So Elon Musk blew up the recent bipartisan budget bill with a series of social media posts promoting falsehoods such as the bill contained a 40% pay raise for Congress when the pay raises would have been capped at 3.8% and it provided $3 billion for a new NFL football stadium when no such funding was in the bill. Donald Trump eventually joined the party, demanding that the bill be killed.

It has been reported that neither Musk nor Trump got what they really wanted in the funding bill that eventually passed. For Trump, he didn’t get the elimination of the debt ceiling that he wanted. I suppose it is not surprising that the man who increased the national debt so much in just one term would want to eliminate that constraint. As for Musk, he got exactly what he wanted.

See, Musk owns a very large Tesla plant in China, and he reportedly is planning significant investments in that plant in the form of AI. The original bill would have placed restrictions on high-tech investments in China. The bill that passed has no such restrictions. Oh, and $190 million in research for childhood cancer was removed from the bill that passed the House of Representatives.

Musk paid a reported $44 billion for Twitter to create a propaganda platform. As evidence I offer as examples his posts on the platform, the published allegations of his censuring speech on that platform, and the company’s reported loss of 80% of its value since Musk took over. Combine that with the reported $250 million in campaign contributions to Trump in the recent election and you have quite an investment in a Trump election that Musk intends to get a positive return on.

Under Donald Trump the Republicans are now openly practicing the Golden Rule: He who has the gold rules. But I am sure that Donald Trump and the ultra-wealthy he intends to take with him to Washington will have nothing but the best interest of Mainers in mind.

Bob Lain

Nobleboro