A Musk check could be transformational for Trump's coffers. Worth recalling, though, that Musk first liked DeSantis –but didn't write a check. He then attended a Ramaswamy fundraiser –but didn't write a check. Of course potentially different now that Trump is effective nominee. https://t.co/JM0Jcrs6Dg
— Alexandra Ulmer (@AlexandraUlmer) March 6, 2024
The NYTimes, as expressed by Maggie Haberman, got themselves very excited about a possible Musk donation to TFG [gift link, if you’re that curious]. What could be more intriguing, to the political horse-race touts and their employers, than the collaboration of two such click-worth Giants of Our Media Age?
On the other hand, Teddy Schleifer’s job at Puck is to stand in proximity to people with large sums of money, agape at their every insight, occasionally murmuring ‘such riches‘. (This can backfire on his subjects — his multiple tales of pitiable friendless nerd Sam Bankman Fried under house arrest did SBF no favors — but I’ve never seen reason to suspect Schleifer of irony.)
If Teddy looks at the Musk / Trump encounter and is not dazzled by the dollars, I suspect there are, indeed, no donations immediately forthcoming:
I cover Silicon Valley political donors. I am very, very bearish on the notion that Elon will *actually* make a donation to any super PAC.
He loves to get people's expectations up.
Vivek's people were CERTAIN they were going to get big money from Elon. Nope.…
— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) March 6, 2024
Of course, our Elon is a volatile personality, so there’s no telling what will happen next week, much less between now and November. Then again, there are two arguments against a Musk / Trump alliance almost as weighty as Elon’s purported fortune: First, given Musk’s cross-platform reliance on government funding, getting too chummy with *either* candidate would be risky. Second… can you really see two such colossal egos working together without attempting to sabotage each other?
Bidenland responds to Elon Musk's tweet, saying they set another fundraising record.
“So we’re good. But someone should check in on Donald Trump’s lawyers who are now probably more than a little panicked about getting stiffed again," @LaurenHitt says.https://t.co/CZYDGAUBMr
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) March 6, 2024
Sometimes fiscal probity is its own reward. Bloomberg:
… “Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday. Musk stopped short of specifying Trump or Biden by name.
Musk’s comments, however, do not rule out donations to a super political action committee or other political causes.
The announcement, though, is a blow to Trump, who has a serious cash disadvantage as he launches into a general election rematch with Biden. Trump’s last Republican rival, Nikki Haley, dropped out of the race on Wednesday, all but locking up the GOP nomination for the former president…
[Musk] met Trump on Sunday as the Republican looks to woo donors. Trump’s campaign war chest is far smaller than Biden’s. He began February with $30.4 million on hand, compared to the president’s $130 million, according to federal filings. The Republican’s court cases have been a financial drain on his campaign…“The campaign just broke our grassroots fundraising record for the fourth month in a row, so we’re good,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said. “But someone should check in on Donald Trump’s lawyers who are now probably more than a little panicked about getting stiffed again.”
Biden’s campaign announced Tuesday that its February fundraising haul set a fourth consecutive monthly record, but didn’t specify the total.
Also:
leaving vivek hanging was the most righteous thing Elon has done in the last 18 months
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 6, 2024
War for Ukraine Day 742: Odesa Attacked!![On The Road - way2blue - Rarotonga, Cook Islands [1 of 2] 1](https://balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5B-16-JAN-2-80x80.jpg)
Villago Delenda Est
(rubs hands together in anticipation of TFG being crestfallen that Elno won’t help him out)
SpaceUnit
Elon is probably wondering why he should fork over money to trump when he could just buy him outright from Vlad.
And hopefully he’ll do to trump what he did to Twitter.
Martin
Not exactly convinced that Musks cash flow situation is any better than Trumps, tbh.
NotMax
“Get an answer from Musk yet?”
“Yeah. It’s a poop emoji.”
gene108
Musk is probably just as or more transactional than Trump. I’m not sure what Trump can give him that’s worth Elon’s money.
sab
A lot of rich people really get off on promising other people desperately needed money and then not delivering. Doing that is why they like being rich. Other rich people like being philanthropists, but a certain class of rich people like being rich just so that they can be assholes.
Chetan Murthy
@sab: I can see it for sure. I mean, if you’re even the slightest bit mean (doesn’t even require being *evil*), I can see that first experience of promising something to somebody who really, really needs it, then welshing, then having that person come back groveling *anyway*, just being …. like a hit of finest China White. Gotta believe if you did that a few times, you’d be hooked like nobody’s business.
NotMax
@sab
“Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.”
“I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.”
– Andrew Carnegie
sab
@NotMax: Which group was Carnegie in? My guess is philanthropy, although he did seem to have had asshole traits.
ETA I agree with him on childraising.
Martin
@sab: I think a lot of people really misunderstand how wealth works. It’s not like Musk has a bunch of cash – he has 13% of Tesla. He has SpaceX. He has most of X. Unless he’s willing to sell more of his stake in these companies, he probably has relatively little cash. So you look at Musk and think ‘oh, he can easily afford $1b’ or whatever, but Musk has been pretty upfront that he lives VERY close to the edge. He leverages the shit out of his assets – to the degree that both Tesla and SpaceX nearly went under because he had so little free cash flow and both were losing money – and he had no way to backstop that until he got a big federal contract. He was still worth $20B or something at the time, but it was also damn close to $0.
Trump operated the same way – always leveraging this building to finance that one, etc. It was always debt Jenga.
piratedan
I really hope that the DoD is working non-stop to replace Musk as a defense contractor.
NotMax
@sab
It’s complicated. Cutthroat in accumulation, relatively lavish in later spreading it around.
HumboldtBlue
Working dog.
Roberto el oso
Maybe Musk will reenact that dinner table humiliation of Romney by Trump, but with himself in Trump’s spot.
Ruckus
@Martin:
This!
It’s wealth on paper, not in the bank. And another problem is that if say Elon wanted a big chunk to give to SFB he’d likely have to sell off something or take out a loan against assets. SFB is not really any different, he just doesn’t have as much to sell or especially to sell easily. SFB will have to sell a lot/all his assets to settle his debts and who is going to give him top dollar? And isn’t he already past the deadline for his second least costly debt – the $83+ million he owes E. Jean? I believe the walls are closing in on him. Such a shame…….
Brachiator
@Martin:
Exactly. Musk has a high net worth, but not necessarily a great amount of cash. And his debt load is high because of his screw up involving Twitter.
And right now, there’s not much that politicians can do to help soften his bad business decisions. A political donation would probably result in a poor return on his investment.
NotMax
@sab
Short (and somewhat soft pedaled) synopsis (1:42:03 – 2:00:25).
Balconesfault
A consummate grifter can recognize a consummate grifter.
Musk is probably aware that whatever money he gave Trump is as likely to work its way through various channels to end up paying off Trump’s debts as it is to actually being used to advance his political campaign.
But egotistical attention whore also enjoys the media bounce he’d get from playing footsie with Trump.
karen marie
I think I’ll make another donation to Biden.
sab
I passionately hate Youtube. I pie anyone who links to youtube without warning (that is you NotMax). But we have a toggle switch. So I sometimes see your links. But mostly I don’t. But mostly I do because I like you except for your links.
Jay
@sab:
If I post a you tube link, I always post a summary of what the you tube is, that way, one can click a link, or not.
don’t post X’s anymore, nitter makes it hard, but I always try to “illustrate” the link with text, even media.
Personally, I hate the links that are “subscriber only” or “not available in your area”, with no comment on what they contain.
sab
My Catholic husband had a much younger sister who went to public school. Amazes me that he has no idea how she got there (bus? car? friends? hoof?)
All these people saying they are doing whatever they are doing is to protect kids are full of shit.
AlaskaReader
Rep. Marjorie Traitor Greene (R-GA) promptly told British journalist Emily Maitlis to “fuck off” after The News Agents’ reporter asked her to talk about “Jewish space lasers”
Jesse
@karen marie:
Thought the same thing. Did it.
Brachiator
Los Angeles county voter turnout was 16 percent even though there were important state and local races in addition to the Senate race and presidential primary.
Mail in and drop off voting was 66 percent. Very easy to vote for those who took the time to do it.
Manyakitty
@piratedan: right? That guy is a massive national security risk.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@sab: One guess where all those Carnegie libraries came from
ETA: from Wikipedia:
A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. A total of 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems. 1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in the United Kingdom and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and 25 others in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, France, the Caribbean, Mauritius, Malaysia, and Fiji.
At first, Carnegie libraries were almost exclusively in places with which he had a personal connection—namely his birthplace in Scotland and the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, his adopted hometown. Yet, beginning in the middle of 1899, Carnegie substantially increased funding to libraries outside these areas. As Carnegie’s library funding progressed, very few of the towns that requested a grant, committing to his terms for operation and maintenance, were refused. By the time the last grant was made in 1919, there were 3,500 libraries in the United States, nearly half of them Carnegie libraries
NotMax
@sab
is it truly that much work to hover over a link for a half second if curious where it leads before clicking or not clicking?
Betty Cracker
Philip Bump at WaPo pointed out how Musk is already contributing to Trump’s reelection effort every damn day:
Musk and Trump are radicalizing the dumbest subset of Americans. (Gift link)
Geminid
An Axios article about Israeli minister Benny Gantz’s talks Monday with Biden administration officials:
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/05/israel-gaza-aid-benny-gantz-white-house
Reporter Barak Ravid describes an account of the talks by a “senior Israeli official” who is almost certainly Gantz.
Ksmiami
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): also he was a major donor to Carnegie-Mellon university…
Manyakitty
@Geminid: now the big question is what Gantz does with this information.
Geminid
@Geminid: The Axios article is titled “Israeli Minister lambasted at White House about Gaza and war strategy”
Qatari news site Al Jazeera posted an article on Gantz’s visit by Beirut-based reporter Justin Salhani titled “Is Gantz really a danger to Netanyahu’s power in Israel?”
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/3/5/is-gantz-really-a-danger-to-netanyahus-power-in-israel
Salhani described Gantz as a “centrist” and said Netanyahu “leads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.”
Freemark
Carnegie was also a real bastard
https://www.history.com/news/andrew-carnegie-unions-homestead-strike
Baud
@Freemark:
T’was the fashion back then. Today, the rich simply get workers to focus their minds on “social issues.” Much more sophisticated.
Geminid
@Manyakitty: Right now Gantz is probably trying to make sure tensions over Ramadan observances at the Temple Mount don’t start a civil war. The War Cabinet vetoed National Security Minister Ben-Gvir’s plan to restrict access by Arab citizens, after warnings by Shin Bet and IDF leaders. Ben-Gvir still wants a civil war though, and so does Hamas.
As for the chewing-out Gantz got from McGurk, Sullivan and Vice President Harris, they did not tell him anything they’re not telling the rest of the government.
Gantz is probably the administration’s favorite Israeli politician and they have high hopes for him, but right now they’re pissed at the Israeli government and Gantz is part of it. Harris’s stern body language at the start of their 45-minute meeting showed this.
A big difference from their meeting 2 years ago at the Munich Security Conference. Then, Harris and Gantz greeted each other like long-lost friends, and in a way they were. Gantz was Defense Minister for the Bennet/Lapid government at the time, and the Biden administration thought they could work with them. But it was a shaky, 8-party coalition and Netanyahu was able to bring it down that June.
Geminid
@Geminid: More recently, Al Jazeera reported on a Houthi missile strike on a commercial vessel that killed 3 seaman and injured 4 others. This was the first fatal shipping attack since the Houthis started lobbing missiles at nearby ships and at Israel late October. The US attacked targets in Houthi-controlled Yemen last night and will likely strike more today, with British help.
A ship the Houthis disabled last week finally sank in the Red Sea with 32,000 tons of fertilizer on board. Red Sea dolphins are not happy about this.
Matt McIrvin
If this were really about UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH I suppose our side would have it sewn up.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They have a celebrity cult. It’s a pretty good counter to cash.
glc
That’s a pretty elegant way of calling someone an inveterate liar. I want to see them do “serial killer” next.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: I had a man tell me that he had once been worth a million dollars because be had a business where people owed him that much in receipts! I think he didn’t understand how that works. He ended up having to file bankruptcy.
Princess
Mmm, I think Elon thinks Trump is going to lose. If he thought he’d win, it would make sense for him to try some kind of leveraged buyout via donation. (Biden can’t be bought that way so a less attractive target) Not that I want to tie myself to what Musk thinks about anything but it is interesting that he doesn’t think Trump is a good bet,
Mousebumples
@Ruckus: agreed.
Anyone remember the first $$ deadline in the Carroll case? I feel like it was today or tomorrow… Will it be a schadenfreude kind of day?
Geminid
@Geminid: Navy Times has an article about military action in the RedSea/Gulf of Aden from last October 19 until March 6, titled “All the Houthi/US Navy incidents in the Middle East (that we know of).”
The review includes actions by ships from other nations in the multinational naval task force. One of them is the German frigate Hessen, which tried and failed to shoot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone on February 27. Then they tried a second time and missed again!
NotMax
@Mousebumples
“I have here a letter of bond surety for the full amount.”
“May I see that, counselor? (pause) This is written in Sharpie. On a napkin. I can’t quite make out the title of origination, Would you be kind enough to enlighten the bench as to that?
“(whisper) Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.”
gene108
@Geminid:
Why are the Germans shooting at U.S. drones?
Princess
@Geminid: What do you think of how the cease fire negotiations are going? I’m getting the distinct impression that Hamas would rather keep the hostages and have more dead Palestinians in Gaza to beat the west with than to have any cease fire. But I’m uncertain of any of my perceptions there.
@Geminid:
dmsilev
@Martin: Musk’s biggest source of potential cash is borrowing against his Tesla shares. Publicly traded, so trivial for any bank to put a value on. Problem for him is that TSLA is down something like 33% in the last 6 months and he’s already quite leveraged there thanks largely to his Twitter folly. Most public companies also have rules limiting how much borrowing-against-shares their officers are allowed to do, which would further constrain him.
That’s probably a big part of why he’s desperately trying to get the board at Tesla to approve that proposed massive pay package for him. More shares means he can offset the decline in per share price and continue to borrow and spend on the world’s priciest midlife crisis.
Geminid
@gene108: By mistake. In their defense, this was likely the first time ever these German sailors deployed to a war zone. But, no harm no foul; just some red faces in the Red Sea.
NotMax
@gene108
Force of habit?
//
TBone
fElon got trolled spectacularly, not by Grimes but it’s still funny.
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-grimes-tweet-ex-wives-western-civilization-1851315058
“Is the ex-wife destroying Western Civilization in the room with us right now?” 😆
Geminid
@Princess: All I can say for sure is that I’m really tense about them. I saw a report yesterday that Egyptian officials say they are making progress, but they did not elaborate. I also saw a report that a Hamas source said they did not anticipate a ceasefire until about a week into Ramadan, which begins tomorrow. That suggested to me that they and allied groups have some action planned in the West Bank. They also have some supporters among Israel’s Arab citizens who might join in.
I also saw pictures of a long line of tanks and armored vehicle along a road in northern Israel. They were pointed in the direction of Lebanon. The Israelis keep saying that if someone doesn’t do something about Hezbollah shooting rockets at them, they will. For now they just retaliate, and Hezbollah retaliates for the retaliation.
A couple weeks ago, I saw some really wacky video from northern Israel. There was a rocket attack going on, and an air raid siren was wailing. Up on a roof, four middle-aged, overweight guys with beards were brandishing sheaves of what looked like millet at Lebanon, while a fifth one blew on a ram’s horn! Haredi air defense.
Geminid
@Princess: Joe Biden will talk about efforts to reach a ceasefire in his State of the Union address tonight. He may begin his speech with this, like Vice President Harris prefaced her remarks in Alabama last weekend with a statement about the war in Gaza.
If you mess with Twitter, Barak Ravid has been following this story closely and has good US and Israeli sources. AFP (Agencè France Presse) keeps up with breaking stories, and Al Jazeera does too. The Qatari government owns Al Jazeera and it reflects their point of view. Qatar’s Prime Minister, Prince al Thani, has been the key broker in these ceasefire talks.
sdhays
Dead thread, but what Elon wants from Trump is for Trump to start posting on his Xitter. And, unfortunately for Elon, that’s not something Trump can do at the moment since the entire premise of “value” in Truth Social is tied Trump being on the platform exclusively.
And Trump has to prop up the value of TS until he can cash out.
And he has fucked himself while trying to fuck over his partners and won’t be allowed to cash out for quite some time.
Oops.
Another Scott
(I haven’t clicked the links.)
The general tone of the reporting annoys me because there are still campaign contribution limits in law. Something like $3k per primary and $3k for the general per candidate. And PAC contributions, by law, cannot coordinate with the candidate. TIFG’s people wanting Melon to say he’s giving them $500M for his campaign is illegal.
The reporting just blows past all this (or buries it in paragraph 57) and makes it all a bunch of meaningless noise.
Yes, I know that there’s wink-wink fudging of the lines. But people become even more cynical when laws are not enforced and the reporting is such that they don’t even know where the lines are anymore.
IANAL.
Grr…,
Scott.
Denali5
I am convinced that one reason that TIFY is so alluring is that he has not once been held accountable for his many crimes. He appeals, he delays, he buys people off. He gets away with it. Wash, rinse, repeat. Must be nice.
Ironcity
@sab: So the question is are they a-holes because they are rich or are they rich because they are a-holes? Or is “a-holeness” independent of rich? I’d submit that even if elmo was living in a refrigerator box down by the railroad tracks they would still be an a-hole. The Trump case doesn’t exist because he isn’t really rich, just likes the rubes to think he is.
fancycwabs
Trump: I’ll sell you Truth Social for $5B
Musk: …
Trump: Okay, hear me out. $3B.
Musk: …
Several hours pass
Trump: Okay, final offer. You can have Truth Social to merge back into Twitt–oh shit, I mean X, I’ll come back on Twi–I’m just gonna say Twitter, sorry, and say you’re the best for… ::Alina Habba whispers into his ear:: $542,125,000. Take it or leave…wait! Why are you leaving?
glc
@Ironcity: Not independent certainly, but “because” is also inappropriate.
Different sectors favor different personality types. Silicon valley types involve more than a normal share of intelligent a-holes, but they come from a very large pool and only a few are successful. It’s basically a lottery within that segment. So you can’t say Musk is rich because he’s an a-hole but it’s also not a random association. It gave him a lottery ticket basically.
As with any lottery, the odds are against any particular participant, but somebody is likely to win. It could have been Elizabeth Holmes or SBF … or thousands of people nobody every heard of, who wiped out at the start (enough times to actually count). To play, it helps to have unfounded self-esteem or at least the appearance of confidence.
SBF famously said if he could flip a coin and depending on the result either destroy the earth or make it 100% better, he’d take the bet.
owlbrick
Like any fascist oligarch, Musk wants to secure his place in the syndicate order. He’s going to ask to merge NASA into a branch of SpaceX in exchange for all the free publicity imaginable on TwitX.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
I usually post the title and the length (time) of the video, and maybe a description. Blind youtube links are annoying.
Scamp Dog
@HumboldtBlue: Border Collie! And an old one, from the grey on the muzzle, but still capable of running at full tilt and getting the sheep where they need to go. I still miss my Border Collie, Biscuit.
stinger
OMG I love this so much.
stinger
@Villago Delenda Est:
” ‘Ell, no, I ain’t giving you my hard-earned cash!”
JaneE
What I count as money is what is in my checking account or savings if I need a large purchase. I could raise a lot more money by selling my home, but then what?
Business has always (or used to be) aware of the difference between solvency and cash-flow. Hundreds of millions of assets don’t count for money, just collateral. If the difference between income and outgo gets too out of balance, you need to sell, and some stuff takes years to sell. That is why they have “reserves” to draw on in a pinch. Underestimate your reserve needs too badly and you may be looking at a bankruptcy, hopefully not a liquidation. And vulture capitalists and LBO artists will happily give you a dime on the dollar to help you out.
IMO much of Trump’s business was really money laundering for various “friends”, but those kind of friends don’t do altruism.
ceece
@Brachiator: the 16% turnout stat is basically just from early voting and same day in person voting. CA accepts same day drop offs and postmarked ballots for up to a week, and then takes their sweet time counting them. I expect the final turnout to probably be double that, which is still pathetic but not quite so bad.