President Musk

Yes, we live in an oligarchy

This week the interwebs are abuzz over Elon Musk single-handedly stalling a widely supported bipartisan funding bill. He accomplished this herculean feat via a tweetstorm of lies, anger, and vague threats to primary Republicans who supported the legislation.

The man whose company, Tesla, was rescued in 2009 by a $465 million Federal loan and who makes billions off the federal government, now apparently runs it. Fox & Friends was delighted to have Musk in charge, trumpeting that Musk is now “the center of the universe on Capitol Hill in a way that nobody has ever seen.”

A fact that will certainly help him navigate all the federal investigations into his misdeeds.

If we didn’t have enough evidence before, this makes it official: the United States is now an oligarchy. One man’s rage-tweeting is now more influential than everyone else in the country. After all, 75% of Americans believe that using a government shutdown as a negotiating tactic is wrong.

Musk’s take on a shutdown? The opposite of the American people. Who cares?! Not a big deal.

Except that I’ve lived through one at the Pentagon, and I know better.

I was a Marine stationed at the Pentagon during the 2018-2019 shutdown. A lot of us were already working 10+ hours a day and not seeing our families enough or sometimes at all — and then, just as the holidays were coming up, we had to cover for furloughed civilian employees…

Service members at military facilities across the country had to deal with the same thing. The Coast Guard couldn't even fund two paychecks. But this was more than just needlessly letting politics punish military families.

No matter what DC politicians and Elon Musk tell you, the Pentagon and many facilities that are critical to our safety can't function properly without civilian employees — there just aren't enough service members to cover for them. That shutdown was a real threat to our national security, and so was this one.

But it shouldn't surprise anyone that Musk doesn't care about our national security. Shoot, the man’s under investigation for flouting security clearance rules and refusing to disclose his foreign contacts (like personal calls with Vladimir Putin!).

In fact, the real reason that Musk wanted to kill this bill had nothing to do with the amount of money that was in it or any of the complaints he made publicly.

No, his hatred for the deal was actually about national security, and his desire to put his business interests ahead of US security. You see, the original bill included provisions that increased scrutiny on investment in China — investment that Musk is heavily committed to and dependent upon.

I bet you can’t guess what was taken out of the final spending bill? A few red herrings like children’s cancer research and doctor bonuses, so that it wouldn't be obvious, and, of course, quietly the provisions against investment in China.

And suddenly Musk is cool with it.

Going hard on China is supposedly one of the major planks of the incoming Trump administration. So the fact that it was removed from this bill tells you everything you need to know about who is in charge.

Musk, born in South Africa to non-Americans, is constitutionally prohibited from being the President, but, in an oligarchy, sometimes that power’s for sale.

How much did this presidential power cost Musk? An embarrassingly meager $250 million in campaign contributions. Well, that and I guess showing his commitment to the venture by potentially even committing election spending crimes with that money.

Which takes us back to another mark of an oligarchy: no accountability. Something we have talked about in previous posts. Whether it’s Big Tech destroying competition, Big Pharma getting people killed, or just about every billionaire in the country doing whatever they please, they all seem to get away with destroying our lives if they’re willing to pay for the right.

In this case, Musk really has nothing to worry about. Because he can just get a pardon.

Really, though, it’s not fair of me to say that President Musk’s office cost him a paltry $250 million. That doesn’t do the real price justice. There are thousands of people in our country that could and would take that power for $250 million. No, there is also the $44 billion it cost him to buy Twitter (alongside the Saudis, speaking of foreign entanglements) and his willingness to use his ownership of that platform to force feed everyone his thoughts and demands non-stop.

One sad thing here is that many, including the media, still use Twitter as their baseline for what is newsworthy. I learned that during my campaign. And it gives Musk and company a massive portal into conversations in our country and access to and presence with the media.

Many of you have mentioned concerns with the media and what is going on there in your comments, so coming up I will have a two-parter on the media. In part one, a special guest who is intimately familiar with both independent and mainstream media will give us his observations, and then in part two I’ll talk a little bit about some of my experiences with the media during the campaign.

Until then, please keep the comments and emails coming and please continue to share the Substack with anyone you think might be interested!

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— Lucas