Elon Musk

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Dear audience: Boy was I right.

in August that the idea of a potential Elon Musk cabinet position was absurd because a ) Tesla shareholders, who own the majority of his assets, would revolt even if you ignored the legal and ethical considerations, and b ) you can’t work on government issues that affect your own personal finances.

I’m here to regret. Because things became many wilder than I may have anticipated.

To be clear: It’s not that I was wrong about the conflicts of interest Trump may be subject to — it is almost nothing in government that doesn’t change Musk’s businesses, which span electric vehicles, robotics, artificial intelligence, space exploration, social media, biotechnology, satellite comms and road infrastructure.

However, I hardly understood how viciously Musk would slam his smile into Donald Trump’s hats in order to circumvent constitutional law and declare himself the of the federal government.

Essentially, the administration has classified Musk as a” special state employee”. And theoretically, that means he may become subject to federal conflict of interest laws. However, the Justice Department must theoretically enforce those statutes, and it’s not yet known whether that may happen. Which is all to suggest, Tesla owners don’t lose any sleep over that one.

Some Tesla traders saw the potential of Trump and Musk as a “disaster incident” over the summer because they wanted the electric car manufacturer, which was built on the promise of a robotic utopia, to concentrate on his winning horse. However, shareholders seem content to allow Musk run wild on the hopes that he’ll slice requirements and ensure any new procedures benefit the bottom line since Trump’s decisive win and altitude of” first friend” Musk.

” A formal cabinet position would have been the game-changer, because it would have changed his CEO role”, Dan Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, told me Tuesday. According to him, the current situation is unique, and “any criticism or blowback is far outweighed by these enormous advantages of Musk’s role in a Trump White House, which will ultimately speed up the autonomous roadmap in the United States.”

( Autonomous driving is only one of several projects Musk has repeatedly overpromised and delivered on.

Ultimately, without any enforcement of conflict of interest laws, Musk’s ascension is effectively a cash grab.

Businesses have been hampered by the chaotic Trump agenda that Musk is supporting. But not Musk’s businesses.

US automakers in particular have been concerned about the potential 25 % tariff on Mexican and Canadian components, which would increase car prices in America. But Tesla didn’t need to sweat those restrictions nearly as much as Ford, GM and Stellantis. That’s because while there’s no such thing as a fully “all-American” car, as my colleague , Tesla makes one of the few vehicles that is more American-made than most: the Model 3. That means Tesla might not be subject to the same level of burden as its bigger competitors if tariffs are imposed on Mexico and Canada in the future.

Trump’s cancellation of EV tax credits, which Musk supported, could still hurt Tesla, of course. However, it almost certainly will hurt Tesla’s domestic rivals more.

And then there’s SpaceX, Musk’s privately owned rocket company, which has become a critical supplier to America’s national space ecosystem. Over the past ten years, the company has been awarded at least$ 15 billion in federal contracts. And it seems improbable that any of those agreements will be broken by the DOGE bros, who claim to be removing waste from the federal budget.

Bottom line: I’ve learned my lesson about predicting the future. However, we can look at Musk’s recent history to get an idea of where all this is going.

Buying Twitter in 2022 was, by traditional metrics, a financial disaster. He killed the platform’s brand, both literally and spiritually, by renaming it X, welcoming neo-Nazi accounts and ultimately by an estimated 80 %. In the end,$ 44 billion ended up being a small price for what Musk ultimately received: a political megaphone he could use to support the election of a president who would permit the aspiring tech oligarch to have control over the federal government’s infrastructure.

Now that DOGE is in charge, Musk has a chance to expand and grow his business empire almost without any restraint. President Trump on Monday sought to reassure folks that” Elon can’t do, and won’t do, anything without our approval”. But so far, at least, Musk hasn’t reached the end of his leash.

My August headline read,” Let’s throw cold water on the Musk working for Trump thing”. And in some sense, I stand by that. Musk is working in the White House, but, as ever, Musk is working for himself.

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