Greg Palast sent this email to his list last week. With most pundits writing about how we got where we are, and detailing what is currently happening, I skip over reading what’s often repetitive material. However, I was riveted by this deep dive into the Musk rat scene.
But first there’s me and Greg, an investigative reporter who has a flair I find fetching. I’d been a fan for a long time, and when he was the guest of honor at a 2009 fundraising dinner for KPFK, our L.A. progressive radio station, I bought a ticket hoping to meet him. Well, I had greater success than I had dreamed of having, wrangling a seat right next to him at a round table for eight where I was on the left side of him and a friend of his was on his right side, with five others none of us knew in the seats across from us. Imagine my dismay then, thinking I was going to get to be buddy buddy with Greg, when those five strangers kept that from happening. My crop circle documentary, What on Earth? (please don’t post the movie anywhere – it’s a freebee just for you), had recently come out, and the topic was of great interest to them. So, as they kept talking to me Greg kept talking to his friend, and I remained a stranger to him. Years later I remedied that with a donation that got me a producer credit on his movie, Vigilantes Inc.: America's New Vote Suppression Hitmen, that’s about the unethical tactics used to suppress the black vote, to where, had those votes been counted, we likely would have had Democrat victories instead of Trump wins. Greg and I are friends now.
Elon Musk: Batteries Not Included How to Put Welfare Queen Elon Musk Out of Business
There’s only one cure that can remove this parasite from our body politic—put him out of business. Getting rid of this whiny fascist, the ultimate welfare queen, is easy-peasy. Just follow the recipe below.
Why should we care about this self-aggrandizing druggie, this nouvelle P.T. Barnum? Our official President-elect, #TheRealDonaldTrump, is merely a gelatinous, orange-stained, bloviating bigot of a glove puppet. It’s Musk’s fingers in the glove. (Lesser billionaires have also inserted their sticky fingers—I’ll name them in future columns.) “Fascist”? Isn’t that harsh, Mr. Palast? I don’t throw around epithets like “fascist” easily. But Elon Musk is a textbook Mussolini wannabe. The definition of “fascism” is the lock-up of corporations and governments implemented by autocratic power and sold to the public with howling tribal fearmongering.
Did Trump steal 2024?
Many of you have asked me if Trump’s victory could be accounted for by vote suppression trickery. It’s a real possibility. We are still trying to pry the voting data out of the hands of MAGA-supporting election officials. So, be patient. To maintain the integrity of our work, as an investigative reporter I don’t report until I’ve investigated. In the meantime, stream my film, Vigilantes Inc., America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen.
Let’s begin with Trump appointing Elon as co-potentate of the Department of Government Efficiency, the cutely named DOGE. Please note, there is no such department. Cabinet departments are headed by Secretaries who must be confirmed by United States Senators. That’s in the Constitution. We used to call it democracy. But now we have something better: Elon-ocracy. I’d note that “Secretary” Musk says DOGE will target, flail, and fire “unelected” civil servants—with no one asking, “And who elected YOU, Mr. Musk?”—reminding us that America’s unelected billionaires have no sense of shame, hypocrisy, or irony.
DOGE-meister Musk will personally pocket gazillions from his announced chainsaw massacre of government regulations. This is not a “conflict of interest” because Elon doesn’t know the difference between the public interest and his own. DOGE’s motto will presumably be Je suis l'État (which means…well, look it up).
Musk’s racially poisonous tribalism is bred in the bone. As the New Yorker disclosed, the grandfather Elon lionizes was an infamous supporter of apartheid and a notorious Jew-hater who wrote, “The facts of history show that the white man has always developed the country he inhabits to the benefit of all concerned,” that are views Musk platformed, and, in the case of antisemitic bilge, lauded on his X.com. After one Neo-Nazi posted that Jews deserved no sympathy because they invited “hordes of minorities” to their countries—a view known among white supremacists as The Great Replacement Theory—Musk wrote, “You have said the absolute truth.” Heil, Elon!
How can we forget Elon at the southern border in Texas, with his cowboy hat on backwards calling for the mass deportation of “illegal” immigrants—despite the fact that, as the Washington Post revealed, the South Africa-born Musk is himself an illegal immigrant. But, hey, Musk wasn’t complaining about white immigrants. (See above re hypocrisy, shamelessness, and irony.) To correct the record, it wasn’t Musk’s hat that was on backwards, it was his head.
The Ultimate Welfare Queen
Trump has given Musk’s DOGE a license to kill government, aiming particularly at our nation’s welfare safety net. That’s pretty rich from America’s number one welfare queen. Welfare Queen Musk? Let me count the ways.
First, it’s by government edict that General Motors and other automakers have paid Tesla a whopping $11 billion for “emissions credits.” According to CNN, 100% of Tesla’s profits up to 2021 were from these regulator-mandated payments.
While scarfing up billions in payments for “emissions-free” cars, in reality his Teslas simply move filth to the tailpipe from the electric power plant smokestack. Sixty percent of America’s electricity is produced by fossil fuels. Therefore, Teslas are 60% fossil fueled. In states like Wyoming, where 100% of electricity is produced from coal, Teslas are, effectively, autos running on coal. Emissions free? My ass.
No question that, on net, electric-motor cars will reduce pollution in our cities. But let’s not forget that Teslas are made in assembly plants, not in green heaven. In Texas, to which Musk moved his headquarters to flee California’s safety and pollution regulations, a Wall Street Journal investigation discovered that Tesla’s Austin plant had been secretly dumping poisons into the Colorado River, the city’s water supply. Skol!
Welfare is Musk’s middle name. Tesla had sold just 2,000 cars in its entire history until, in 2010, the federal government lent Musk nearly half a billion dollars ($465 million) to build his Fremont assembly plant. According to SubsidyTracker.com, Tesla has also pocketed $2,496,769,455 in state and local subsidies. Plus, have we mentioned the $7,500 federal tax credits subsidizing Tesla to the tune of $3.2 billion so far—with $4,700 more per car that for years was tossed in by the California taxpayers he despises? (See above re hypocrisy, shamelessness, irony.)
Fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on, without government welfare, Tesla, by Musk’s admission, would have gone bankrupt in 2019. And, may I note that his SpaceX rocket wouldn’t have gotten off the launchpad without $20 billion in federal contracts? And then there’s the Welfare Champ Division of Tesla, known as “Solar City,” which sucked up—ready for this?—$958 million in subsidies from the State of New York for its Buffalo plant which produces rooftop solar panels and charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs). Tesla is expected to pull in $6 to $12 billion a year from the charging stations subsidized by $7 billion from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. (See above: hypocrisy & etc.)
And remember that Tesla’s Solar City operation wouldn’t be worth a can of Spam if not for the massive government payouts and tax breaks for solar panels. Throw in cheap power deals and credits from electric companies for home-charging, imposed on utility ratepayers by government regulators. Call it the Green New Dole.
There are damn good reasons for taxpayers to subsidize going green, and for regulators to order GM to pay for Musk’s boytoys. However, in the end, Musk’s genius is not in his ability to design a better product but in his entrepreneurial skill in getting his snout into the public trough.
How to Put Musk Out of Business: End Tariff Terrorism
How would you like to own a new Tesla Model 3 that can go 353 miles on a charge, jump from a standstill to 62 mph in 3.8 seconds—and costs less than $25,000?
Sure, you’d buy one. But you can’t. Because Tesla doesn’t make one. But Chinese manufacturer BYD does.
How do you get one? You can’t. Because the U.S. imposes a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
Willing to give up some range and size? You can get a BYD Seagull EV for $10,000—just $2,500 after the $7,500 federal EV rebate.
Let me repeat that without government-imposed tariffs and restrictions you could buy a 100% electric compact for $2,500. (Note: It’s estimated that transport and changes to meet U.S. safety rules would add $2,000—offset in many states by tax rebates and utility subsidies.)
Think about it. Imagine if Americans could buy a new EV compact for the price of a good bicycle, or a luxury sedan that beats the Model 3 to death for just $25K. But trade barriers keep America from driving green and cheap. As one auto executive said, Chinese EVs are so good that without trade barriers, “They would pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.” The executive? Elon Musk. Without the tariff barriers and other government restrictions on Chinese EVs, Musk would be living in a cardboard box on Alvarado Street.
The Musk-protecting laws started with Trump, who, in his first term, imposed a 25% tariff on Chinese EVs. As Joe Biden pointed out in his (cringe here) debate with Trump, tariffs are a hidden sales tax. But then, as Trump triumphantly pointed out, Biden kept the Trump tariffs in place. In fact, Biden quadrupled the EV tax to 100%!
This is far worse as a hidden sales tax. After all, Biden was klonged by voters because of high inflation. Inflation would plummet because automobile costs make up nearly 16% of the Consumer Price Index measure of inflation.
If consumers could buy a new EV for $2,500 we would all but wipe combustion engines off America’s roads before the next car commercial. And the price of gasoline would nosedive because the wheels would fall off demand for oil. But no one would care because, hey, no one would need gasoline.
We are denied cheap cars because Trump and Biden played the ethically reprehensible game of terrorizing union auto workers by claiming that without tariffs they’d lose their jobs.
Yes, I am aware that opening the gates to dirt cheap Chinese cars would lead to closures of U.S. auto plants. But we keep saying there’s a climate emergency. Either we have an emergency or we don’t. If this is a real emergency, we should welcome a nation helping us get to “net zero” by Thursday. Then, we should help auto workers as FDR did in the 1930s, creating needed jobs at full union wages. (But that’s for another column.) Instead, Biden purchased the UAW’s endorsement by making Americans wildly overpay for cars. But, in the end, that didn’t work out too well for Joe or Kamala. Nearly half of union households voted for Trump.
I must note that recently, just days after BYD announced new price cuts, Trump said he’ll add an additional 20% tariff (to 120%!) on Chinese EVs to make sure you are pushed into buying a Musk-mobile.
Worse, the massive “hidden tax” on automobiles was not enough for Biden. He also imposed a 50% tariff on Chinese solar cells, yet Musk didn’t even send Biden a thank you note for this billion-dollar giveaway to Solar City. Even worse, to make sure you can’t get a low-cost car Biden blocked the $7,500 credit for EVs powered by Chinese batteries. Still no thank you note from Musk after protecting his Nevada and Texas battery-making “Gigafactories” with these new tariffs.
Once again, why are we massively taxing, via tariffs, solar panels and batteries in the midst of a climate crisis? I am doing my best not to make an inappropriate joke about cognitive impairment.
Some smarty-pants at BYD realized that the way to get their cheap EVs into the U.S. would be to build a plant in Mexico, which could export to the U.S. tariff-free under NAFTA’s new incarnation, the USMCA trade pact. But, with Trump threatening literally to demolish Mexico’s economy with giant across-the-board tariffs, Mexico’s new president got the message and cancelled the new BYD plant. Musk must be grinning—his $130 million contribution to Trump has already paid for itself 40 times over.
What can we do now?
Instead of raiding the White House refrigerator for Thanksgiving leftovers, Biden should immediately eliminate all tariffs on EVs, solar panels, and batteries. Look, I’m not in love with China’s dictatorship. But, after all, until Trump came along we didn’t have big tariffs on TVs, toys, or iPhones made in China. Why impose huge tariff taxes on green technology, the products we most need?
And why don’t we encourage BYD to build another plant in the U.S., where the company is already America’s top maker of electric buses? And I’d note that BYD’s California plant, unlike Musk’s plants, is fully unionized.
As Musk is a booster of the Neo-Nazi Great Replacement Theory, it’s only justice that Biden adopt my Musk Replacement Theory and wipe the piggy grin off the uber-grifter’s snout.
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, the Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, the book and the documentary The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, ten other books, and has made many other movies that primarily focus on politics and corporate malfeasance.
This great post of yours, about our materialistic surface reality, is complementary with a so smart other new one: https://beiner.substack.com/p/best-served-cold-luigi-mangione-and. That looks to the same causal realm you look to, about what’s pivotal for redress to what ails us being our connection as one humanity. See this sentence from Alexander Beiner’s post: “The first step in fighting back against our new Technofeudal reality is to create a counter-culture that links status to quality, not quantity.”
Thanks for sharing Greg's piece, Suzanne. He's such an incredible journalist.
This great post of yours, about our materialistic surface reality, is complementary with a so smart other new one: https://beiner.substack.com/p/best-served-cold-luigi-mangione-and. That looks to the same causal realm you look to, about what’s pivotal for redress to what ails us being our connection as one humanity. See this sentence from Alexander Beiner’s post: “The first step in fighting back against our new Technofeudal reality is to create a counter-culture that links status to quality, not quantity.”