1/The reporting that Musk has backed down from supporting Trump is misleading. What he is saying in his non-denial denial is that he created a PAC to support Trump/Vance, which allows for unlimited contributions.
2/By saying he doesn’t “subscribe to a cult of personality” suggests that Trump is but a means to an end, that the PAC isn’t about Trump, but rather is a process for achieving his stated goals. If he should win, Trump should thus watch his back after January. He is disposable.
3/Listen to the interview yourself. The reporting by Forbes is just misleading and wrong, and people should stop repeating it. He’s donating the $45mm/mo to his PAC which is aiming to, among other things, elect the Trump/Vance ticket.
4/These are not the postings of someone who is not committed.
5/More reporting from NY Times on Musk’s America PAC, led by former DeSantis aides Generra Peck and Phil Cox. And a correction: it was Fortune, not Forbes, that had the misleading reporting.
6/And it’s reasonable to assume that $45mm/mo is just a floor, because this channel is open to anyone who may want to launder influence through it. Wake up!
7/As to specific amounts contributed or spent, we won’t be able to assess that until we see some reporting, which is required. Only THEN will we have a better sense of what they are or are not doing.
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The stakes for this election are far higher than people understand. They’re not just going to pass laws you don’t like — they aim to crash the global economy, default on US debt, destroy the US dollar, obliterate your life savings, and reshape civilization to suit their desires.
Trump is but a vessel. This is a Thiel/Musk/Putin/Xi collaboration, and we had damn well better take it seriously as the existential threat it poses. Project 2025 is but Plan B, if Plan A, global financial cataclysm, doesn’t crush everything first.
The recent reporting from Fortune that Musk has “backed down” from financial support for Trump is fundamentally misleading; anyone spreading that lie is actually supporting this project. See below.
A moment of inside baseball: the reason it was wrong to bully the president about dropping out was because it taught bullies the lesson that bullying not only works, but is necessary.
It expressed distrust that the president could ultimately be counted on to make the right decision without being bullied.
It gave an opening to those who might drive a chaotic internecine battle that would leave us without a clear path forward.
It led adversaries to draw false conclusions about his fitness to complete his term.
In short, the whole episode was reckless, and a gift to our adversaries.
In fact, the way it played out, the president got polling data that suggested a change was a good idea. And he made a decision. Exactly as the system was supposed to work.
Anyone insinuating that Joe Biden was “clinging to power” to the last minute doesn’t understand Joe Biden. He ran because he thought he could win. The minute he no longer believed that, he changed course.
Now look, you can spin whatever story you want, but the truth is this: no bullying was necessary, and intraparty bullying was a self-own that we now need to mitigate. It’s okay, it’s recoverable.
Ultimately, this was a tough jump, fraught with peril. But we stuck the landing and are skiing straight to victory.
But it didn’t need to be this risky, and if you bullied in public, don’t expect to be thanked or congratulated. All anyone had to do was trust the president to make the right decision, based on data presented to him. Because he ultimately did, and always would have done so.
Take this lesson to heart — especially now as foreign propagandists use the doubts you sowed to spread rumors about whether Biden is even alive or not. Because that’s what this chatter got us, and it was completely unnecessary.
And to those of you who angled for chaos, an open convention, and damaging internecine conflict, that was ultimately just straight up unhelpful.
So today, we forgive, we forget, we move on, we unite, we win. But we also learn. And some people did some really irresponsible things, and I hope they come to know better in the future. Onward! ⛷️
Friends send you a letter. Bullies put a sign on your yard. We saw the difference in this episode.
Loyalty, honor, and grace also matter, and are also warranted except in extreme breach of social contract. And they’re a matter of operational security. Not being a jerk is just good politics.
1/My biggest concern about Biden withdrawing was that the field would be fractured, no clear consensus would emerge, and we'd spend four weeks locked in damaging internecine conflict.
As of right now, consensus has clearly formed around Harris — and that's a great thing!
2/It means we can immediately rally behind Harris and start spreading the truth about what Vance, Musk, Thiel, Putin and their Project 2025 allies have in store for America. This is no time to go backwards. Harris is the presumptive nominee, and it's time to move forward!
3/The biggest thing holding D's back this cycle was broad uncertainty. Anyone suggesting that what we need right now is more uncertainty, more delay, more infighting is either incompetent or simply not helping.
1/In light of the news that Biden has withdrawn from the presidential race, let's take a moment to consider what that means in terms of electoral mechanics and, crucially, winning the race.
To win, Dems need to maximize their own turnout while also minimizing R turnout...
2/In the modern American political environment, turnout is driven by fear that the other side will gain control. So to maximize Dem turnout, ramping up fears about Project 2025, women's rights, and authoritarianism is likely to be more effective than any efforts to shape...
3/the ticket (with a particular VP pick, say) or the platform. Kamala Harris is the only workable and just candidate, so they will have to work with that.
Harris, however, is likely to make R's white hot and incandescent with rage, and fear that she will win. To dampen R...
1/The global IT outage caused by a failed Crowdstrike software update can apparently be fixed by booting Windows into Safe Mode and deleting a file. This means millions of Windows machines need to be booted and fixed by hand.
2/This could take days to accomplish and could be extremely costly. No information right now suggests this is a cyberattack. But if it was, it may be a supply chain attack where malicious code was injected into the source code without detection. Nothing to suggest that yet.
3/Suggest folks avoid panic or unfounded speculation until facts are known. This appears to be easily fixable, it’s just a mess. Will post any significant updates here, but this is what I see for now.
Notably, Lavrov did not endorse *Trump*, but Vance. This further reinforces the idea that Trump's utility is all but over, and he should watch his back after election, because Putin/Musk/Thiel are all backing Vance.