Will Elon Betray Donald First, or Vice Versa?

Jim Hightower's Lowdown

Seeing two bloated egos like Elon Musk and Donald Trump hug-up recently in their marriage of political convenience, made me think: “Boy, there’s two who really do deserve each other!” The only question is which one will betray the other first.

Upgrade your subscription

My money is on Musk. Yes, Trump has built his entire career on the art of high-profile betrayals, from real estate scams to marriages. But Elon’s crass duplicity is even more naked (please excuse that image). He routinely shifts his core beliefs from one “rock-solid principle” to the opposite, coldly turning on trusting partners and allies, all for personal gain.

Take his 2022 denunciation of Joe Biden’s climate change proposal, which promised massive support for the electric vehicles sold by Musk. Just two years earlier, the Tesla CEO had proclaimed himself to be “super fired up” about Joe’s plan. But his ego got ruffled by some perceived slight by Biden, so he called for killing the entire climate initiative, smugly declaring Tesla didn’t need public money.

Ha! Far from being some bootstrap, up-from-nothing corporate genius, Musk is the fortunate son of a South African emerald dealer. He didn’t create Tesla, he bought it, then enriched himself by extracting giant subsidies from American taxpayers and ruthlessly cheating workers and suppliers. Tesla’s first factory was built with half a billion federal dollars, he has been milking a public regulatory fund for $9 billion so far, each car he sells gets up to $7,500 in federal subsidies – and he continues to draw about a billion a year in tax breaks from that Biden law he condemned.

Musk says it’s all ethical, because the money is there for the taking. Yeah – and so is his integrity.

Leave a comment

Share

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.