❓ WHAT HAPPENED: Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter) mogul
Elon Musk admitted to the British press that he regrets getting
“too involved” in
politics, while simultaneously complaining that the public does not have enough faith in his predictions. “People don’t realize that
what I’m saying will come to pass,” he
told The Economist in an article published Thursday.
📰 DETAIL: Musk’s political engagement included backing Ron DeSantis’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. After the Florida governor was decisively defeated by President Donald J. Trump, he
pivoted to supporting the Trump campaign, and briefly spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) following Trump’s return to the White House. Musk tacitly acknowledged that DOGE achieved limited results in his interview, saying, “So, the, you know, the goal with the sort of DOGE stuff was to try to
do something about the deficit, which is massive, where the interest payments exceed the amount of money spent on the Department of War… [W]e need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not
wasted or spent on fraudulent activities.” Musk turned on Trump after he left the federal government, and even threatened to start an “America Party” to split the right-wing vote, but has since largely abandoned these efforts. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has become
much more effective on fraud since Musk left the government, spurred by a task force led by Vice President Donald J. Trump and the efforts of citizen journalists such as
Nick Shirley. Meanwhile, former DOGE employees are now forming startups and raising funds to win U.S. military cyber contracts,
pivoting from trying to curb government spending to
pursuing massive government contracts, like many former government employees and contractors.
🎯 IMPACT: Despite expressing regret over getting “too involved” in politics in the U.S., he is currently
intervening in British politics, attempting to undermine Nigel Farage’s surging Reform UK party by
backing Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain splinter faction. This has proved
unsuccessful so far, with Restore far behind Reform in national polls and the overwhelming majority of by-elections (special elections) in which they have participated. Restore is
not even attempting to field a candidate against Farage in Clacton, where the Reform leader is slated to face a special election in the coming months.
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