Tag: Elon Musk is dangerous

Musk Spent $288 Million to Elect Trump

Buck Banks

$288 million

“Elon Musk spent at least $288 million to help elect President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates,” according to a Washington Post analysis of new Federal Election Commission filings. “Friday’s FEC filings cement Musk’s status as the biggest political donor of the recent presidential cycle at a moment when he has amassed an extraordinary amount of power as a member of Trump’s inner circle — and decried by critics as a de facto, unelected co-president.”

Donald Has an Elon Problem

Buck Banks

“Trump can flick Marco Rubio aside like dandruff; brush Mike Johnson off like an errant crumb; turn Pam Bondi into Nikki Haley by midnight tonight. His orbit is filled with botoxed disposables who hang upon his favor; courtiers who can be stripped of their livelihoods and status — and exiled from MAGA altogether — if they offend the Orange God King. Trump can’t fire JD Vance, but he could destroy his truckling veep’s political future with a single Truth Social post. … Not so with Elon Musk. … Musk is the world’s richest man; a cult-figure in his own right, and the master of his social media domain. Now, in part thanks to Trump’s own patronage, he also holds sway over much of his domestic agenda via DOGE. If that were not enough, Musk is rapidly fashioning himself into a global power broker — with a decidedly Trump-like flavor. … Indeed, the two men seem to be dueling for attention — vying with one another with competing distractions, as Musk conducts his own independent foreign policy.”

— Charlie Sykes on Substack

Elon Musk: A Misinformation Machine on Steroids (and/or Ketamine)

Buck Banks

450 posts, 679 million views

PolitiFact analyzed more than 450 posts Musk made on X, the social media platform he owns, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 14. These included reposts, quote replies and some standard replies to other X users. Musk — who was born in South Africa in 1971 and became a U.S. citizen in 2002 — continued his long-standing election year pattern of sharing falsehoods about immigrants and the immigration process, including baselessly claiming that immigrants have or will vote in U.S. elections. Musk has more than 202 million X followers who regularly view and interact with his posts. The misinformation-containing posts we analyzed over these two weeks received nearly 679 million views, more than 5.3 million likes and over 1.6 million reposts.