https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/whats-in-it-for-elon
"Whenever there’s a question over
why something happened, it’s prudent to
return to the old adage: follow the money. So far, when it comes to Elon Musk,
the media has been painfully lax in applying this principle.
Last week, drama erupted as Musk torpedoed a hard-fought, bipartisan and
bicameral continuing resolution (CR), which had been negotiated between the two
parties for months, to fund the government. He managed to blow it up just as it
was set to be voted upon by launching a barrage of tweets condemning the CR and
threatening any GOP member who voted for it with a primary.
After a day of high stakes chicken over the U.S. economy, a significantly
trimmed down version of the CR, which still contained huge amounts of spending
on disaster and farm relief, passed both chambers of Congress, averting a
shutdown. The media and punditry widely and correctly viewed this as a blow to
Donald Trump, as well as to the political future of Speaker Johnson. Neither
proved they could control the unruly far right wing of the party.
Yet the big winner out of this mess was Musk, who saw at least two big things
stripped from the CR: a limitation on “outbound investment” in China and
continued funding of the U.S. agency tasked with tracking foreign
disinformation. Both of these provisions, had they remained in the bill, would
have seriously impacted his companies—Tesla on the China investment side and
the X platform on the disinformation side—so he is no doubt pleased he was able
to tank both in the final CR.
To understand how Musk achieved this, it’s worth reviewing how things went down
in the House over the CR, including what happened when one brave House member
rose to challenge Musk’s plan. To understand why Musk hated the CR so much,
it’s also worth examining what the two provisions stripped out of the bill
would have resulted in."
Via Kevin O'Brien.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
