate. I'm 72 and retired in 2015. This is not how I wanted to spend my retirement, waking up every day afraid of what kind chaos Trump was going to inflict on the world. This time it's going to be so much worse.
"for that to happen , we have to be diligent in truth telling , & debunking lies , which means we're coming with receipts, bc accountability means nothing to these people
Absolutely. I’ve also been hearing that with that truth telling & debunking we have to contrast what “is” with what it should be & could be by changing direction.
It could very well be that reporting “just the facts” will be quite enough & the Dems can reach people in a variety of ways. Their biggest problem has been a lack of strategy.
I see Reuters reported on his post about Panama. Others will pick it up from them. International news outlets reporting on it too.
Probably someone has already noted that DHS's ICE is the agency responsible to denaturalize and deport Elon Musk. Musk entered the US under a false premise. He violated the terms of his visa by earning wages. He lied on his application for naturalization. No word yet on ICE proceeding w charges. fb, 11/15/24.
Trump needs Musk & Musk needs Trump. They are parasites feeding off each other. Neither one of them loves what America stands for. They both want to make money. And they are making money off the backs of the American people.
Trump is beholden to Musk. Elon owns DonOld and probably JD too. The Project 2025 authors did not include a foreigner in their cruel and hateful plans, but they are more than likely thrilled. He’s white, he’s filthy rich, and he’s a fascist & a racist, just like they are. WE, The People, are NOT powerless! WE, The People, must NOT fold into fetal positions! WE FIGHT BACK! Daughter of victims of the Holocaust here.
I totally agree. Trump dumps every body. I have a failure of imagination as to how it will happen, but it will. trump cannot abide anyone else to have the spotlight and Musk had it all this week. Musk could get everything he wants from trump if he was smart enough to stay in the background and pull the strings from there. But he (Musk) is incapable of that, any more than trump is.
Exactly. And the Orange Menace enhances the power of Musk. So far not so much Musk enhancing OM’s power / influence.
Symbiosis is defined as a close, prolonged association between two or more different biological species. This relationship can be symbiotic (mutualistic), where both parties involved benefit from the interaction, or it can be parasitic, where one party benefits while the other is harmed. (PBS)
This of course is the base problem . The Supreme Courts authoritarian decision in Citizens United . Shutting down voting rights act . Giving Trump immunity . These Republican appointees are hand in glove with project 2025 advocates for white supremacists’ money running the show.
Musk is everything that’s wrong with extreme, unrestricted wealth. Without all his money, he’d just be another opinionated creep spewing his bile all over the social media universe. But because of his wealth and the access to power it gives him, he appears to be completely unchecked. He’s racking up more $$ every minute in part from his US government contracts. I’d be interested in seeing his US tax returns, wouldn’t you? Does he pay anything? It’s only his money that makes him such a big cog in the machinery that is poisoning our democracy. He is taking a page from wealthy Texans who have re-shaped the TX legislature by funding primaries against every R lawmaker who doesn’t toe their greedy, misogynistic line. It’s nothing to him to drop millions, or hundreds of millions on shady schemes to “recruit” voters with bribes—and even though the DOJ made him stop, the damage was done, the voter names and addresses collected; who knows how that info was used? Better legal minds than mine should be finding a way to throw sand in his gears, sooner rather than later. I’m not interested in his coming break-up with Trump; I’m interested in some mechanism for diminishing his influence or getting him out of our country or cutting off his government contracts, or tying up his assets in legal wrangles or some combination of tactics to reduce his influence. Musk is the fully rotted, rancid pinnacle of legalized unlimited and unidentified spending on political campaigns. We lost at Citizens United, IMHO, and I fear we will never recover. Money and speech are not the same thing, and until that is enshrined in law, we’ll always be under the thumb of the oligarchy.
Especially since Adelson finally did something to make the world a better place, and left it, would that Charles Koch, and Rupert Murdoch, would do the same!
YES! And he has the utter NERVE to demand more tax breaks! Maybe that's what we need to demand. A look at the final amount these big corporations and billionaires actually PAY in taxes. If it is anywhere close to the % the average American pays, I'll be shocked.
Musk is a narcissist, an egomaniac, he lacks empathy, he has feelings of superiority. He has an addictive behavior, as evidenced by his chronic social media presence. All these traits are also present in people who have drug addiction. He doesn’t belong anywhere near the decisions made in Congress.
He does NOT belong in a decision making position near Trump , who is too impressionable. Musk is deeply prejudiced and narrow minded; he’s a cutthroat businessman who doesn’t belong in a people position. He doesn’t even admit to having one of his children who is transgender. That exemplifies Elon Musk, along with having so many kids with so many women!
True. Musk is not a people person. He is a technocrat who believes scientists and people with technical knowledge should run things. He and Grimes named one of their children X Æ A-12.
The most extreme members of the Technocracy movement dropped their given names for numbers. It is believed his connection to this movement is why he names his businesses with an “X”. The tweet machine became “X”. SpaceX etc.
Most oligarchs have the sense to work behind the scene. Musk’s unfettered narcissism puts his objectives and threats on full display. He’s actually giving us a lesson, in real time, about how wealth and power function in our country.
Painful though it is, it’s a gift we can use to educate and organize. How Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans respond to this naked assault on democracy will determine our future. Twitter, Space X and Starlink are giving Musk obscene power. Free speech and free enterprise have been weaponized under Musk. We must find ways to reel them in.
He also has at least 3 companies (aside from Tesla) that could benefit from changes in regulation and/or infusions of federal $$. A medical company, AI company and “Boring Co.” as in boring tunnels. https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/elon-musk-companies/
Tesla already benefited by getting the House dumping the provision he did not want from the CR. (Original CR limited American investments in certain Chinese industries.) So, net gain for him. The Orange Menace lost his unlimited debt ceiling for 2 yrs.
“Musk, who is the world's richest man, has significant business interests in China. His company Tesla opened a "gigafactory" in Shanghai in 2019, building cars for the Chinese domestic market as well as Australasia. By 2022, China accounted for about 22.5 percent of Tesla's total revenue.” — https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-china-continuing-resolution-budget-deal-proposal-2004103
Leon is an illegal immigrant who came to America under false pretenses. We should nationalize his rocket company, confiscate his satellites, deny him access to our military infrastructure secrets, deport and send him back to South Africa where he live in poverty and obscurity. He wants the US to be an apartheid state that will feed more money into his coffers.
I agree with Senator Chris Murphy! This is not ok! Also, Musk’s citizenship should be investigated. He is dangerous!
Agreed. Musk should be investigated, stripped of his assets, and deported. Rest assured that government workers like me will do everything we can to resist Elon, Trump, and fascism: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/public-servant-democracy-defender-introduction
Who is going to do the investigating?
Great question, @Leakie. Who will investigate Pres-elect Musk? I wonder if those who watch the Inauguration will see him say the oath under his breath as his puppet says it.
The question of what I think of him and his actions are somewhere on the same scale as all the Cabinet nominees & appointments like DOGE - a bit like “on a scale of 1-10, how’s your pain?” ( which, unmedicated is usually at 25+ ).
There will be no one to investigate him except journalists who, other than Substack writers, may decide to do the job they shoulda done, absent WaPo & LATimes which won’t go back to the kind of work for which they won prizes.
Who do you & other readers here think would? And then if all kinds of info found (including way overcharging the govt on every contract) who will mete out any punishment for which the puppet won’t halt?
By the time Trump is finished with us there will be no USA. He will have trampled it into the ground
Excellent! The power is THE PEOPLE not these hateful narcissistic fascists!
The problem is that the 205 million Musk followers are the largest organized constituency of THE PEOPLE. And they have found their voice in the Cult. (Not all of them are Americans, but a substantial majority are.)
Not true. More people have departed twitter, mostly for Blue Sky. Some, who post for income are still in both, but those who post for income are even leaving twitter. He's turned it into a cesspool and right wing insanity. I believe his "followers" are around 100million at most. Most of them are people decent citizens don't want to associate with.
Who is going to do the investigating?
It would be the Federal Government. They already have multiple investigations into his dumping of toxic chemicals in Texas from his plant, the fact that his cars have the highest death rate of any other brand, his improper communication with Putin. Why do you think that he wants the government shut down until Trump takes office? All of these investigations would shut down and then Trump will order them to be erased. Why do you think he wants to gut the federal regulations regarding clean water and air? He knows he is egregiously in violation every day. He needs to have his assets stripped and put in prison for everything he has done and continues to do.
Sadly, that simply is not gonna happen. We have to wait until Trump gets tired of being upstaged by him.
But will that ever really happen????
Lori - you are right to question this! Trump won’t abandon oligarchs, no matter how much he dislikes them. I would not be surprised, though, if he stops Musk’s “Acting President” position after the Coronation on 20 January.
None of them will ever make it to trial. Four years later, Trump's trials have come to naught due to deep pockets and wily actions by the defendant. Trump has more legal experience than most lawyers.
First, fine him billions of dollars- and then jail him. I am more worried about what US national security information he’s passing on to Xi and Putin. He obviously would and perhaps already has.
All that and the GOP taking the limitations on tech to China out of the CR is why he wants to be in charge.
It’s notable he got what he wanted removed from the CR & what the Orange Menace wanted in the bill was dropped (debt ceiling unlimited for 2 yrs).
Expect all of that to go away courtesy of Kash Patel and Pam Bondi
"Power Corrupts" said 💓Professor ODean💓...did we listen?
"Do one thing every day that scares you. " said 💓Ms.FDR💓, did we listen?
"Ask all potential victims of depression:'Wanna die?'..." said Scientists, did we listen?
"Beat the Crap out of him... I'll pay the legal fees." said Trump, did we send teams of Actors in an Ambulance to stage fights at Trump rallies and sue Trump for the "injuries?"
"Up to 60% of anxious people are cured by placebo" said the Scientists, did we listen?
"Innocuous placebos can 'mutate' into a Insidious Placebo" said 💓Moms💓 who replace baby's filthy thumb with a sterile pacifier.
MAGAs are cured by Trump, Trump is cured by Musk!?
We must modify our kids genetics to prove to the Court that Musk (or Trump) is their father... so our kids can win huge Paternity Suits and force Trump to evict all the rich tenants from his properties and move our kids (and us) in!😁😁😁🎅said The Onion😁
Last I heard, there are already 20 ongoing federal investigations of musk and his company. He needs to be taken down a few notches.
If Musk was in. Russia Putin would take it all. Then he would lock him up!
Musk was raised in apartheid South Africa and that racist upbringing remains with him. He practices the same racism in the United States albeit quietly but his endorsement of the MAGA movement and its racist orientation makes his position clear.
How much money does Trump owe him?
Musk is a full-on fascist and people have to start calling him such. In the legacy media. ALL THE TIME! He is not "brilliant." He is a fascist.
And I enjoy wearing these kinds of shirts in front of fascists 👇
https://libtees-2.creator-spring.com
Musk's endorsement of the of the AfD party in Germany is proof of how he leans.
He's terribly gullible, and has no clue about politics, diplomacy, or reality, really. David Sacks, a "Vulture" Capitalist gives him his opinion, and is his (faulty) reality translator. Remember the stupid "end the Ukraine war by giving Putin everything he wants" tweet? That was Sacks quoted later by Musk, who seemed to think it was HIS original idea.
https://newrepublic.com/article/168125/david-sacks-elon-musk-peter-thiel
True but it goes back further than that with a twist.
Musk’s family moved from Canada to South Africa because his grandfather was involved in the technocracy movement. Technocracy - as in scientists in charge. Although a small child when his grandfather died, Musk has proposed a technocracy government when Mars is settled. He follows many of tenets of his grandfather.
He can’t be elected in the US but his tentacles reach into the incoming administration of the Orange Menace, our economy, US defense and etc.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/technocracy-incorporated-elon-musk/
Our job is to help evict him and demand every elected representative and senator ignores him and his "demands" - especially those for ridding us of FDIC and the bureau that collects data on dangerous products like his self driving teslas.
I’m not gullible enough to think Rand Paul cares one bit about my “demands”. My Congressman is reliable & fortunately McConnell is too traditional to fall for a lot of this, especially destroying the FDIC. I think that is some sort of crypto lover wet dream. A bigger stupid than Gaetz for AG.
These wacko ideas & chaos before the next administration is even in office should help voters to make a u-turn in the midterms. We can work on that.
Musk is gonna dance with the one who brung him as long as trump lets him. Legislators are concerned with whether he will fund primary opponents, unleash the tweet machine mob on them & if one of his companies is in their state whether their vote will damage their voters.
Musk won when the House took limitations on investing in China out of the final CR. Interestingly the orange menace lost because all he wanted was the debt ceiling suspended for 2 yrs. The debt ceiling was not addressed.
If trump decides “President Musk” is a problem & pokes a hole in Musk’s hot air balloon, so much the better.
Thank you for the link. We need to know our enemy.
I agree. For me knowing this background sheds more light on the weirdness. That article says his g-father Haldeman became disillusioned and moved to S Africa. It doesn’t say that at one point the Technocracy group was outlawed & Elon’s g-father was arrested. Then he hooked up with an anti-Semitic group and became their national leader. Some of Haldeman’s papers have surfaced that he wrote in S Africa.
Quite a caldron of conspiracy theories.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-world-according-to-elon-musks-grandfather
Ann, thanks for picking up on that point and expanding it. One area of history that I am trying to increase my knowledge of is the time after WW1 and leading up to WW2, then the impact of both those wars on the mid and later 1900s.
The Technocracy movement (using other terminology) was still influential in the 1950s, and shaped a lot of what passed for social analysis during the last half of the 1900s (and beyond). I'm recognizing that that era has never really gone away. and we are in the midst of a kind of replay- with a twist, to borrow your term for another context.
The link you provided was eye-opening. I wrote down several pages of notes and impressions, and am seeing the source of a good many threads that are re-emerging. In the forefront for me right now is the rigidity of the people involved in the Technocracy Inc movement: a lot of indications of OC/OCD both in their propaganda and in their very organization. It felt utterly creepy. Identical grey clothing, even to the style of ladies hats? Hundreds of automobiles painted the exact same shade of grey (the same grey they wore?).
I could see in the 50s, as I was growing up and beginning to mature, that though there was more than grey, there was still a uniformity that held sway: perhaps an attempt to create stability in lives that had been disrupted by the depression, WW2, the post-war recession, and the social adjustments to new ways of doing and being, and overreaction to the poverty in the emphasis on consumption and acquisition.
I've always recognized that the 60s and 70s were a rebellion against the 50s, but now am seeing the way the dynamics that began before the wars in the heat of corporate capitalism wove itself through those decades and re-emerged with Ronald Reagan and people like Newt Gingrich, creating the opening that led to P2015 and Trump, and directly to Elon.
That description makes it sound as if it was inevitable. It wasn't. At every step, we made decisions and choices that could have been different. We allowed ourselves to be manipulated, often by appealing to a sense of entitlement on the one hand and using intimidation on the other. Don't rock the boat. But the boat rocked anyway, as people began making other choices that threatened those who benefited from that thread of control. We thought it was going to be Trump, but we forgot about the billionaires behind P2025, until Elon Musk used his sense of supreme entitlement to weasel his way into a position that threatens to upend us all, not just the people trying to save democracy.
The next steps are already laid out, if we are willing to collaborate and consistently resist and openly call out the people who are pulling strings. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee set a good example for us when she called out Musk for his actions pressuring House members on the short term appropriations resolution. Elon, of course, borrowed from Trump's tactics to demean her. It backfired on him.
Hoping for more like that at every level.
That makes sense. Trump had billionaires and wannabes in his first WH. https://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/14/donald-trump-cabinet-billionaires-washington-579084.html
Yes, the boat rocked anyway. I think we are seeing why crypto bro’s and tech folks jumped on the trump train. It’s their chance for a gravy train.
It’s good that we have voices like Rep. DeLauro to remind us.
Now seems obsessed with his own power, fame, and money ... can still be a force for civic good although he seems trapped ...
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, Lord Acto
Very dangerous. Trump is protecting him from having a security check. Can Congress insist he does have one ?
Congress should demand a security check . Musk is so infatuated with himself and his money . He believes he’s unstoppable.
I read somewhere on a reputable source that the donald can give “President” Musk a security clearance.
Anyone please chime in if that’s not true.
Trump was able to go through the first term with many of his people not having a security check. Kurchner and others, are who I'm thinking of. At this point, even Trump himself could not pass one.
We did not elect Musk, this is total injustice and mockery of our system of governance, which is exactly what they wanted.
He gave Jared one as I recall.
It’s a bit confusing. This is a 2019 NYT article about Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump & security clearance. It appears Jared did NOT get the higher level. (Irony? Do Ambassadors not need security clearance? Orange Putz pardoned Jared’s dad who was, like Ivanka’s dad, a felon.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html
I loathe this dangerous heap of narcissism.
Musk is an unelected, unelectable, soulless, creepy, narcissistic Nazi. He doesn’t deserve the privilege of American citizenship that has been earned by the dedication of so many committed to democracy. He is seeking to throw democracy away. He is seeking to shred the Constitution. All government contracts should be terminated, assets seized, and he needs to be deported instead of those who come here seeking asylum, opportunity, freedom, and life. He, and his cohort including Trump, are blights on humanity.
Thanks to the gullibility, resentfulness, and idiocy of many, Musk buys a large social media platform and uses it to grab power. He commits $250 million of his money to elect that traitorous felon and infiltrate our government. So many fucking stupid Americans.
Citizens United has caused this. 🤬
That, and tax cuts spawned by Reagan.
Mitch McConnell and Citizens United.
And Leonard Leo, who planned and executed the coup.
100%!!!
God forgive me, I keep hoping if Matthew Perry unalived himself with ketamine, maybe we'll be lucky and junkie Musk will also unalive?
‘unalived’… 🤨
Also, I’m pretty sure his death was accidental.
"should be". Ay, there's the rub.
Don't forget his frenemy Peter Thiel, a fellow south African, and "libertarian" who wants to destroy the country that made him wealthy, as well.
Can’t forget Thiel. He bought Vance his Congressional seat-a gift that keeps on giving. 🤮
He became the richest man in theworld on the dollars of the US taxpayers. As a South African illegal immigrant who had a student visa, but wasn’t a student, he should never have been given citizenship. His Top Secret clearance should be removed, his 100 contracts from the 17 agencies rescinded, and he should be deported. Not reporting his foreign contacts since at least 2021, and continuing to engage with Putin, should alarm all. Why is this not even being discussed?
Because most people aren't aware of the facts surrounding his lies when he entered OUR country. He has no degree, couldn't hack studying, questionable financial resources during that time, questionable legal startup (stolen idea?) of ZIP2, and hasn't invented or designed anything. People think he is a genius but his IQ waivers near other well-known contemporary Americans. He has money, and has always been a spoiled, racist brat.
Exactly, Tina . He invented nothing , he's an owner .
He is no genius, he hires geniuses.
Glad I read through comments - saved me from repeating Jan’s relevant post. He should absolutely be at the top of the “to be deported” list. OR, my fantasy: we praise the living daylights out of Musk, forego ALL mention of President-elect Bone Spurs, NOBODY goes to his inauguration, and see how long Musk lasts. My hope (…call me a cockeyed optimist…) is that ALL congressional Republicans will grow spines (remember the Doonesbury Sunday cartoon of the senator bending more and more forward until … the last panel, “I don’t like where this is going”?). And Jen Schaefer’s adjectives are spot on!
Same as how a convicted felon will now be president
Jan, these issues are not being discussed at least publicly by those who actually might have some power to strip Musk and Trump of all of their assets. A good motivator to get these folks moving would be to imagine Trump and Musk sitting on a pair of Trump‘s golden toilets playing with themselves. Being able to laugh at narcissistic bullies will catch them with their pants down.
Jan,
All valid questions. More than valid; urgent for the sake of our Democracy. I actually thought a month ago or so that the convicted twice-impeached senile monsterv who won the election was a dangerous sinister force to be reckoned with on his own. I now see Musk as the true Fascist - hell bent on destroying our country - with Trump and his cronies as lunch partners at McDonalds. He appears to have free rein and with his bigoted agenda, endless money supply, G-d help this ketamine - enforced maniac from totally destroying the United States.
I am scared to death of all this. 73 years on this earth and I have never felt this uncertain and sad for my country and our kids. This is not right, and it looks like we all have to just sit back and watch him burn it all down. An unelected foreigner is taking down United States. We can’t compete with his money. And whatever he does, will take more years than I have left, to get back to where we were, if that is even possible..going through the motions of the holidays with a sadness I’ve never felt before.
I can so relate. I'm 72 and retired in 2015. This is not how I wanted to spend my retirement, waking up every day afraid of what kind chaos Trump was going to inflict on the world. This time it's going to be so much worse.
Same as you. Trying to build my personal life and stay less insane day by day. Chaos is a problem.
Yep. It could very well be a brutal 4 years. Hang tough Joanne. One just never knows. 😉
I’m hoping he/they offend enough Americans by the mid-terms a new House & Senate reduce the damage.
"for that to happen , we have to be diligent in truth telling , & debunking lies , which means we're coming with receipts, bc accountability means nothing to these people
Absolutely. I’ve also been hearing that with that truth telling & debunking we have to contrast what “is” with what it should be & could be by changing direction.
... So we'd be performing miracles, for these folks ,smh
Well, when I say “offend” I’m thinking it comes with some pain to reinforce the narrative we’d be offering that it doesn’t need to be this way.
More of a compare & contrast as their moronic chaos reigns.
The corporate media won't report it. They'll sane-wash it all.
It could very well be that reporting “just the facts” will be quite enough & the Dems can reach people in a variety of ways. Their biggest problem has been a lack of strategy.
I see Reuters reported on his post about Panama. Others will pick it up from them. International news outlets reporting on it too.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-threatens-retake-panama-canal-012312803.html
72 here and feel the same. Dr. just prescribed some "mood leveler" because I am either in tears or so angry I scare myself!
I like 5 hydroxy gaba.
Probably someone has already noted that DHS's ICE is the agency responsible to denaturalize and deport Elon Musk. Musk entered the US under a false premise. He violated the terms of his visa by earning wages. He lied on his application for naturalization. No word yet on ICE proceeding w charges. fb, 11/15/24.
He probably lied about taking drugs too
Wow.
Trump needs Musk & Musk needs Trump. They are parasites feeding off each other. Neither one of them loves what America stands for. They both want to make money. And they are making money off the backs of the American people.
Trump is beholden to Musk. Elon owns DonOld and probably JD too. The Project 2025 authors did not include a foreigner in their cruel and hateful plans, but they are more than likely thrilled. He’s white, he’s filthy rich, and he’s a fascist & a racist, just like they are. WE, The People, are NOT powerless! WE, The People, must NOT fold into fetal positions! WE FIGHT BACK! Daughter of victims of the Holocaust here.
Vance is owned by Thiel, another billionaire, anti American people businessman.
Thank you, I was going to point out that error as well.
Maybe, but 2 extreme narcissists can't exist in the same fishbowl. Trump will eventually dump Musk.
I totally agree. Trump dumps every body. I have a failure of imagination as to how it will happen, but it will. trump cannot abide anyone else to have the spotlight and Musk had it all this week. Musk could get everything he wants from trump if he was smart enough to stay in the background and pull the strings from there. But he (Musk) is incapable of that, any more than trump is.
Exactly. And the Orange Menace enhances the power of Musk. So far not so much Musk enhancing OM’s power / influence.
Symbiosis is defined as a close, prolonged association between two or more different biological species. This relationship can be symbiotic (mutualistic), where both parties involved benefit from the interaction, or it can be parasitic, where one party benefits while the other is harmed. (PBS)
I do not like him at all. I think that he is arrogant prick
Musk is creepy and dangerous for the USA.
For the world. Who’s Austin Powers and who’s the Mini Me? Him or Trump? Sick joke.
ha ha! I keep thinking of Dr. Evil saying: “and the best thing is, no-one can stop me…” - these fascists are so wrong, they just don’t know it yet
That’s a trick question lol
I think Trumpism is sort of like Pinky and the Brain.
Musk has bought Trump for $277,000,000. He's never going to let Trump forget it. It's basically blackmail.
As a naturalized citizen he’s not able to run for President so he bought his way into our politics.
This of course is the base problem . The Supreme Courts authoritarian decision in Citizens United . Shutting down voting rights act . Giving Trump immunity . These Republican appointees are hand in glove with project 2025 advocates for white supremacists’ money running the show.
There's plenty more money for Musk to keep to keep sharing with Trump in exchange for power.
He’s a rich, spoilt white South African supremacist whi has absolutely NO business interfering in our country’s politics..ABSOLUTELY NONE!!😡
Not much. He should be deported
Musk is everything that’s wrong with extreme, unrestricted wealth. Without all his money, he’d just be another opinionated creep spewing his bile all over the social media universe. But because of his wealth and the access to power it gives him, he appears to be completely unchecked. He’s racking up more $$ every minute in part from his US government contracts. I’d be interested in seeing his US tax returns, wouldn’t you? Does he pay anything? It’s only his money that makes him such a big cog in the machinery that is poisoning our democracy. He is taking a page from wealthy Texans who have re-shaped the TX legislature by funding primaries against every R lawmaker who doesn’t toe their greedy, misogynistic line. It’s nothing to him to drop millions, or hundreds of millions on shady schemes to “recruit” voters with bribes—and even though the DOJ made him stop, the damage was done, the voter names and addresses collected; who knows how that info was used? Better legal minds than mine should be finding a way to throw sand in his gears, sooner rather than later. I’m not interested in his coming break-up with Trump; I’m interested in some mechanism for diminishing his influence or getting him out of our country or cutting off his government contracts, or tying up his assets in legal wrangles or some combination of tactics to reduce his influence. Musk is the fully rotted, rancid pinnacle of legalized unlimited and unidentified spending on political campaigns. We lost at Citizens United, IMHO, and I fear we will never recover. Money and speech are not the same thing, and until that is enshrined in law, we’ll always be under the thumb of the oligarchy.
I miss the good old days of being exasperated with the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson. Musk is as equally unhinged as Trump.
Especially since Adelson finally did something to make the world a better place, and left it, would that Charles Koch, and Rupert Murdoch, would do the same!
YES! And he has the utter NERVE to demand more tax breaks! Maybe that's what we need to demand. A look at the final amount these big corporations and billionaires actually PAY in taxes. If it is anywhere close to the % the average American pays, I'll be shocked.
Agreed
Right on target this narcissistic greedy grubber needs to go .
So he bought Trump a ticket back to the White House . Stops there . Get him out of Doge.
Musk is a narcissist, an egomaniac, he lacks empathy, he has feelings of superiority. He has an addictive behavior, as evidenced by his chronic social media presence. All these traits are also present in people who have drug addiction. He doesn’t belong anywhere near the decisions made in Congress.
Whois it these types always have so much money to damage others?
He does NOT belong in a decision making position near Trump , who is too impressionable. Musk is deeply prejudiced and narrow minded; he’s a cutthroat businessman who doesn’t belong in a people position. He doesn’t even admit to having one of his children who is transgender. That exemplifies Elon Musk, along with having so many kids with so many women!
True. Musk is not a people person. He is a technocrat who believes scientists and people with technical knowledge should run things. He and Grimes named one of their children X Æ A-12.
The most extreme members of the Technocracy movement dropped their given names for numbers. It is believed his connection to this movement is why he names his businesses with an “X”. The tweet machine became “X”. SpaceX etc.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/technocracy-incorporated-elon-musk/
Most oligarchs have the sense to work behind the scene. Musk’s unfettered narcissism puts his objectives and threats on full display. He’s actually giving us a lesson, in real time, about how wealth and power function in our country.
Painful though it is, it’s a gift we can use to educate and organize. How Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans respond to this naked assault on democracy will determine our future. Twitter, Space X and Starlink are giving Musk obscene power. Free speech and free enterprise have been weaponized under Musk. We must find ways to reel them in.
I believe Musk has been "behind the scenes" for years in privatizing space exploration through NASA contracting.
He also has at least 3 companies (aside from Tesla) that could benefit from changes in regulation and/or infusions of federal $$. A medical company, AI company and “Boring Co.” as in boring tunnels. https://www.thomasnet.com/insights/elon-musk-companies/
Tesla already benefited by getting the House dumping the provision he did not want from the CR. (Original CR limited American investments in certain Chinese industries.) So, net gain for him. The Orange Menace lost his unlimited debt ceiling for 2 yrs.
“Musk, who is the world's richest man, has significant business interests in China. His company Tesla opened a "gigafactory" in Shanghai in 2019, building cars for the Chinese domestic market as well as Australasia. By 2022, China accounted for about 22.5 percent of Tesla's total revenue.” — https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-china-continuing-resolution-budget-deal-proposal-2004103
Leon is an illegal immigrant who came to America under false pretenses. We should nationalize his rocket company, confiscate his satellites, deny him access to our military infrastructure secrets, deport and send him back to South Africa where he live in poverty and obscurity. He wants the US to be an apartheid state that will feed more money into his coffers.