If Putin Is Running Musk, Trump Should Be Terrified
WSJ’s report that Elon Musk has had a number of communications with Vladimir Putin and other top Russians is unsurprising. Musk has obvious buttons to press (not just his narcissism, but also his insecurity about trans women arising from being dumped for Chelsea Manning and his daughter transitioning). And Musk has increasingly parroted obvious Russian propaganda of late.
I want to pull the passages of the story that describe the when, what, and who, because they’re important for understanding the import on the race.
As the story describes, Musk was originally supportive of Ukraine’s plight after Russia’s invasion. But then Musk’s provision of Starlink to Ukraine became one of what seem to be a number of complaints Russia raised about Elon’s businesses. And that period of pressure is when Musk’s public comments about the war began to change.
Later that year, Musk’s view of the conflict appeared to change. In September, Ukrainian military operatives weren’t able to use Starlink terminals to guide sea drones to attack a Russian naval base in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow had occupied since 2014. Ukraine tried to persuade Musk to activate the Starlink service in the area, but that didn’t happen, the Journal has reported.
His space company extended restrictions on the use of Starlink in offensive operations by Ukraine. Musk said later that he made the move because Starlink is meant for civilian uses and that he believed any Ukrainian attack on Crimea could spark a nuclear war.
His moves coincided with public and private pressure from the Kremlin. In May 2022, Russia’s space chief said in a post on Telegram that Musk would “answer like an adult” for supplying Starlink to Ukraine’s Azov battalion, which the Kremlin had singled out for the ultraright ideology espoused by some members.
Later in 2022, Musk was having regular conversations with “high-level Russians,” according to a person familiar with the interactions. At the time, there was pressure from the Kremlin on Musk’s businesses and “implicit threats against him,” the person said.
But the most interesting ties have to do with Russia’s exploitation of Xitter for propaganda. The piece describes how Musk published Tucker Carlson’s simpering “interview” with Putin.
Earlier this year, Musk gave airtime to Putin and his views on the U.S. and Ukraine when X carried Tucker Carlson’s two-hour interview with the Russian leader inside the Kremlin. In that interview, Putin said he was sure Musk “was a smart person.”
And Musk’s contacts with other Russians include some with Sergei Kiriyenko, who is in charge of the Doppelganger effort.
But more conversations have followed, including dialogues with other high-ranking Russian officials past 2022 and into this year. One of the officials was Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, two of the officials said. What the two talked about isn’t clear.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department said in an affidavit that Kiriyenko had created some 30 internet domains to spread Russian disinformation, including on Musk’s X, where it was meant to erode support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the presidential election.
As for the contacts with Putin? Those are sourced to intelligence sources, suggesting that US — or possibly foreign — spooks are aware of the contacts.
One current and one former intelligence source said that Musk and Putin have continued to have contact since then and into this year as Musk began stepping up his criticism of the U.S. military aid to Ukraine and became involved in Trump’s election campaign.
But those contacts are not broadly known.
Knowledge of Musk’s Kremlin contacts appears to be a closely held secret in government. Several White House officials said they weren’t aware of them.
If spooks or the FBI are tracking these ties, you would closely guard details, not least to protect the coverage they have on Putin himself.
Both the Pentagon’s official comment and that of an anonymous source suggest the government is acutely aware of all this, but thus far measuring it in terms of leaks, not whether Musk’s reported Ketamine abuse or his open embrace of anti-American conspiracy theories make him unfit to retain clearance.
A Pentagon spokesman said: “We do not comment on any individual’s security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual’s actions.”
One person aware of the conversations said the government faces a dilemma because it is so dependent on the billionaire’s technologies. SpaceX launches vital national security satellites into orbit and is the company NASA relies on to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
“They don’t love it,” the person said, referring to the Musk-Putin contacts. The person, however, said no alerts have been raised by the administration over possible security breaches by Musk.
And that’s sort of the underlying problem: Until Musk does business with a sanctioned entity or leaks information, these contacts would only be illegal if you could prove Musk were acting as an agent of Russia.
If this concerns you any more than Musk’s long-standing public Russophilia already should, then the best thing to do in the short term is to use Musk as a way to attack Trump’s campaign (as Tim Walz did the other day, though mostly just attacking Musk for being so dorky).
But there are three things not included in this story that make it more interesting.
First, Justin Trudeau testified last week that Tucker was being funded by RT.
Conservative political analyst Tucker Carlson and Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson were among those who were funded by the Russian state-owned news outlet RT to boost anti-vax claims in 2022, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed while under oath during testimony delivered Wednesday at the Foreign Interference Commission.
I’m genuinely a bit confused by Trudeau’s claim — whether he means Tucker himself was being funded or his promotion was. In any case, he was discussing 2022 activities (notably, the trucker protests that I hope to hell DHS keep in mind as potential election or post-election disruption).
But Tucker was mentioned in the RT indictment. One point I made about how DOJ unrolled it is that it disrupts or criminalizes ongoing funding from RT, and can be used as a basis for ongoing investigation and/or charges.
Relatedly, Tim Pool recently announced he is shutting down his podcast.
The more important detail not included in this story, given WSJ’s mention of Kiriyenko, is the involvement of Russian entities in magnifying the conspiracy theories behind the Southport riots in the UK.
“While all the action is happening on the ground and people in Britain are dealing with the consequences of this misinformation,” says Al Baker, managing director of Prose, “the people stoking the violence, the people flooding Telegram and other platforms of misinformation are largely based outside the UK.”
What it shows is the nature of the new far-right – not a tightly organised hierarchy based in a specific location, but an international network of influencers and followers, working together almost like a swarm to stir up trouble.
In the UK riots, you had both Musk and possible Russian bots stoking anti-migrant violence in a foreign country. If Musk has facilitated that — or even just if Kiriyenko used his contacts with Musk for ostensibly other reasons to optimize interference efforts on Xitter — that would be a grave concern (though the latter hypothetical involves no criminal exposure for Musk).
But by far the most important thing excluded from this story (it is admittedly tangential to the description of these contacts, but not to the import of them) is JD Vance.
Musk’s involvement in Trump’s campaign cannot be separated from Trump’s pick of JD Vance as his running mate, someone who is even more pro Russian than Musk, and someone whose regressive Catholic ties have aligned neatly with Russia in the recent past. Donald Trump has been an exceedingly useful idiot for Putin, but he was unreliable as to Putin’s immediate policy goals like eliminating sanctions.
There’s abundant reason to believe that JD’s selection was the price of Musk’s support (though it was a pick Trump was inclined to make anyway).
If Russia is using Musk to affect the election, it’s not clear whether the primary goal would be electing Trump or placing JD in the position where he would become President.
Remember that little ditty Mike Turner played for us ~ 8 months ago?
“Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made available to all Members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat,” Turner said in a Wednesday statement. “I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.”
I think it’s more the other way around – since Putin has been obviously running Trump for years, Trump probably sent Musk to Putin.
The WSJ story is carried by MSM: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/elon-musk-s-secret-conversations-with-vladimir-putin/ar-AA1sSO1O
There may be editorial changes, but, no paywall. Also, several outlets have the story via independent coverage, if websearch = elon musk vlad putin
Perhaps now would be a good time for the current USAG to correct the record and state what the Mueller report REALLY concluded and to affirm those 2016 Russian efforts have neither ceased or abated, but continue today.
Bingo!
Call it retribution for Comey kneecapping Hillary.
Or call it “f— you all to hell, traitor!”
[Welcome back to emptywheel. FOURTH AND FINAL REQUEST: Please use the SAME USERNAME and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You attempted to publish this as “dbc3” which is too short, too common, not in compliance with the site’s username standard. You have previously commented as “Don Cooley”; I have edited your username yet again to match. Make a note of your correct username, check your browser’s cache and autofill. “dbc3” is your fourth username, by the way. Stick to one site standard compliant name or risk banning as a sock puppet. /~Rayne]
While it would be nice, we know that AG Garland isn’t going to introduce something like that two weeks before the election and it wouldn’t persuade anyone who didn’t already believe it.
It’s possible we’re at Peak Musk. Xitter is a shell of it’s former self. Tesla seems to be stuck in reverse. Hyperloop appears to be a dead end. His behavior is increasingly erratic. His willingness to attempt global political influence screams deep-seated emotional needs.
If the USG were to believe he was enough of a risk to pull security, it would probably trigger a mental meltdown. While his boards are filled with Musk-worshipers, there may be a point at which brave souls will vote his removal as CEO.
And yet…the financial “system” (or maybe just willful dupes) pumped Tesla stock 20+% yesterday after more lies of wisdom from Musk on Tesla’s future.
As long as money is being made – even if it is not based on anything materially real – then tolerance will be in play.
Pull the money plug…and Tesla and Musk will crash hard. But that may be wishful thinking. I just dunno.
Money is an imaginary thing. It has value now but, when the world is underwater and the millions from New York and New Orleans (for starters) are migrating to find new homes, what will be the exchange commodity of choice: Trump NFTs?
The companies he owns would all do better if he were removed from them.
SpaceX seems to be flourishing so I don’t know…he’s unstable but he still has at least 270,000,000,000$ that can go around quite expertly to cushion his emptiness and influence. He’s banking on TCF winning.
Unfortunately for your hypothesis, TSLA just reported record earnings and got a big stock boost yesterday.
Really, the deal probably is that Musk starts boosting Trump, and Trump starts saying how great electric cars are, or at least how Teslas won’t electrocute you if the go into the drink. So you don’t have to worry about the sharks.
“Really, the deal probably is that Musk starts boosting Trump…”
Starts?!? Where you been, Rip van Winkle? It’s been happening all year.
Elmo has been boosting Trump for some time, but the value of Tesla’s shares did just jump $150 billion. By coincidence, the value of Trump’s social media company has trebled in the past month, from a recent low of about $13 to almost $39/share.
Tesla’s earning were flat. The have the appearance of making money thru good old-fashioned “downsizing”, firing a huge amount of their workforce. And some other shenanigans that the State of Calif is perusing.
https://webservices.courthousenews.com/sites/Data/AppellateOpinionUploads/2024-25-10–15-16-03-21-60285.pdf
https://cand.uscourts.gov/in-re-tesla-inc-securities-litigation/
I am simply waiting for the electric sharks. Then what’s Trump gonna do?
The odds are low that we’ve seen “peak Musk.” Virtually non-existent.
So you’re saying we’re looking at bottomless Musk. Got it. LOL
I see what you did there, deer. :-)
Elmo’s fragrance does seem synthetic.
Think it’s the scent of Neuralink No. 5. Smells like brains
Tying these things together is most helpful. iMO in globalizing, free speech should be universal, but with absolute requirements the speaker let people know who they are hearing, ties and biases and all. Free speech IMO should not stop at the border.
If it is bought speech, tell who is buying. In commerce and politics. There is room for sensible laws, as commerce globalizes. It’s up to Congress.
I think Musk is quite intelligent and innovative, and can keep his person and businesses separate, especially since this October Surprise has been sprung.
The Ukraine war is a thicket, where true patriotic people can differ, and where European shared thinking, if existing, should govern since it is their neighborhood.
But as to outside the borders propaganda, Israel is a bigger player than Russia. And the Kingdom of Saud is not inactive in out nation, as Jarad could tell you.
Last, I hope Elon gets candid about all he is into, rather than going “circle the wagons, load the muskets.” Full disclosure is always best for the public.
“I think Musk is quite intelligent and innovative”
Really? I don’t. I think he’s been fortunate enough to bankroll some legitimately innovative operations, and arrogant enough to claim that it was his genius that was responsible for their success.
He bought in to Tesla and kicked out its founders. I suspect his roll at SpaceX was mostly funder, until they became a supplier to government.
His big success is “salesman” – for himself, mostly.
Nope. Genuinely bright. I was a fan until he bought Twitter and turned it into a Nazi bar.
Frankly, I still rate him as the single person who has done more to fight global warming than anybody else. That’s why he did Tesla, you know?
He is a highly original and innovative thinker. He is a terrible manager, and a terrible people person. I know people who worked for him, after all.
Humans have such resistance to a thought such as “Person X is good in THIS way and bad in THAT way”. They want a simpler “Person X is BAD in EVERY way, also stupid, and ugly”.
Man, I have been in resistance to that my whole life. I have most likely caved to it on more than one occasion.
Reply to ToldainDarkwater
5:42 pm
Dude. You have drunk so much Kool-aid.
Musk’s toxic racism, misogyny, and bigotry against trans persons which steeps everything he does is not highly original or innovative and has likely held him back because he’s stuck in patriarchal white supremacy. The racist rioting he spurred in the UK distills the bullshit he is and does.
If he manages to get Trump elected he will have undone any good he might have achieved not with Tesla but with Powerwall products. The Tesla stuff he can only barely lay claim to since he wasn’t the founder and has done a shit job managing it. Don’t confuse its meme stock performance with real success.
And don’t get me started with Starlink which has now utterly swamped the night sky and poses a massive threat to the global economy by setting up the possibility of a catastrophic event triggering Kessler Syndrome collisions. It’s colonialism of space, indifferent to earthlings he’ll damage.
We used to think Henry Ford was cool, too. And then we grew up and learned he was little more than a Nazi himself being deeply racist and anti-Semitic.
Rayne is spot on
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in what I said that endorses Musk’s opinion about trans people. I don’t. I never have.
I am surprised, Rayne, that you would think that I do. Because I don’t and I didn’t.
I merely think that calling Musk “stupid” is not factually accurate. Musk is wrong. About a whole bunch of things. Examine any smart person carefully, and you will find they have been wrong about a whole swath of things. “stupid” is this highly binary judgement and it makes a person right about everything or wrong about everything and that’s just a recipe for being badly misinformed about the world.
“free speech should be universal, but with absolute requirements the speaker let people know who they are hearing, ties and biases and all.”
BUT YOU MUST KNOW THAT MUSK IS NOT BEING TRUTHFUL ABOUT HIS INTERESTS.
“I think Musk is quite intelligent and innovative, and can keep his person and businesses separate”
I CAN’T SEEM TO SEPARATE THE TWO. IS IT ONLY ME?
“European shared thinking, if existing, should govern since it is their neighborhood.”
I PERCEIVE SOME U.S. INTEREST IN ALL THIS. MAYBE RUSSIAN INVASION?
“But as to outside the borders propaganda, Israel is a bigger player than Russia. And the Kingdom of Saud”
C’mon, it’s AOK because Israel influences? Is Israel a threat to the Good Ol’ USA? Nah, won’t bite the hand that feeds them, AS WE’RE FEEDING THEM.
My son worked for Yelp pre-IPO. It was founded by Jeremy Stoppelman, who was one of the PayPal mafia along with Musk. My son interacted with Stoppelman on a regular basis.
Musk was genuinely disliked by the PayPal mafia. They thought he was a weird person, and a really lousy coder. His only talent was spotting promising companies and investing in them.
Musk has instincts, like any predator, but he does not have contemplative or analytical abilities. This is easily seen in what he has done to Twitter.
But he makes a very believable Bond villain .
I think Stoppelman’s critique was offered in good faith, but probably a little bit subjective.
If Musk didn’t have analytical abilities, how could he spot promising companies? I think Musk’s problems are mostly interpersonal. I find it quite credible that people would find him weird, and authoritarian, and also kind of self-absorbed, which leads to a sort of cluelessness. Of course, he doesn’t code any more, so that doesn’t matter.
It’s quite believable, contrariwise, that co-workers didn’t like him. Since coding productivity is very, very hard to measure, assessment of someone’s coding is necessarily subjective.
As a profession, CEOs have the most psychopaths.
You might spend some time pondering why you feel you need to defend a racist, misogynist, anti-trans cis-het man who is quite likely among those CEOs who are psychopaths.
Rayne, I can’t reply to you, there’s no link. I’ll put this here.
What I am doing is trying to get a clearer picture of the world. I am not “boosting” Trump or Musk. I understand “psychopath” as a word with a clear meaning and I have no evidence that Musk is one. I have tons of evidence that he is spectrum, and also an abused child. He might be a psychopath, but like I said, that’s a defined term.
I do not want to get my rage on. I want to keep my head clear, and my sight sharp. I think those things might come in handy.
I am somewhat distressed that you can’t seem to grasp even what I am up to, or understand the depth of my support for things you care about.
Reply to ToldainDarkwater
October 26, 2024 8:08 PM ET
First, the comments only go four wide to prevent successive comments from becoming too narrow to read and trashing threads. To reply add the commenter’s name and the date/time of comment to which you wish to reply as I have above.
Second, when all you can do is cheerlead and leave a bunch of praise for a racist, misogynist, anti-trans CEO who is likely a psychopath (ex. deliberately flouts social conventions and laws like US immigration regulations and anti-discriminatory employment practices, abuses his partners and children, actively spreads disinfo, etc.), you’re boosting Musk to use your own term.
You’re distressed about the wrong things. You should be distressed you’ve been hoodwinked into thinking this person is exceptionally smart and done great things when the truth is anything but.
You’re also done on this topic in this thread because you clearly think whatever he’s done is worth his ongoing betrayal of the country which allowed him to stay in spite of his lying and abuses of the system.
I agree that Free Speech is a universal value but only when properly understood ie as expressed in Art10 ECHR see here https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-act/article-10-freedom-expression#
So prosecuting people for inflaming hatred of people with protected characteristics, proscribing and prosecuting people for membership of violent paramilitary groups is ok by me. And if you don’t agree then your version is not a universal value but a posture pretending to be a universal value.
Freedom is not just freedom from, but freedom to, and in the instances mentioned, to live without great of political violence based on hatred of minority groups.
IMHO you are in error in every other aspect of your comment. And the final sentence is pure whimsy.
Right on. Great comment, SteveBev.
I agree with SteveBev. Your comment is full of errors, and uninformed about
how things work, here and abroad.
Elmo, for example, doesn’t want to keep his business and politics separate. He wants to leverage the first to impose the second, which is typical of how the wealthy use their resources. If it were otherwise, Elmo would never have bought the bird site, overpaid for it, or thrown out $20 billion in value.
Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, was/is anti-vax. She interfered in our legal system shortly after she was elected in an attempt to help the anti-vax cause. She also met with Tucker Carlson and appeared with him after he left Fox.
https:// youtube/aDOz7XcRAWc?si=GiCFyJ2lTv8WOe3T
I think she may also warrant wider media attention.
She’s getting it from Ron Dyck, @dyckron on Mastodon.
I live in Alberta and the right-wing here has been metastasizing for years without many outside the province noticing the depth of the rot. The province is talking about ‘repatriating’ the Federal pensions of any Alberta residents (which they’ll likely invest in the oil and gas industry with little concern about it generating any returns), and that really has me considering leaving Alberta earlier than I had planned.
Danielle is a nutcase, and she’s doing a great job of tanking practically everything in Alberta. But she’s loudly protecting the oil industry and challenging the feds, and apparently for a lot of people in Alberta that’s what they want in government.
Good point on the likelihood of Vance replacing Trump. Trump has to be keenly aware of this reality.
As people like Gaetz, Bannon, Stone, and Flynn, had previously advocated plans to make Trump the Speaker of the House. So there has very likely been discussions with Trump involving how the line of succession works, including via death or 25th Amendment.
If Trump were to be elected, there is a very likely chance he would not complete the term, and be replaced by JD. Knowing Trump’s transactional nature, I would also expect him to extract something of personal value and personal protection in exchange to agreeing to step down.
“I would also expect him to extract something of personal value and personal protection in exchange to agreeing to step down.”
A pardon is the first thing that comes to mind, although arguably SCOTUS has greatly reduced the need for one in the event that Trump becomes president again.
I think while a pardon would be demanded by Convict-1, JD Vance (with the support of Musk and Putin) will probably double-cross him to become the convenient patsy upon whom everything will be blamed.
While that chaos plays out, Putin, Musk and Vance will complete their takeover amidst the noise.
Europeans are taking great notice of Musk as well. This was posted at Deutsche Welle about five hours ago:
That last paragraph above is absolutely spot on, and lends support to the contention that Putin and Musk are working together in some way. (IMHO, Putin is using Musk, but Musk thinks its the other way around.)
At the very end of the piece, DW also makes the connection with JD Vance:
This DW piece came out shortly after the WSJ piece, but it does not explicitly refer to it, so it’s not necessarily commenting on the intelligence connections. But the overall picture is clear: Musk is a threat to international democracy.
At this timestamp the site did crossreference WSJ.
These days, it’s productive to follow the attorneys who represent(ed) Putin or his oligarchs, e.g., Lanny Davis, Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova, and the late William Sessions. I’m sure there are many more besides these four.
Too many US attorneys have sold out the US and its democracy to line their pockets. Trump’s fleet of attorneys who committed election related crimes are examples, too.
It appears both Trump and Musk have violated the Logan Act by speaking regularly with Putin about sensitive US security issues, yet the DOJ seems unwilling to enforce the Act.
And Musk appears to have violated a couple campaign laws by giving money to individuals to serve as election ambassadors for Trump. The DOJ publicly states such acts by Musk might break the law or laws, yet seem unwilling to do anything, at least at this time.
The DOJ needs to enforce the laws on the books.
Lanny Davis is well-known around these parts for being willing to represent any manner of despot, dictator, and political thug. Back in the day, when Davis would make an appearance on some kind of political cable show and offering support for some rightwing political position, the refrain would break out “Who’s paying you, Lanny?”
IOW, it’s not just Putin. Lanny will cash *anyone’s* check.
OT regarding Jordan Peterson:
He is one strange person. Whenever he’s asked if biblical events really happened (e.g., resurrection) he answers with a version of “I don’t care if it’s true but isn’t it a cool story?”. And people seem to admire him for that.
I’ve never understood Jordan’s appeal. I had friends who loved the guy until I suggested they look into his background. Don’t get me started on his appeal on Youtube. I always wondered who the hell paid for his lifestyle. Now I know, the Russian oligarchs.
I just watched a 90 minute conversation between Peterson and Richard Dawkins with Alex O’Connor moderating. Why did I do that? Because I wanted to give Peterson a chance to make a reasonable understandable argument.
He admitted that he “circles and wanders” when answering. See “Trump weave.”
I could have smacked you alongside the head to the same effect and you’d have had 89 minutes to spend on something more productive.
Reply to
Rayne says:
October 26, 2024 at 1:21 pm
I watched at 1.75x playback speed. Dawkins got in a few zingers. That’s the first time I’ve watched an entire JP interview. Never again, I learned my lesson. I didn’t want to be accused of “taking him out of context.”
Matt Foley
10/26/24 @ 6:44
JP has got to be one of the whiniest word-salady weave-y self-righteous public figures flapping their gums at the outside world these days. Good for your 1.75x due diligence (reducing your listening time to a mere 51 minutes), but if Rayne had smacked you alongside the head on one side and I smacked you alongside the head on the other side, you would have had 51 more-productive minutes available. I personally can’t stand the guy and tuned him out ages ago…
Matt___B says:
October 26, 2024 at 8:00 pm
What can I say? I was curious to see what all the fuss is about over him. You have my permission to smack me if I start posting JP “wisdom”.
Vance can only ascend to the office in one of two ways, and I assume the 25th Amendment method will be difficult for Vance to use since the cabinet will be full of Trump’s bootlickers. The other way? Hmm. How many high windows are in the White House? Or, more likely, Trump Tower?
Time is on Vance’s side. Trump is fading, both mentally and physically.
Stop with the high window schtick, please.
If billionaires and foreign interests have strong influence over Trump and Vance, Vance will have no trouble persuading the Cabinet to use the 25th Amendment. But Trump’s age, weight, health, laziness, dementia, and eating habits are likely to make that easier or unnecessary.
re $1 million to be Musk spokesperson for some reason this joke came to mind:
Man: Would you have sex with me for $1 million?
Woman: Yes.
Man: Would you for $1?
Woman: Of course not! What kind of woman do you think I am??
Man: We’ve already established that; we’re just haggling over the price.
An oldie but a goodie.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/03/07/haggling/
Works better these days for a subset of politicians and lawyers.
Russia tested an Anti-Satellite missile on Nov 15, 2021. Starlink satellites had to dodge debris. I’m surprised not to read the possibility that blackmail changed Musk’s stance on Starlink use by Ukraine. One ASAT could seriously disrupt if not bankrupt Starlink. Given the now pervasive use of threat and intimidation in MAGA politics, it’s seems likely that those dark arts have been used to bend support towards Putin’s interests.
Musk has $243.4 Billion. I don’t think the demise of Starlink will hurt him
But it will hurt his feelings. “People don’t respect me! Waaaaahhhh!!!”
And like Trump, respect matters to him a lot, because as rich as either of them are, they never have never enough. What matters to both of them is being respected, especially respected more than anyone else in the world.
What neither of them realizes is that respect is not a function of wealth or ability to inflict pain on others.
I wish someone would point out, when the Orange Menace says that “American is a garbage dump” when referencing immigrants, that his own grandfather was a deserter from the German Army who immigrated here to escape service; later operating a saloon/brothel out
in the far northwest of the country. That, to me represents actual “garbage,” not the real reason so many immigrants desperately want to come to America: economic hardship, escape from gangs, ecological disasters, genuine freedom from persecution. Why would all those “nice” “christianists” who worship Trump want to continuing endorsing his vile behavior?
Short answer: Being white and not brown or black or at the bottom of the ladder is woven into this country’s fabric. My maternal grandfather came here as a teenager from Sweden in the early 20th Century. He could not speak English, but he was blonde and landed a good job in an all white (probably sundowner) town.
To paraphrase LBJ, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Trmp’s grandfather left Bavaria to avoid the draft, made his pile is USAmerica, partially as a brothel-owner in Alaska, and returned to Bavaria only to be deported from his home country because he never did his military service.
When Trmp talks about deportation, his family has experience of it.
For what it’s worth, Trump’s grandfather opened (with a partner) a restaurant/hotel/brothel in Bennett Lake, B.C., then later moved it to Whitehorse, Yukon. In so doing he made far more money during the Klondike gold rush than the vast majority of those seeking gold.
That’s how it works. California’s Big Four railroad barons — Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker, who came to dominate railroads west of the Rockies in the last half of the 19th century — made their first millions running an 1849 Gold Rush-era hardware store. That’s the part usually left out of the hagiography.
Located between San Francisco and the gold fields, it sold goods for stratospheric prices to miners going up the mountain, and bought them back for pennies on the dollar when miners came down, empty-handed. Like Mortimer and Randolph Duke, they made money on both sides of the transaction.
Finding gold was always a hit-and-miss prospect.
Selling pans, tents, and jeans to the prospectors was a true gold mine.
Huntington and Hopkins had such a store in Sacramento, after Hopkins’ first business in Placerville failed.
Stanford had an interest in a similar enterprise at Michigan Bar (Placer County).
Crocker made his first fortune owning a forge.
They teamed up after hearing Theodore Judah’s vision of a railroad over the Sierra Nevada. Very interesting chapter of Cali history.
“Mining the miners,” they used to say.
Peterr says:
October 25, 2024 at 9:55 pm
And shovels and wheelbarrows (That last was Studebaker!)
Great-great-grandfather was in California in the early 1850s. Didn’t get rich. Went back to his farm in Wisconsin, which his wife was running. (She ran it all the time, I think, and at one time, in Kansas, the land was in *her* name.)
He wasn’t deported. He left after the authorities wouldn’t accept payment as replacement for mandatory military service and were going to impose a prison sentence.
But if Putin is running Musk, we ALL are oddly in Trump’s “should be scared” shoes.
Re Vance: I shake my head at the idea of Vance potentially becoming Pres soon should DT win. In a family discussion about Project 2025, I was talking sarcastically to my kids and said, “If Trump is discarding the Constitution on day one as walked out in Project 2025, should he win, the 25th Amendment will mean nothing. He’ll anoint a Trump child as the next leader because of ‘birthright’ and odds are, Vance would get booted.” My kids replied, “That is not funny sarcasm. That sounds like Trump.” We got very quiet and unsettled. My sarcasm flopped, not in a good way.
I think Trump has dynastic visions. But I doubt that he will be able to implement them without getting his cult to agree with his vision. I don’t know how transferable the affection for him is.
From the cult’s perspective, Vance is not the heir apparent.
But I doubt that the matter is totally within Trump’s control. Vance is the oligarchs’ choice for the heir apparent. Trump may go quietly, after adequate compensation. Or, because he is such a malignant narcissist, he may need a shove. If shoved, the danger is the cult’s reaction.
“From the cult’s perspective, Vance is not the heir apparent.”
Make no mistake, if Trump becomes president, Vance becomes the heir, and never mind the “apparent” part. Agreed that Trump won’t go quietly, but to make Vance president, he doesn’t really have to. If Trump dies or becomes (even more) incapacitated, Vance is in. That’s what make things scarier.
Vance has been a Putin puppet for a while, and let’s not forget that he was specifically urged as Convict-1’s Veep by the failsons who are themselves Putinesque assets (especially DJTJ). Remember the HRC dirt in 2016 and how hopeless they are outside of Trumporg.
Is Thiel also under some sort of kompromat (business or ahem, pleasure)?
OT: WaPo has decided not to endorse a presidential candidate this year, in what they describe as “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates” (never mind that the paper has endorsed presidential candidates since the 1976 election ). Cowards.
In a way, I am surprised it didn’t endorse Trump. If Trump wins, an endorsement against him would be placing them in the “enemy of the people” territory. If Trump loses, Harris might retaliate by withholding access but nothing more serious.
Of course, concern for the country or the world doesn’t appear as important to the Editor or the owner as maintaining their reputation as independent.
The WashPost decision to endorse “Nobody for President” certainly does not maintain their reputation as “independent” by any stretch of the imagination. It enhances their reputation as pandering fools.
Their current CEO isn’t independent; he comes out of the Murdoch media universe.
Jonathan Last’s take over at The Bulwark: The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling
Well, there are quiet Presidential endorsements like committing most of the Front Page above the fold column inches and headlines to pro Trump “opinion news,” or selecting to run most of the op-ed column inches in favor of Trump or trying to manipulate issues such as pro-life or anti-immigration to avoid their negative impacts.
LA Times just pulled the same stunt with the same lack of notice, but with resignation of Editorial Editor over claims of owner interference. Something is rotten in Denmark.
I just read a report (from Gizmodo, so take with an appropriate volume of salt) that WaPo’s editorial board had an endorsement of Harris ready to go a week before CEO Will Lewis decided not to endorse anyone.
https:// gizmodo . com/jeff-bezos-reportedly-stops-washington -post-from-making-a-presidential-endorsement-2000516623
From Columbia Journalism Review:
The Washington Post opinion editor approved a Harris endorsement. A week later, the paper’s publisher killed it. https://www.cjr.org/political_press/the-washington-post-opinion-editor-approved-a-harris-endorsement-a-week-later-the-papers-publisher-killed-it.php Sewell Chan October 25, 2024
What other negative TRUMP stories or positive HARRIS stories have been “killed”?
Phil Lewis [Sr. Editor at Huffpost]:
https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3l7e5wer6fx2c
October 25, 2024 at 2:05 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/heidilifeldman.bsky.social/post/3l7e7vhbqyp27
October 25, 2024 at 2:41 PM
More rot: Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s speaking engagement at the U.S. Naval Academy was cancelled, succumbing to Heritage Foundation (Project 2025) and right-wing media pressure (Tucker Carlson especially). They evidently didn’t want new military-to-be personnel to be exposed to the history and methods of fascism…
https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2024/10/shameful-naval-academy-cancels-authoritarianism-lecture-after-maga-pressure/
Uggg! More about that, here [with some input from Ben-Ghiat]:
If Trump wins, the right-wing thought police will come for the Naval Academy https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/opinion/column/project-2025-naval-academy-ruth-ben-ghiat-heritage-foundation-UQM4A4CHTRH3FGHRO464YY7TJA/ Rick Hutzell 10/22/2024 5:30 a.m. EDT
Here’s her Substack “Lucid”:
https://lucid.substack.com/
I must have gotten something wrong about “cancel culture.”
Thanks for the links, to both of you, Matt and harpie!
One needs to remember that the publishers and owners are of the same fiscal ilk as Convict-1, so they’re hoping their cowardice framed as neutrality will have a short life span in the news.
https://bsky.app/profile/sarahposner.bsky.social/post/3l7e745vlyu2x
October 25, 2024 at 2:27 PM
Dan FROOMKIN:
Billionaires have broken media: Washington Post’s non-endorsement is a sickening moral collapse If democracy dies in darkness, why won’t the Post pick a preferred presidential candidate? https://www.salon.com/2024/10/25/billionaires-have-broken-media-washington-posts-non-endorsement-is-a-sickening-moral-collapse/ Dan Froomkin October 25, 2024 3:33PM (EDT)
OT, but apropos salon: Amanda Marcotte has a very good commentary on Tucker Carlson: “Daddy’s home”: Tucker Carlson’s bizarre troll distills Trump’s false promise to male voters at https://www.salon.com/2024/10/25/daddys-home-tucker-carlsons-bizarre-distills-false-promise-to-male/.
And I consider an even better opinion on the recent entrance by the reemerged former Fox star what Arwa Mahdawi has written in The Guardian: Tucker Carlson is fantasizing about Daddy Donald Trump spanking teenage girls at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/tucker-carlson-speech-trump-spanking.
Incels are all like that; they blame women for all their problems, when the real problem is what they see when they look in the mirror. They’re AWFUL personality-wise, and that drives people away. But they demand women give them sex without them having to change anything about it. It’s the most extreme entitlement possible (“Why should I have to change anything about myself? Society should just MAKE people interact with me!”).
What LATimes and WaPo NON-endorsements are telling their readers and THIS voter:
The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board has endorsed Harris today, very readable, I think: Kamala Harris for president — Endorsement, https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/a/endorsement-president-kamala-harris-democracy-20241025.html.
In what other era would a man who attempted a coup that ended up in violence be seriously considered for President?
Bezos and others should have spoken up far earlier when they might have had influence over the Republicans’ decision.
Now they look like small men cowering before an aged man who may have dementia.
Sad day, but not entirely surprising. I’m cancelling my subscription now.
The comments at WaPo are filled with others doing the same.
This week we’ve been listening to Ben Bradlee’s memoir, “A Good Life.”
Today he must be rolling in his grave.
BTW, from the Post, at the bottom of the article:
clarification
This story has been updated to clarify that the decision not to publish presidential endorsements was made by the owner of The Washington Post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The decision was announced by the publisher of The Post, Will Lewis.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username and email address each time you comment so that community members get to know you. Do not add a URL if you did not enter one with your first comment. Thanks. /~Rayne]
Musk became a US citizen in 2002. Coming from another country as an immigrant, he became very wealthy in America creating many companies starting with PayPal. Is he now using his wealth to wreck a country that opened up opportunities for him? Smells rancid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/elon-musk-federal-agencies-contracts.html
Most of them he bought; he didn’t create them.
Thanks for the correction.
Just to tie a couple of things in this thread together:
Musk entered the US on a student visa to attend Stanford as a grad student, then never enrolled. He had no authorization to work in the US, nor to remain here on that student visa once he didn’t enroll, the first couple of years while he worked on his little startup Zip2 which he sold before buying x.com & paypal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/26/elon-musk-immigration-status/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/26/elon-musk-illegal-immigration
The Washington Post reporters actually use “Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States” in the lede paragraph. Their article quotes others stating he almost certainly lied on his application for citizenship, claiming he never worked in the US. And now he’s claiming undocumented immigrants are ruining the US.
Learn something everyday. Telsa was founded by two others. I always wondered if mama’s boy elon had founded (learned today bought into) Telsa so he could do a (his) rewrite of history because he’s way more insane & dangerous than TFG. The simplicity of realizing electric cars were the future. How abhorrent. I imagine if you took a street survey 85% of people would say mama’s boy invented Telsa.
That said; if I had the money, I’d run an ad geared to some undecided voters. “you want to vote for Harris because the catfight fireworks after TFG’s defeat between the two insane asylums, don vs. elon will be epic.” Con enter/tainment. May they lose it. Let alone factoring in Putin. My hope is that the Russian people realize a weaponized Iran + is an insane doom. Hopefully mama’s boy will have done illegal, to be jailed, then deported.
Stunned again today in the with explanations of, the Republicans who were part of TFG’s administration now voting against him. That if TFG were to win the reality of what’s left of the Republican party being over, let alone Democracy & the world.
Not to be gloomy. I have Joy & Hope.
I will go with JD Vance as Putin’s pick. Maybe Jim Jordan for VP? just to make a Halloween horror story scarier.
Perhaps noteworthy that Russia’s bestie Iran may have already tried to have Trump killed?
it’s for when you wake up in the hour of the wolf with the cold sweats .. after having had a fever dream about trump being sworn in as the next President of the United States of America .. … ….
Well, thank God for Gin at 3AM ! (and, by my way of figuring it’s about the only way I get through the next 2 weeks)
You guys won the game and got me v conflicted about Elon and I now fully believe the new WSJ story* about he and putin. But then the man is on drugs and clearly heading for detox.
*I just read the daily news and swear by every word
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVsyhVB0Lqw
In honor of bmaz, I note that the the Grateful Dead’s bassist, Phil Lesh, has died at 84.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/25/phil-lesh-grateful-dead-dies
And Fernando Valenzuela…
Yes, I still like a sport, or music diversion every now and then; to counter despair (and deep thinking).
Willie Mays was my childhood hero, and the Dodgers the enemy. Tonight’s World Series game was for the ages.
RIP Fernando.
Agree, RIP Fernando and Phil… Can’t help but think of Ralph Branca after tonight’s game.
The Series should have been over two weeks ago.
The Push to Fire Lina Khan Reveals a Serious Problem in Silicon Valley
Oct. 26, 2024
NYT op-ed by Nate Loewentheil
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/opinion/lina-khan-ftc-venture-capital-silicon-valley.html
Otherwise, so the kid forgot the 3rd verse? So what? kid’s got talent, drive, best intentions, and, like it or not (olly olly in free) we really need the kid’s vote since he’s the future. Kind of reminds you of 1968, it does. If trump unfortunately does win, one good thing is that the new music will be el terrerifico, almost even west of the pecos, bmaz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8tgq15HO8s
Trump, possibly un-ironically:
“You know there’s a theory — pick a really bad vice president, that way they never get rid of you.”
Source: Aaron Rupar
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1850010778838925432
So, Musk is a coward? Afraid that Putin might hurt him financially? That seems to be the case with Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post, who has been and will be cowed by Trump over government contracts for Amazon computing services.
These rich guys need to realize that if they are going to play on the world stage, they need to have guts; they will get hurt at times. Every major country out there (US, Russia, China, EU) goes ahead and does the things it wants/needs to, knowing full well that there will be blowback. If a billionaire is afraid of that (why should Musk be, if he already has that much money?), then he shouldn’t play in that sandbox.
Sort of OT, not sure.
Timothy Snyder has a short video today on his substack re media billionaires and
Obeying in Advance.
Obeying in advance https://substack.com/home/post/p-150757391
Timothy SNYDER Oct 26, 2024
Thank you!
Heather Cox Richardson’s substack for today is of a piece and also worth reading on this same topic:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/october-25-2024
The incident involving Ukraine military ops and Crimea and Starlink is widely mis-reported as it is in the reports cited above.
First, Starlink was never enabled in Crimea in the first place. Ukrainian officers assumed it was until they found out too late. In order to turn on internet services there SpaceX would require DoD authorization because Crimea was Russian occupied territory.
A request to enable Starlink there was never made. Not by SpaceX/Musk, not from the executive branch, not by the Ukrainians. Read the snopes article on this subject for the details.
Then of course Musk shows up and says stupid things like he does whenever the topic isn’t some tech that he actually knows as opposed to assuming he knows. Still, the monster said he didn’t want a nuclear conflict in the region. And didn’t want to be the party to instigate it. What a dork. But the reporting is all derived on that and not what actually happens.
The ethos of this site, to uncover factual evidence is on display daily.
“Truth alone triumphs, not falsehood”
Bottom line: should we trust Musk to align with US national security and foreign policy on Ukraine at best, or be neutral at worst?
IMO, nope. And he shouldn’t be permitted to launch from the US if he’s acting against US interests (which are also NATO’s interests).
SpaceX plays by the rules because a large part of their income comes from military contracts. At this point if SpaceX ceased operations it would be a major blow to the U.S. military interests and even more so to the civilian projects. It has gone far beyond “him” being “permitted to launch.”
By the end of 2024 SpaceX will have completed over 100 launch missions, about 38 of which were not for StarLink. Those launches would have to be sent overseas because nobody has launch capability anywhere close to what SpaceX has.
That aside.
The media narrative being used above is all about “Elon Musk BETRAYED and SABOTAGED Ukraine” which is what I gather most people believe at this point but is simply not true in any objective reading of facts. At that time I do not thing there was any single private person or entity that did more for Ukraine than Musk did.
Whether Musk is now Putin’s bitch at this point is not something on which I am posting an opinion.
“SpaceX plays by the rules because a large part of their income comes from military contracts.”
Seems a tad credulous, given the way large military contractors operate. It also seems to ignore Elmo’s willingness to use his status as an important defense contractor and the world’s richest man not named Vlaidimir Putin, to extort what he wants, including immunity. He’s not a straight-up guy.
SpaceX “playing by the rules” in 2023 when a rocket launched on Musk’s order because it was 4/20 ended in a massive explosion:
source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/04/20/spacex-launches-largest-rocket-ever-built-but-test-flight-ends-in-explosion/
[citations needed]
I included a citation and if you don’t want to look it up that’s your business.
Your comment at 11.31 am refers to a source, “snopes.” That’s not a citation, which requires a full url, or comparable information to find one. The snopes site produces no results for Russia, Ukraine, Crimea, Starlink, or Musk. It just says use its AI bot. Fat chance.
Other sources support the claim that Starlink is not operational over Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, including the Crimea, though how consistent that is is dubious. It appears not to be operational over Russian territory itself, at least for non-Russian clients.
Musk claims it’s because Starlink is meant for civilian use. That’s more dubious, still, given his substantial ties to the US DoD, that he does provide services to the Ukrainian military, that the DoD and USAID, often a CIA-front, are reported as paying for Starlink service in Ukraine at various times.
The stable for high horses is just to the left of the line for sparkle ponies.
You didn’t, so read earl’s comment about what a citation is.
What you provided were UNBACKED ASSERTIONS, and around here, it’s on YOU to provide that backing.
Seconded. No reason why a URL can’t be provided if Snopes is the source. Or any online source for that matter.
Alan_OrbitalMechanic
October 26, 2024 at 7:32 pm
Is there a reason beyond stubbornness that you didn’t want to supply this URL
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/09/14/musk-internet-access-crimea-ukraine/
Is it because by clicking through to the article readers would readily discern that it was not a fact check as such but a discussion of a controversy?
And the discussion contained this very important observation:
“One unanswered question was why Starlink access hadn’t been activated in Crimea. During an All-In Summit appearance on Sept. 11, 2023, Musk returned to the topic and stated that Starlink could not operate in Russia-occupied Ukraine because U.S. sanctions forbade it without special permission.”
There is no evidence that Musk’s excuse proffered there and repeated subsequently in variations on that theme, including references to triggering nuclear war is true
But note the WSJ rendition of his then motivation as quoted above
“Musk said later that he made the move because Starlink is meant for civilian uses and that he believed any Ukrainian attack on Crimea could spark a nuclear war.”
So it would appear to my untutored eye that: the purpose of your comment was to re-instate in the public narrative (or at least that portion of it this thread represents) Musk’s first excuse. And thus to deflect attention from credible reporting that Musk has repeatedly dissembled on this matter, so conceal and thus avoid obvious implications of attempting to play both ends against the middle for his own purposes.
Musk is a slimey snake, and his apologists are at best star struck and deluded.
BTW is your handle the name of a Musk tribute band?
If Musk has become very “friendly” with Putin, I start wondering about Musk’s relationship with the Russian mob, with their presence in the U.S.
This struck my ‘funny’ bone:
“We do not comment on any individual’s security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual’s actions.”
On … or about? Any individual’s? Are those security clearance “matters” even the Pentagon’s department? Their spokesperson seems to go out of the way to specify policy “matters” (but not specify the Pentagon’s), and qualify that very narrowly: Reports. Individual. Actions. What about outside that very particular context?