What a disaster…

Can you say, “conflict of interest?” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are supposed to work on inefficiency in government and make recommendations of where to cut. Why, then, are he and Ramaswamy poised to scrutinize a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian? Rivian is Tesla’s biggest competitor, and the Biden Administration made the loan. Let the retribution begin. DOGE was allegedly created to increase efficiency in federal departments, but this “scrutiny” has nothing to do with efficiency. It sounds more like Republican waste on investigations, something Republicans are good at doing. Fortune spelled out the goals of this unnecessary entity: “[T]heir task is to radically reduce the size of U.S. government by slashing regulations, sacking federal employees and eliminating waste in the system with a goal of lopping $2 trillion from the budget.” Ramaswamy claims that the loan was extended as “a political shot at Elon Musk and Tesla.”

According to various sources, the loan relates to the Biden administration’s promise to have zero-emission vehicles make up half of all new U.S. sales. Musk wasn’t even in the picture back then, unless Ramaswamy believes President Biden can see the future. Even though this loan was just recently approved, it had been in the works long before Elon Musk reared his head. Of course, unless it’s funded before Trump takes office, it will never happen because Trump promised to end federal tax credits on electric vehicles (which will also impact Tesla). Rivian’s plans were to build a second factory in Social Circle, which is approximately 40 miles from Atlanta, and would have created 7,500 good paying jobs. But we know Trump cares nothing about the environment or people having good jobs, so there’s that. He’d rather bankroll Musk and Ramaswamy to haphazardly cut programs and departments, which will cost even more jobs, but that seems to be his role or perhaps his role is to just make life hard for everyday people.

According to World Matrix, Musk is looking to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB ensures that we are not taken advantage of with respect to our finances. Musk claims that CFPB is a “duplicative regulatory agency,” though he gives us no explanation of what CFPB duplicates. Others disagree with Musk. It is believed that without CFPB, we will be vulnerable to predatory practices by banks, lenders, and debt collectors, all of which have been addressed previously. Indeed, the agency was created for that purpose following the 2008 financial crisis. Without it, Americans will once again be subject to predatory lending, unscrupulous debt collection practices, exorbitant rents and the violation of rental agreements, accountability for financial breaches, and many, many more protections put in place to help consumers, including educating us on the rules. What makes Musk think we won’t be back at square one? When you’re rich, you can care less about whether you pay a bit more for something than you should. Unfortunately, the bulk of us are not rich, and we need every penny to survive. We can already tell that Trump 2.0 is going to be far more damaging than the first.