Elon Musk blew up the recent bipartisan budget bill with a series of social media posts promoting falsehoods such as the bill containing a 40% pay raise for Congress and provided $3 billion for a new NFL football stadium. Donald Trump eventually joined the party demanding that the bill be killed.

It has been reported that neither Musk nor Trump got what they wanted in the funding bill that eventually passed. Trump did not get the elimination of the debt ceiling that he wanted. Musk, however, got exactly what he wanted. Musk owns a very large Tesla plant in China, and reportedly is planning significant AI investments in that plant. The original bill would have placed restrictions on high-tech investments in China. The bill that passed has no such restrictions.

Musk paid a reported $44 billion for Twitter to create a propaganda platform. As evidence, I offer as examples his posts on the platform, the published allegations of his censuring speech on that platform, and the reported loss of 80% of the company’s value since Musk took over. Combine that with the reported $250 million in campaign contributions to Trump in the recent election and we have quite an investment in a Trump election that Musk intends to get a positive return on.

Under Donald Trump the Republicans are now openly practicing the Golden Rule: He who has the gold rules.

Bob Lain
Nobleboro