This idea that Elon Musk has now "lost interest" in politics and governance misses the point. Those were never his interests. He has achieved the final deregulation of all his operations, a flurry of new government business, and an extra boost to his ego.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-pledges-to-be-super-focused-on-x-tesla-247-is-he-done-with-doge

@gleick he's still a fucking Nazi

@gleick

this might be also to do with tesla shareholders making angry noises about him not ceo-ing hard enough

@gleick …at the Nation’s dire expense, he was part of the effort to deconstruct and be part of overthrowing the federal Govt, with the co-conspirator MAGA Congress and the MAGA SCOTUS Arm. People have gone to jail for much less than this. 🔥

@gleick

It's also a lie.

Both Peter Thiel and Charles Koch made similar promises, and then reneged.

It's a PR narrative to postpone blowback & extort the GOP.

The news outlets that disseminate corporate propaganda as "news" are acting as shills.

Peter Thiel used it to get JD Vance one heart attack away from the presidency.

https://fortune.com/2025/05/21/peter-thiel-silicon-valley-trump-administration-elon-musk-jd-vance/

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/peter-thiel-republican-megadonor-wont-fund-candidates-2024-sources-2023-04-26/

https://www.thenerdreich.com/with-j-d-vance-on-trump-ticket-the-nerd-reich-goes-national/

Charles Koch used it to extort climate action rollbacks...

1/

Peter Thiel’s deep protégés: a common thread runs through Trump’s tech team

Vice President J.D. Vance and Elon Musk are among Thiel's Silicon Valley collaborators that now find themselves in Trump's D.C. circle.

Fortune
@Npars01 @gleick There can’t be enough truth told about the Koch crap, Thiel, Leo and the rest.
Nothing good comes from the planet destroying billionaires.
They MUST be contained.

2/

... & the destruction of public lands.

https://energyandpolicy.org/chris-wright-energy-secretary-charles-koch/

https://time.com/7018266/trump-republicans-koch-network-2024/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/national-parks/2025/02/07/national-park-monument-oil-gas-energy-risk/78245755007/

Both Peter Thiel & Charles Koch used their threats of withholding campaign finance to get cronies embedded within the Trump's system of public corruption.

Just like Texas Gov Abbott does with his corrupt donors
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/18/greg-abbott-texas-fundraising-governor-donors/

Musk is still taking investment dollars from petrostate despots to perpetuate their agenda.

Musk is pivoting away from subsidies for...

Chris Wright: Trump’s pick for Energy Secretary is a longtime member of Charles Koch’s political donor network - Energy and Policy

Chris Wright is the CEO of Liberty Energy and Donald Trump's nominee for Energy Secretary. He's also a member of Charles Koch's political donor network.

Energy and Policy
The Man Who Bought The World

The 95-page report, “The Man Who Bought The World: Rights Abuses Linked to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Its Chairman, Mohammad bin Salman,” found that Saudi Arabia’s vast fossil fuel-derived state wealth is effectively controlled by one person, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Human Rights Watch found that the crown prince wields this enormous economic power in a largely arbitrary and highly personalized manner rather than for the Saudi people’s benefit and that the PIF is used to whitewash the Saudi government’s abuses.

Human Rights Watch

@gleick

This will be the template for various sycophants and tech bros in Donald's cult in the near future: put the self-serving fix in, run it out to the point where you really *should* be getting investigated, but then walk away so that, when the whole MLM scam eventually collapses, the judiciary will decide it's not worth coming after you.

A lot of Trump's circle will rotate out in the next year or so, in a similar manner. Donald's got his own personal free pass and a bunch of pre-emptive pardons for anybody he needs to stay on. They know it will all fall apart, but they'll be unfathomably rich by that point and whoever's on clean-up will be too busy to go after them.

They'll all keep all the money, of course.

@gleick
Musk also vacuumed up every piece of information his people could get their grubby paws on, and you can bet he will be using that to benefit his businesses and influence any elections he decides might affect him.
@gleick And data. It was a massive data heist and almost certainly left back doors to critical systems as he went.

@gleick

It was always a "I'll get in with these morons, flip all that I can to help my businesses and then make an ungraceful exit so that the media focus on the drama and not on the destruction and my personal gain..." sort of thing.

Flaming Cheeto (@PizzaDemon@mastodon.online)

Attached: 2 images The main goal is probably unitary executive power impoundment but EM's side hustle with a trillion tokens no one else has... #USPol #AI

Mastodon
@gleick all that avoiding the 130 days time limit above which he would have to testify... So yep, almighy resource extraction only a master parasit can achieve