Former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised that, if elected, he would let Tesla CEO and one of America’s leading eugenicists Elon Musk loose on the federal budget. Musk has promised “temporary hardship” for Americans as he cuts $2 trillion in federal spending, a move he says is targeted at “people who are taking advantage of government.” Well, a quick peek at forgiven federal pandemic loans shows exactly who Musk should be targeting: Elon Musk.
Through the Boring Company — an organization he founded to oppose light rail in California — Musk took in $822,395 in federal funding from federal Paycheck Protection Program loans in 2020 and 2021. The total amount forgiven between both, after interest, came out to $830,045. The loans, intended for small businesses to continue paying workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, were a massive source of fraud that allowed wealthy business owners to scam the government out of billions of dollars. Musk, it seems, was on the “taking advantage” side of the arrangement.
Musk spoke at a Twitter town hall last week about his economic plans under a second Trump presidency, specifically his intent to make major cuts to the federal budget. Rolling Stone has transcriptions from the town hall:
When asked about “tackling the nation’s debt,” he mentioned changing the tax code, and then went on to say there would be some financial difficulty imposed on some Americans. “Most importantly, we have to reduce spending to live within our means,” he said, adding that these efforts will “involve some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
Later on, Musk said that he would “balance the budget immediately,” adding: “Obviously, a lot of people who are taking advantage of government are going to be upset about that. I’ll probably need a lot of security, but it’s got to be done. And if it’s not done, we’ll just go bankrupt.”
The United States is not, in fact, at risk of bankruptcy, according to the International Monetary Fund, yet that hasn’t seemed to stop Musk’s feelings that the United States and its citizens need to tighten their belts. One might argue that putting Musk in charge of federal spending presents a conflict of interest when that same federal spending goes to his companies, and it’s a good argument — Musk seems less likely to cut that sweet sweet Department of Defense money than he is to pull the Social Security and Medicare rugs out from under the nation’s grandmothers.
Musk’s plan seems simple: He keeps his federal funding, he keeps the money he got from small business loans that the government forgave, but no one else gets the same treatment. Only the world’s richest man can profit off the federal government — everyone else needs to get to work on those bootstraps. One might call it hypocritical, if “evil” wasn’t fewer syllables.