In the history of American politics and business, there are few contradictory combinations like Musk and Trump in Silicon Valley and Washington. This is a subtle game between business and politics, and also a legend of “strange couples” who go in and out in pairs.
However, recently, the conjoined combination of Musk and Trump seems to have cracks.
After the US election, Musk moved into Trump’s membership-based Mar-a-Lago in Florida. He rented a villa called “Banyan Tree”, with a market price of up to $2,000 per night. In addition to himself, there are two children and a nanny.
The “Banyan Tree” cottage is only 180 meters away from Trump’s main house and the transition team office. Obviously, as a contributor to Trump’s victory, Musk certainly did not want to miss the good opportunity of “getting the moon first when you are close to the water” to display his “political ambitions”.
He occasionally broke into Trump’s handover team meetings, or meetings between Trump and Amazon founder Bezos and other corporate bigwigs, and even listened in when Trump was on the phone with foreign leaders.
It is hard to conceal his intention to be the regent.
Obviously, Trump is not happy with his overstepping behavior. Although he was very happy to live close to Musk at first, he can only privately express his impatience with Musk’s “clingy” behavior of visiting him anytime and anywhere.
Trump has complained to people around him many times about Musk’s omnipresence. Haberman, a reporter for the New York Times in the White House, nicknamed “Trump Whisperer”, also complained that “he is really sticking directly to Trump’s face.”
Moreover, Musk not only sticks to Trump, but is also very arrogant in many cases. Before Trump officially took office, he has begun to intervene in political affairs, and even been nicknamed “President Musk” by the Democrats.
When he was spending US dollars to help Trump win the election, his ambition to get involved in politics was not so obvious, and public opinion only thought that he was a businessman who gambled for profit. But after Trump’s rise to heaven, he did not hide his ambition to show his strengths in the political arena. Since Trump, who was once a businessman, can be president, why can’t he, who is also a businessman, be president?
If the belly of a glutton is like a bottomless pit that can never be filled, then Musk’s political ambition is bigger than the belly of a glutton.
Regarding European political issues, he has posted a long list of inflammatory posts, including supporting far-right parties before the German election, accusing the British prime minister of condoning rape, condemning Italian judges, and criticizing the European Commission.
Seeing his jumping appearance, those who don’t know would think that European governments are so anxious to cut off his money and kill his parents.
Looking at the entire European political arena, who is the most unlucky person to be criticized by Musk? Sorry, it’s German Chancellor Scholz.
Our billionaire praised him as an “incompetent fool” and urged him to resign.
Musk said he will have a long conversation with Alice Wedel, the head of the German far-right anti-immigration party AfD, on Thursday this week.
Musk’s intervention in German politics again has made many German politicians feel uneasy. After all, in the opinion polls before the federal election on February 23, the German Choice Party came in second.
Scholz criticized Musk, “You must stay calm and don’t feed the devil.”
In just 24 hours, a wave of condemnation against Musk has been set off in the international political arena.
French President Macron questioned Musk on Monday, saying that as the owner of the world’s largest social platform, he actually supported a new international reactionary movement and interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, which would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
Norwegian Prime Minister Støre also expressed his concern that a wealthy person with a huge social network would blatantly interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, which is very worrying.
Spanish government spokesman Alegria stressed that platforms like X should “not be interfered with by the outside world and always maintain absolute neutrality.”
Looking at Musk’s movements, he emphasized the crime statistics in Norway and Spain, and then attributed the fatal attack on the German Christmas market to “large-scale uncontrolled immigration”, which caused a lot of controversy.
In the past few days, Musk has also posted several times to attack the British government, accusing them of serious problems such as gang deception and child sexual exploitation.
Faced with unwarranted accusations, Starmer can only insinuate those who eat blood buns, not caring about the victims, but only caring about their own interests.
Various roles on the stage are one after another, and Musk can sing 18 big dramas by himself, he can mix up the internal affairs of various countries, and he can angrily rebuke the old man Biden who is about to leave.
Recently, Musk openly accused Biden of committing the unforgivable crime of “treason” on X.
He accused the Biden administration of selling steel stored at Pinal Civil Airport in Arizona at an extremely low price on the auction website in early December last year. It was the remaining construction materials of the US-Mexico border wall, and the starting price of each piece was only US$5.
Southern Arizona borders Mexico and is a hot spot for illegal entry into the United States.
As early as 2016, Trump proposed the campaign slogan of “Build this wall and let Mexico pay for it.” Despite the difficulties in building the wall, Trump worked hard during his first term, and the 450-mile border barrier built at a huge cost of $15 billion was still far from the goal set by Trump.
After Biden came to power, he immediately suspended all work on the construction of the border wall and transferred the remaining funds elsewhere.
Now, with Trump’s return and the Republicans back in power, the issue of the border wall has once again been put in the spotlight.
During his campaign, Trump promised that once elected, he would restart the construction of the border wall and was determined to complete the remaining construction within four years.
At this time, the Biden administration auctioned the remaining construction materials of the US-Mexico border wall at a low price, which was seen by the Republicans as a means of deliberately obstructing the implementation of Trump’s related plans, and also “loosening” the border wall policy left over from the Trump era.
This move was seen by Musk and Trump’s supporters as evidence that Biden deliberately opened the border to illegal immigrants and prevented former President Trump from resuming the wall construction plan.
In fact, the two parties have been fighting and digging holes for a long time, but they have cleverly maintained a balance. After all, everyone knows that Feng Shui is a rotation, and the White House is a rotation.
But Musk didn’t care at all, and directly raised the nature of the matter to the height of “treason”. Obviously, this has far exceeded the nature of the incident itself, and has crossed the boundary of fighting between the two parties.
From a legal point of view, the low-price sale of border wall materials is more of a problem at the government’s decision-making level and the use of funds, and it is difficult to equate it with a serious crime such as treason.
Musk’s remarks are largely a strategy with political intentions. He wants to attract the attention of the general public and thus aggravate the already tense relationship between the two parties.
For a long time, Musk has been critical of the Biden administration’s policies, from new energy policies related to future energy trends, to tax bills that affect the distribution of economic benefits, to border issues involving national security and immigration control.
The conflict between Musk and Biden has long been not an undercurrent, but a completely public one.
In Musk’s view, Biden did not take Tesla’s leading position in the important field of new energy into consideration, and did not give it due attention, which restricted Tesla’s industrial development.
In terms of taxation, the Biden administration’s “predatory” suppression of successful entrepreneurs like him touched his vital interests.
The accusation of “treason” is Musk’s outlet for revenge and anger at the Biden administration.
It is worth noting that Musk has been particularly active on X recently. His “attack range” not only covers Biden and the Democratic Party, but also has friction with foreign leaders such as German Chancellor Scholz.
This shows that Musk is trying to use social media to expand his influence in the broader political field. His remarks and actions have indeed inevitably caused many controversies.
This strange phenomenon has led to a further intensification of the phenomenon of political polarization in the United States. The differences and confrontations between the two parties have become more and more obvious, and any remarks or actions made by either party may be used as a target of attack.
Musk’s accusation of Biden’s “treason” is precisely a vivid epitome of the phenomenon of political polarization in the United States.
His clinging to Trump and meddling in politics is a manifestation of serious loopholes in American democracy and political system.
The excessive intimacy between politics and business has led to the regime no longer representing the will of the people, but completely leaning towards the interests of capital. It is better to say that capital is ruling the United States than that politicians are in control of the United States.
But politics and business belong to different fields after all. Politicians will not allow capital to surpass their own influence. The intimacy in the past was for interests, and the current collapse is also for interests. Just like the conflict between Trump and Musk, unless both sides have a good grasp of the boundaries, they will sooner or later fall out, and the ultimate victim is only the United States.
Let’s see how long the business tycoons can let the Americans dominate the world by intervening in the American political arena.