What Elon Musk is hiding
The question that has been burning a hole in my brain has finally been revealed. Chances are, it’s been burning yours too. According to the Independent, Elon Musk’s companies have been promised and/or awarded almost $21 billion since 2008. Obviously, the early years have nothing to do with Donald Trump, but Trump is adding to Musk’s coffers. As of February 17, another $76.7 million was promised to Musk following Trump’s inauguration. This is the same man who posted on X: “If action is not taken to curb the deficit, America is in deep trouble. No different than a person who gets into too much debt.” It sounds to me that we could cut a lot of that waste by getting rid of Elon Musk. How dare he take that much in taxpayer money while cutting taxpayer jobs?
Let’s clarify that much of this money was being wasted long before Trump came into the picture. The Independent reported: “SpaceX has been promised almost $20.7 billion in government contracts, research grants, and other forms of public assistance.” Public assistance? So, there’s money for space research but not for cancer research? I’m sorry, but cancer research is much more important to me than what dwells in outer space. Musk has his sticky fingers into several agencies. SpaceX, of course, primarily works with NASA, but he’s also owed money from the Department of Commerce and the Department of Veteran Affairs. Ironically, Starlink was promised $2.3 million in government assistance from USAID-which Trump is dismantling and which Musk calls “evil” and “a criminal organization.” Apparently, USAID refused to allow Musk access to their systems. Not surprisingly, senior officials were put on leave Saturday for that refusal.
Musk is doing quite well with his governmental associations, but that still does not give him the right to eliminate jobs without any idea of what they are costing the government. Such information takes time to generate, and Musk hasn’t even tried. Instead, he’s just filling his pockets, including a $465 million low-interest loan from the Department of Energy to help develop new electric vehicles. Oh, yeah, and there’s that $450 million contract for “armored electric vehicles” that they’re trying to pretend isn’t going to Tesla. It is also interesting that the agencies investigating Musk for conflict of interest are the agencies he’s targeting. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences, do you? Besides, the White House has already announced that they will leave it to Musk to decide whether his business dealings cause conflicts of interest, which means there is no oversight on Musk or anything he does.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are a lot alike. His complaints against media outlets like Politico and Associated Press for selling subscriptions to government agencies are like pointing his finger at himself, which Trump does all the time. Apparently, Musk’s mantra is “good for me but not for thee.” Trump and Musk are going to ruin this country even more than it has been ruined, and Trump doesn’t have time to oversee Musk because he’s busy firing career servicemen and women because they’re Black or female.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years