Defund Musk!

Friends,

He’s Exhibit A on why billionaire wealth should be taxed, why we have to get big money out of politics, why billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to buy up major media, and why our government shouldn’t give them huge military contracts.

I’m talking about Elon Musk, of course.

Yesterday, former Ukrainian defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov thanked Musk for restoring his Starlink satellite’s vital high-speed connectivity: “Thank you, @elonmusk. We hope for your continued support.” (Connectivity had slowed after Musk posted Saturday that “Zelensky has gone too far.”)

But who gave Musk authority to slow his satellite service in the first place — or, for that matter, to publicly comment on Ukraine President Zelensky? (Musk says Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.” But if that’s the case, why did Fedorov thank Musk?)

Every time I list another of Musk’s outrages, someone says, “Yes, but he’s an innovator!”

He’s not. As is made clear in Alex Gibney’s smart new documentary, “Musk,” Elon didn’t invent Tesla. He didn’t invent X. He didn’t invent SpaceX. He didn’t invent Starlink satellites. He didn’t invent squat.

Musk is to innovation what Trump is to governing. Both are conmen. Both are megalomaniacs. Both love authoritarians and detest democracy. Both are racist and misogynistic. Neither believes in (or harbors an ounce of) empathy toward anyone. Both think nothing of corrupting governments for personal gain. Both say they’re self-made men — and both worship their creators.

Both spout bigoted filth all hours of the day and night to hundreds of millions of people.

Okay, let me just say it out loud: Both Musk and Trump are loathsome human beings.

Someday historians will come up with an explanation of how two such awful people could have become the two most powerful people in America if not the world (what was there about America in the early 21st century?).

But for now the goal of sane people must be to defund both of them and get them as far away from politics as possible.

That will be difficult, to be sure. Musk has so far sunk roughly $366 million into the 2026 midterm election cycle, $276 million of it since July — all ​to help Republicans retain control of Congress. That makes him the largest single known donor in the entire midterm elections. And he’s aiming to collect a lot of quid pro quos.

Hell, he spent a quarter of a billion dollars in 2024 to help Trump win reelection and was rewarded by Trump with access to every bit of data the U.S. government keeps on every one of us, along with billions of dollars’ worth of no-bid contracts with the Pentagon. (His Starlink satellite system is now key to the military strategy of the United States as well as that of Ukraine.) He was also rewarded with a chain saw inaptly named “Department of Government Efficiency,” which he used to destroy U.S.A.I.D. and slash other government agencies he doesn’t like.

In the last few months Musk has given at least $10 million to a Texas super PAC seeking to elect Republican Ken Paxton to the Senate, despite (or is it because of?) Paxton’s long record of ethical lapses, legal controversies, and official misconduct. Musk’s businesses are headquartered in Texas, so he needs to buy friends there.

On Sunday, Musk pushed the false story to his 242 million followers on X that James Talarico, Paxton’s Democratic opponent, was absent from the campaign trail because he had suffered a mental breakdown and was receiving counseling at the Lindner Center of Hope, a mental health center in Ohio.

Musk’s story has been thoroughly debunked. Security camera footage shows Talarico at home, not at an Ohio mental health facility. (Meanwhile, according to The Wall Street Journal, on New Year’s Eve 2024, Paxton partied in Dubai with his extramarital girlfriend and two fugitives from charges of over $300 million in healthcare fraud in the U.S. One of the men donated $190,000 to Paxton, $25,000 of it after he was indicted.)

The project of defunding Musk will probably have to wait until after January 20, 2029, when, let’s pray, we have a sane administration in Washington that will end all government contracts with him (his support for right-wing extremists around the world makes him a security risk), bust up his monopolies (a reinvigorated Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission will see to it), and impose a significant wealth tax on him.

But you don’t have to wait until then. Stop buying Teslas. Don’t use X. Don’t sign up for Starlink. And support politicians who promise to defund him.

Oh, and what about deporting him? Hmmm. Didn’t he lack proper work authorization during his student-to-entrepreneur transition time in the mid-1990s?

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