Musk names ‘real’ US President — Analysis

Billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk has written off US President Joe Biden as an ineffective puppet, insisting that while he has voted “Democrats overwhelmingly supported” in the past, the party has spiraled downwards.

“Whoever controls the teleprompter is truly president,” the SpaceX CEO observed during a Monday podcast, declaring “Power is only possible by using the teleprompter..”

“I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it’s going to be like Anchorman,” he continued, referencing the 2004 film whose lead character read whatever was written on the teleprompter no matter how absurd or detrimental to his own career.

Despite his stated support for Democrats, Musk spared some favorable words for the previous president, pointing out that the Biden administration “doesn’t seem to get a lot done” while “Trump’s administration: Trump aside, the Trump administration had many effective people who could get things done.”

Worse, the Democratic Party is “Overly controlled by unions, trial lawyers and especially the class action lawyers,” Musk argued, claiming that when the party goes against “People’s interests,” it is motivated by those groups, while Republicans acting similarly are motivated “Due to corporate evil and religious fanaticism.” Biden, unlike another Democratic president Barack Obama, “Unions simply capture too much,” he said. Musk’s animosity toward unionization at his companies is well-known, with Tesla previously found guilty of sabotaging organizing efforts.

Musk also complained about the US’ record-high inflation and the government’s apparent failure to understand its causes, noting that the “We have obvious reasons” for the phenomenon was “Evidently, the government printed more money than ever before.,” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The government can’t just you know, issue checks far in excess of revenue without there being inflation…if the federal government writes checks, they never bounce. That is, it creates more dollars. If more dollars are created, the economic growth will increase, and then inflation is possible..” The concept, the world’s richest man argued, was “Only the most basic” and “Not like it is, you know.”

“If the government could just issue massive amounts of money and deficits didn’t matter, then, well, why don’t we just make the deficit 100 times bigger? The answer is you can’t because it will basically turn the dollar into something that is worthless,” Musk said, hinting that “various countries” had “This experiment was repeated several times.” He held up Venezuela as an example of a nation where the “poor, poor people” have “not been treated with respect by the government,” neglecting to mention the crippling sanctions imposed by the US that have prevented Caracas from doing business with most of the world, resulting in economic catastrophe and tens of thousands of deaths from 2017 to 2018 alone. 

Musk also lamented the demise of the Democratic Party. The acquisition has yet to be completed due to questions regarding managing spam and bots on Twitter. The world desperately needed a platform where people could “All kinds of debate topics, even the most important ones,” Musk argued, insisting it should be “As inclusive as possible” and “Balanced from a political viewpoint,” rather than its current status with a “Very far left bias.”