Elon Musk is not about to stop getting involved in politics.
It's the opposite, despite the sentiment of Tesla investors, who attribute the electric vehicle manufacturer's stock market rout this year to the increased focus on political issues of the Techno King via the acquisition of Twitter.
Since completing the $44 billion acquisition of the social network on October 27, Musk has used the platform to, as he says, right the wrongs suffered by conservatives on Twitter, other social networks and in the mainstream media.
Based on his tweets, he feels that the progressives or the left wing of the Democratic Party have imposed their ideology on all of society. Two things symbolize, according to Musk, this progressive dominance: wokeism and ESG --environmental, social and corporate governance.
The serial entrepreneur has therefore given himself the mission of restoring a balance, by giving more visibility to conservatives and by combating the activism of progressive ideology. This involves an almost daily criticism of wokeism.
'Omnibus Bill'
He recently went after the word "pronouns," which points to the gender identity debate. In this context, wokeism wants people to stop assuming that gender is binary and to accept that everyone has the right to decide how they want to be referred to: he/his/him, she/hers/her or they/theirs/them.
"Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing those who don’t, is neither good nor kind to anyone," he said on December 11.
His other line of attack is through the criticism of the policies of the Democrats. For example, he called for a Republican vote in the midterm elections last November. He has also indicated that his candidate for the 2024 presidential election is Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
As the end of the current Congress approaches before the Republicans takes control of the House of Representatives in January, Musk has just launched an attack against one of the last important pieces of legislation of the outgoing majority. The Democrats retain control of the Senate.
The billionaire wants to torpedo the $1.7 trillion government funding bill unveiled by Congress, aimed at avoiding a shutdown of the federal government. The "omnibus" budget bill funds the federal government into next year to avoid a shutdown. It won enough support to advance, in the Senate's first procedural vote on December 21.
As he often does with important decisions, he started by organizing a poll. The question submitted to Twitter users was: "Should Congress approve the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill?"
Voters had two options: Yes or No. At the time of writing, more than 3 million Twitter users had already cast their votes. An overwhelming majority (71.4%) answered No. There was only one hour left to vote. Barring a last minute surprise, the "No" vote should largely prevail.
'Small Spending Bill'
"I’m in favor of a small spending bill to keep things running, but common sense suggests that it be the least amount required through the holidays," Musk explained. "Railroading through a giant spending bill that almost no one has read is unlikely to be in the best interests of the people."
"Not no, but HELL NO. They don’t even read it before voting on it!" commented Conservative YouTuber duo The Hodge Twins.
To which Musk replied: "Guaranteed, not one person voting for it has read the whole thing. If we added that basic requirement, legislation would improve dramatically in favor of the people."
It was then that a Twitter user gave him selective details of the allocations of funds from this bill.
"Our $ at work: $410M towards border security for Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, & Oman. $1.5B for membership in global multilateral organizations, including the UN $65M for salmon restoration, $575M for 'family planning' in areas where population growth 'threatens biodiversity.'"
The user added: "Not to mention $45B for Ukraine. No funds for security of our border!"
Musk seemed shocked to see that funds were allocated to certain partner countries of the United States.
"Funds for borders of other countries, but not ours? Is that for real?” Musk reacted.
The opposition of the serial entrepreneur to this "giant bill" is due to the fact that he believes that this is not the time to spend, while a recession is looming. For Musk, there is a lot of waste in this bill, which seems to distribute money to sectors that do not need it.
He was very critical of the fact that the new aid to Ukraine comes with no oversight.
"No oversight!? That sounds as fishy as the random $60M allocation in this bill for Salmon," Musk said.
As a result, he urged Twitter users to reach out to their representatives to tell them what they thought of the bill.
"Whether for or against, please let your elected representatives know what you think about this $1.7 trillion spending bill that they’re trying to pass!" the billionaire requested.
