Elon Musk is sucking up all the oxygen in the media. I hope he enjoys it while it lasts. He’s starting to overshadow President Trump, and that’s one thing a narcissist like Trump won’t tolerate for long.
Donning cool shades and wielding a chainsaw Thursday, Musk was the big star of this year’s annual CPAC conservative confab. He dominated Trump in a recent joint interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Musk and his son were the central figures in the coverage of a recent Oval Office meeting in which Trump played a minor supporting role. It was the worst presidential photo op since Calvin Coolidge wore a Native American headdress. (Pardon me for being woke.)
Musk is doing his best Fred Astaire imitation, defying gravity and dancing on the ceiling. This high wire act only means his fall from grace will be all the more crushing.
A national poll conducted two weeks ago for The Economist finds he is already unpopular and things for him will undoubtedly get worse as the human carnage increases.
Trump’s job rating has also dropped since his second inauguration. When his negatives grow to alarming levels (and they will), the corporate tycoon with a love for the limelight will be the president’s scapegoat. He is disposable like so many of Trump’s former associates. Democrats must remember that weakening the president, not Musk, is our ultimate goal. We should make it clear that Musk is doing Trump’s bidding and not the other way around.
More than 60 percent of the public believes Musk has a lot of influence over Trump, but only one in five Americans want him to. Even one out of three Republicans believe the corporate titan has too much influence over the president.
Trump has thrown in with uber-rich tech titans such as Musk, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jeff Bezos of Amazon and the Washington Post. A recent drama over at the Post illustrated just how much concentrated power Trump’s corporate cartel possesses. The public interest advocacy group Common Cause offered to buy a wrap-around ad criticizing Musk on the front page, back page and a full page inside. After taking the order, the newspaper chickened out and rejected the purchase. The Post’s motto should be changed to “Democracy Dies in Darkness at the Washington Post.”
The Post’s refusal to run the ad is a clear and present danger to freedom of speech. It also demonstrates the crushing chokehold that Trump, Musk and Bezos have on the information arteries that pump blood to the failing heart of American democracy.
Musk is one of the richest men in the world, if not the richest. He is the brain behind the Department of Government Efficiency. He has no reason to care about the poor Americans who will lose home health care or school meals under his brutal regime. In his shotgun quest for efficiency, he’s willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater and quash entire federal agencies that serve millions of people. A better name for his relentless quest would be the Department of Government Eradication, which is the real goal of the president to whom he reports.
Recently, DOGE claimed that it had found $8 billion in wasteful spending in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The New York Times followed up and found the actual figure to be $8 million. If Musk can’t tell the difference between $8 billion and $8 million, what else is he getting wrong? He should not be the guy in charge of efficiency in government spending.
He also is a walking and talking conflict of interest. His massive corporate interests collide head on with his significant government responsibilities. His rocket company, SpaceX, is a federal government contractor.
I’m not the only Bannon who dislikes Musk. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon (no relation) has warned of a brewing MAGA civil war between the old diehard Trump populists and the new dominant corporate wing of Trump World, represented chiefly by Musk. Bannon described it as a battle between the billionaire and working-class elements within the Trump coalition.
Democrats and progressives can exploit this split by emphasizing their commitment to aid the struggling working families who were hoping Trump would deliver on his now forsaken campaign promise to bring prices down on Day One of his new administration.
Divide and conquer has always been an effective method to bring down your enemies. We must exploit the splits within MAGA. Musk may be the wedge we need to separate Trump from his working-class constituency.
Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.
