The Real Reason For Elon-Gate

In the early morning hours of last Saturday, after a mad scramble to piece together a last-minute deal, the Senate approved a whittled-down, temporary government spending bill, averting a looming shutdown of the federal government. President Biden signed that bill into law later that morning.

But all that was necessary because Elon Musk went on a Twitter/X posting frenzy, complaining about all sorts of things contained in the spending bill. In my previous blog post about "Elon-Gate" (man, I really should get something for thinking up that one!), I didn't go into detail about exactly why Musk was opposed to the bill. But essentially, he called for reduced spending on various things Democrats wanted, and increasing or eliminating the debt ceiling. And Donald Trump, who is incapable of thinking outside of what Twitter/X and Fox News tell him to think, went along with it, calling on Republicans to derail the spending bill.

But the real reason is far more ominous. And the media isn't covering it strongly enough.

At least CNN gave a breakdown of what was left in and what was left out of the new spending bill. But it didn't prioritize things very well. Because buried among the last items in the "left out" list was the real reason Elon Musk had his social media meltdown:

It was a provision that would have limited US investments in China, particularly in the technology sector.

It's no secret that Elon Musk does a lot of business in China. So much, in fact, that Tesla really should be regarded as a Chinese auto manufacturer, not an American one. The limitations that would have been imposed upon Tesla would have severely hurt his ability to manufacture and sell cars, which would significantly hurt his bottom line.

So, to keep all that from happening, he threw the entire United States Government under the wheels of his cybertruck. He invented a fake crisis, bitching and moaning about "spending," but his real focus was getting those restrictions off from his Chinese business interests.

We know this, because the new spending bill had most of the same issues Musk was bitching about the first time. Only this time, Musk (and Trump with him) didn't complain.

Why should they, when the ruse worked?

It's hard to overstate just how truly evil this is. This isn't just oligarchy. This isn't just lying. This isn't just an unelected rich guy, constitutionally barred from ever actually being president, calling the shots from the sidelines. This is someone, already the richest man in the world, seeing something that would make him only slightly less rich, and thinking, "Eh, why not shut everything down right before Christmas?" If it gets him what he wants, who cares?

Elon Musk doesn't give a living shit about you!

He has now shown a willingness to sacrifice everything of yours, just to keep from being the second-richest man in the world.

And Trump is his bitch.

So far, I've seen scant media coverage about this. Only certain stalwarts of liberal media, such as Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Thom Hartmann, have really bothered to mention it. The rest of the legacy media is silent about it. And the Right-Wing Media Machine sure as shit isn't saying anything!

This new spending bill only takes the government through March 14, at which point, Trumpy and his gaggle of wild-geese-chasing-each-other will have to take on this problem again.

When they do, who knows what bullshit Elon Musk will vomit up upon us?

Eric

**