Elon Musk warned America of billionaires pulling the strings of candidates who will end up doing their bidding. Fortunately, that obviously won’t happen now with Donald Trump back in office.
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In recent weeks, Elon Musk has been railing about the “Democratic machine” (which seems a bit broken right this moment) that was pulling the strings of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
His theory seems to be that they were completely replaceable and had merely served as puppets for unnamed masters.
Obviously, that strategy backfired colossally on Tuesday, so we don’t have to worry about it for another four years until those wily Democrats find another unwitting stooge to do their bidding.
However, we want to be prepared for that next time, so it’s worth examining what that would look like.
The way Musk talked about it seemed a bit abstract.
What do these masters want? How did they get their puppets elected? What would happen after they win?
To better explain the concept, here is a completely made-up example:
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that there is an incredibly wealthy person who is pursuing a specific agenda… like keeping America white or space exploration or getting the government off his back with pesky regulations. You know, random stuff.
However, our puppet master either wants to stay in the background or cannot himself run for president for any number of reasons. For example, he may not be 35 years old yet, or he was born in South Africa.
Again, we are just spitballing here.
So what does this Great Replacement-loving, free-wheeling titan of industry do to get his way?
He finds himself somebody who can get elected president.
Ideally, this would be someone who already has the support of whatever demographics are needed to win. Like xenophobes or angry dudes.
And then, our puppet master goes to work.
Due to his immense wealth, he would be able to assist the candidate in any number of ways. Some of them would be quite big… like donating at least $118 million dollars (just to name a random figure), or purchasing a social media platform and then running it for a couple of years as a propaganda tool for that candidate.
Others ways would be smaller and perhaps more insidious. For example, let’s say there was a watchdog group that kept tabs on our preferred candidate. To get them to stop doing that, such a mastermind could sue them and use his unlimited resources to tie that organization up in litigation (obviously, this is an example we conjured up out of thin air).
Then, when his puppet wins, he can cash in.
Since people will likely have figured out his identity and know of the close relationship he has with the incoming president, any companies he owns would probably skyrocket in value, which means he can recoup his “investment” before the new administration even takes office.
And then, he could use the power of the federal government to benefit his own businesses, for example by securing contracts or freezing out competitors.
It’s tough to imagine what that would look like, but, off the top of our heads, let’s just imagine the puppet master owns some kind of space company that provides a satellite service.
This could either be done through lobbying the president, who would likely take the calls of his benefactor day and night, or by working his way into some sort of advisory position.
If that sounds pretty bad, don’t worry, America, because you obviously dodged that bullet on Election Day… but let’s be vigilant to make sure this type of thing doesn’t happen going forward.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
