A Surviving Facts Blog
All over the news. All over social. All over practically everything. No matter what news source you watch or read, you find Elon Musk. Since late 2024, he has been THE MAN.
Not long ago, Musk was the CEO of Tesla, the former CEO of PayPal and a serial marrier and divorcer with 13 children. Before we move on, it’s important to note that Musk is a smart guy. He co-founded PayPal. He was an early investor in Tesla, and then became its CEO. He didn’t invent or design Tesla vehicles. He did spot the opportunity, though the company has been losing value, a 23% decrease in full-year net income in 2024. He bought Twitter in 2022, renaming it X and reinstating many formerly banned profiles, one of which was Trump’s. Since then, Twitter has turned sharply to the right. He also founded SpaceX, with a goal of getting to Mars.
Musk was born in South Africa, where the Musk family is known for its wealth. He came to the US through Canada (his mother is Canadian), and attended university in the US at the University of Pennsylvania. Looking back, Musk was largely a tech nerd with a ken for business opportunity. This capability has been his primary talent. Now, Elon is the richest, or one of the richest, people in the world with more than $400B dollars. He may well be the world’s first trillionaire.
Elon’s political involvement has thrust him even more into the media spotlight. He supported Trump, curried his favor and even paid people in swing states to vote for Trump. Apparently, he spent $256M on Trump’s campaign. How this activity hasn’t been scrutinized ethically is curious to me, but a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that his $1M giveaways were not illegal, primarily because recipients were not determined randomly, as once thought, but rather screened and determined to be staunch Trump supporters and not paid to support.
Long before he bought Twitter or Trump’s attention, Elon seemed skeezy to me. He grew up wealthy- a luck of birth- had opportunities handed to him by his father, and has engaged in typical rich boy antics. As noted before, he’s good at spotting opportunities- that’s a talent in itself- though without his family money, he would have been unable to capitalize on them, much like Trump. His privilege as a white man is abundantly clear. He can pretty much do and say whatever he wants- whether it’s questionable or not- and escape scrutiny. Money has a way of inoculating scoundrels from the impact of their actions.
Musk seems to me to be one of the greatest threats to our country’s democracy. He has curried favor through his billionaire status and has been rewarded by the Trump administration. He’s leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which just so happens also to be the name of Elon’s favorite cryptocurrency.
Musk has gained so much attention since last fall that comedians and commentators alike have joked that he is the president instead of Trump. He earned the nickname Elonia, which angered him so much he threatened to ban anyone calling him that name from Twitter/X. Even the Lincoln Project joined in with a commercial calling him President Musk.
Since starting DOGE, the Trump administration has dismantled or is in the process of dismantling the Department of Education, USAID, FEMA, the Consumer Protection Bureau, as well as firing thousands of Federal workers, freezing all funds for cancer research and illegally downloading the financial information the US government has on almost every citizen. At the same time, Musk has been awarded $400M toward a Tesla armored vehicle project, among other grants. The billionaire recently said, “some federal workers are getting wealthy at taxpayers’ expense,” an ironic statement given his own wealth and receipt of hundreds of millions of government funds.
I doubt most of this information is new to anyone reading this. Musk’s actions have been covered in numerous media. Many Americans have expressed concern. Musk’s actions stink of conflict of interest, and his official position in the government is unclear. How far will all this go?
The problem with Musk- and with Trump and Hegseth and Gabbard and RFK (the whole lot of them)- is that they all reek of personal interest, questionable ethics, and corruption. As Congress ticks the box of confirmation for each of these unqualified candidates for government roles- however, Musk needs no confirmation- we are left with an overly confident, dangerously uneducated and uninformed gang of thieves.
Again, none of this should surprise any of us. It’s happening in plain sight. Far right advocates cheer the ridiculing of the roles being filled- for their goal is to rip it all apart, to shift into an authoritarian government with billionaire Putin-esque-like oligarchs influencing the President and our country’s direction.
And that’s where we currently are. We aren’t a democracy anymore, not really. The oligarchs- Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk, the cabinet choices- are the new lawmakers, currying Trump’s favor while rushing to dismantle the American we know. It’s a domino effect: one flick of a domino and entire rows are tumbling down. DEI is out- I’ve been shocked by how many companies have already announced canceling their programs. Even more, human rights protections, especially for LGBTQ+, Blacks and Brown people and women, are eroding like sand from the Jersey shore- so fast, counter actions can’t respond quickly enough to prevent further damage.
Is this really what America wants?
I don’t think it is. I can count on one hand the people- even among Trump supporters- who like what they are seeing. Many of them, admittedly, were duped by their own lack of understanding. After all, Trump IS doing exactly what he said he would do. He’s following the Project 2025 playbook like a “to do” list being checked off with each wreck. Next up, the SAVE exact. The spin is that this law will prevent illegals from voting. It’s more than that. If passed, only specific documents can be used for voter identification. Here’s the trick: the name on a birth certificate and passport or driver’s license must match. If you’ve married and changed your name, you’ve got a problem. A marriage certificate is not a qualifying document. This legislation is dismantling the 19th Amendment right before our eyes.
It’s like watching a horror movie. You see what’s coming up, you know it’s bad, but you can’t do anything to stop it- or there’s not a lot that can be done to stop it. We can call our legislators- and I encourage everyone to do so if you haven’t. Will this do anything? It hasn’t so far. Right now, we are dependent on the legal system questioning the constitutionality of these actions. The courts move slowly, and Trump has already said the courts can’t tell the executive branch of government what to do.
In fact, they can. But who’s going to actually enforce this? Who will give orders to stop and then make sure it is stopped?
Trump has surrounded himself with his band of musketeers, true believers of his vision and their own ambition. They aren’t carrying the known musketeers motto: All for one and one for all. No, they are saying: one for one, only one and one will win. The rest of us lose.
I’m angry. Angry that a felon has become president again. Angry at the loaded Supreme Court for making the president so untouchable. Angry at the billionaires for audacity and greed at an unimaginable level. Their money could solve every problem we have- and they’d still be rich. I’m angry at America’s complacency and ignorance. I’m angry at the left-wing media lie. The media is owned and run by the right. The media has gathered around Trump like a bunch of cheerleaders waggling at the football team. I’m angry at FAFO: folks, you should have known better. I’m angry at the lies pushed out daily and believed by the true believers without question. I’m angry that American federal workers can’t pay their bills because of frozen wages. I’m angry that we’re awarding a billionaire with government funds rather than pay for vaccines, food and water for poor countries and poor Americans. I’m angry we are wasting time renaming the Gulf of Mexico- how much programming time and money did Google spend in changing the name and who directed them to do that- and talking about buying Greenland when we have disastrous healthcare, children with no food, homelessness and a mental health crisis. None of the real issues are discussed. At all.
I wish I had a “save America” list. Call your legislators, read project 2025 (you will weep), join indivisible.org and meet locally. Protest. Call your legislator again. And again and again. I bet you knew all these anyway. I haven’t said anything new in this blog today. Sadly.
We aren’t solving a single problem the US is facing.
The President of Mexico- it always takes a woman!- is demonstrating more leadership and integrity than anyone in the US is.
And where are our democratic leaders? Where did Kamala go?
This rant is my act of courage. For all I know, there’s a bot crawling the Interweb for blasphemous comments like my own. I’m joining a crowd of voices I watch on Instagram and other platforms. We talk. We write. Nothing happens. One day, we may poof! Disappear because we dared to speak out.
So mostly, I’m scared. And you should be too. This IS happening; we all see it.
So here’s a proposal. Who wants to join me in starting an indivisible group? We will meet virtually weekly. We will plan actions. We will write letters, make calls. We will join the resistance. Wear red lipstick (if you don’t get that one, look it up). Deliver food to food pantries. We’ll brainstorm. Start a class action suit for taking our country away, maybe. DM or email me if you’re interested. I’m not watching anymore. I’m shouting, “ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL.”
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website to peruse the full collection of articles and updates. You can email me from the Walk the Moon website as well.
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