LOOKING FOR A STICKER OR MAGNET?
Elon Musk sold Tesla vehicles to people with Democratic ideals for more than a decade, before he turned on them.
Democrats were among the first to embrace the Tesla brand.
They fell in love with the products: the sporty Roadster, unveiled in 2006 and launched in 2008; the sports sedan Model S, launched in 2012; and the Model X, a SUV, launched in 2015. By the time the Tesla Model 3 was released in 2017, with a goal of making driving electric vehicles affordable for the masses, the company had the lion’s share of EV sales in the United States. The Model 3, and later the Model Y, would become the top-selling electric vehicles int he world.
Tesla wasn’t considered a mere car company, really; it’s been called a technology company. Even an energy company. It, and Elon Musk’s other companies, seemed to be working to solve the problems of our world’s future! Transportation. Solar energy. Travel to outer space. It was easy for Tesla (and Elon Musk) fans aligned with the company’s mission to believe that their purchase was supporting something more.
The fact that they felt that they were supporting a company that embraced the same ideals that they did may have had some impact on their choice of a vehicle.
The company routinely touted the fact that it was “accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy.” Sustainability has been a core belief of those on the left for decades, and the company seemed to embrace it, offering up quotes like “the faster the world stops relying on fossil fuels and moves towards a zero-emission future, the better.”
The company also embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion, touting their inclusive policies in impact reports for shareholders and tweets. Democrats have long believed in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and often make purchase decisions based on these ideals. This, to many, may have seemed like yet another reason to back the Tesla brand.
After more than a decade of selling millions of vehicles Elon Musk cashed in the value of his Tesla shares and leveraged it to invest in a future of a different direction.
He would spend hundreds of millions of dollars bankrolling the presidential campaign of a man who stands for the polar opposite of everything so many of those customers stood for: Donald Trump.
How sustainable is Tesla? DEI https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/downloads/2020-DEI-impact-report.pdf Impact report 2021 https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2021-tesla-impact-report.pdf Impact report 2023 https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2023-tesla-impact-report-highlights.pdf
Recent Twitter finds: the sentiment around Tesla is not what it used to be.
TESLA > ELON
I became a Tesla owner in 2021, when my brother gave me a Tesla Model 3 for my birthday.
I knew nothing about Elon Musk when I first acquired the car. What I learned early on, I liked. He seemed like a modern-day Tony Stark, using his riches to buy companies and help them find their way toward profitability and success. Tesla. SpaceX. The Boring Company. NeuraLink. These were all things the world should be excited about, I thought. I was glad that happenstance had helped me find my way into the Tesla family.
I spent the next four years making electric vehicles - and especially EV road trips and ‘Teslacamping’ - a prominent portion of my identity.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, since the 2024 election results, I've been asked over and over, what I think of being a Tesla owner now.
My friends know that I am a lifelong Democrat. More importantly, they know that I have always felt strongly about wealth inequality and the damage that it does to people across this country.
They want to know if I feel any differently about this car, now, in the wake of the Elon Musk/Donald Trump partnership.
With every billionaire added to the cabinet, I get asked the question.
And with every department cut and mass layoff, I get asked the question.
As the activities of Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) play out, with every department cut and mass layoff, I get asked the question.
“Any regrets being a Tesla owner, now?”
I tell them all the same thing.
“I love my Tesla. But I wouldn't brake for Elon Musk.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
I know that the chances of my paths crossing with Elon Musk’s are slim to none.
But the statement above captures both my enthusiasm for the brand - which has admittedly waned a bit in recent months - and the strong feelings I’ve always had about the concentration of so much of a nation’s wealth in the hands of a tiny few.
(From the photo montage above, I am one of many, many Americans who feel the same).
I hate that Tesla, a company that once had so much potential as a symbol of good, has in 2025 become a vehicle for political scorn and derision.
And I regret that I was ever one of the millions of American who ever thought of Elon Musk as someone more than what he’s revealed himself to be: nothing more than a symbol for insatiable greed.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“Elon’s just a visionary doing what nobody else ever could for the US government!”
Or, maybe…
“You’re just mad because Elon’s finding all this Waste, Fraud & Abuse!™
Or, maybe even…
“Our government is not for sale!”
Just kidding. At least with that last one you must know better?
OUR GOVERNMENT IS, QUITE LITERALLY, FOR SALE…
Most of us have felt that our government is basically owned by the richest among us for quite some time now.
Big-dollar donations have poured into elections ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ‘Citizen’s United’ decision.
Billionaires on both sides of the aisle have made hundreds of millions in political donations in the years since then.
The year 2025, though, has opened the eyes of people who didn’t realize just how easy it was to ‘buy into’ government.
It had always been possible - the process until recently was just much less transparent.
But with Republicans having control of all three branches of government beginning in 2025, the need for secrecy, it would seem, would go out the window.
Let me explain…
In the fall of 2024 the World’s Richest Man™ decided to transition from world-renowned business owner to hyperpartisan politico.
He would go on to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign of Donald Trump, most of it in the months leading up to November - all but assuring Trump’s re-election.
The partnership would appear odd, on the surface, to many.
Trump had a reputation for being anti-environment, and anti-EV. Pro oil and gas.
Musk, the polar opposite.
More importantly, Musk had developed a customer base of consumers who saw him - and their purchase of his Tesla products - as improving the world.
The two would not seem to be a match made in heaven.
INSULTS TO TESLA FROM TRUMP:
https://mashable.com/article/donald-trump-elon-musk-feud-twitter
In fact, Musk was reported to have referred to Trump as a “fucking moron” - remarks overheard in the Oval Office during a meeting between the two - in 2020.
And in 2022 Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to claiming in a post that Musk would be "worthless" and his business ventures would have failed without government subsidies that Musk supposedly asked Trump to approve.
Trump also publicly ridiculed Musk's products, saying his companies like Tesla and SpaceX have produced "driverless cars that crash" and "rocketships to nowhere," while calling Twitter "perhaps worthless.”
At the very least, the two would not appear headed toward a partnership…
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
“Politics makes strange bedfellows.”
That quote, adapted from a line in the play ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare, actually reads “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
And either might apply here.
Before he became a crusader against government funding, Elon Musk was one of the biggest recipients of it. He, and his companies, received at least $38 billion.
Some say that Musk’s shift to the right started after he was left out of President Joe Biden’s EV summit in November 2021, when Biden invited automobile manufacturers to a gathering - but did not invite Musk, perhaps out of deference to automotive worker unions. (Musk is famously anti-union, and Tesla is a non-union shop).
At that meeting Biden apparently angered Musk when he praised General Motors CEO Mary Barra, telling her that she “electrified the entire automotive industry.” His comments seemed to disregard the progress Tesla had made.
And, feeling excluded, some believe, Musk plotted to align his values with the Republican Party - a party which even he admitted he had not seemingly supported before - and help them win the White House as some sort of revenge.
After the election, in response to a tweet stating “the worst move by the Democrats with Elon Musk: Joe Biden at the EV Summit where he didn’t invite Tesla and he told GM and Mary that they led the EV revolution,” Musk would tweet “You will not find a better friend than me, nor a worse enemy.”
Others would note that Elon Musk’s shift to the right seemed to begin in 2019, after Democratic congressman and foil-of-the-right Alexandria O’Casio-Cortez proposed that the most wealthy Americans be taxed at a rate of 70%.
The billionaires were “alarmed”, according to The Washington Post.
Musk’s shift may have become more dramatic in 2022, when he and AOC two became embroiled in a Twitter beef over her proposals. The hashtag #AOCLovesElon would trend on Twitter. (The two have battled in the social media space a number of times since then).
Could Elon’s sudden interest in right-wing politics have been nothing more than an effort to keep as much of his earnings as possible, and an organized campaign to slap down the party pushing policies centered around taxing the rich?
Some say that Musk’s embrace of the far right was a simple business decision. His purchase of the Twitter platform left him in need of an expanded user base, and Trump supporters were looking for a platform they could call their own. At the same time, Musk’s removal of fact-checking and moderation teams - a cost-cutting measure - left the platform the perfect breeding ground for content that was at the time moderated on other platforms. Twitter died, and X was born, quickly becoming the preferred gathering place for the alt right, and leading those on the left to flee for platforms like TikTok and BlueSky.
Getting Trump back to ‘mean tweeting’ would be the feather in Musk’s cap.
Others would say that the sentiments weren’t sudden at all - that his shift may been more external in nature, and that he’d always harbored many of the same ideals as those on the far right but resisted showing his true self in public out of deference for the successes of his businesses.
Was Elon Musk always transphobic, racist, anti-semitic, and sexist?
Some would say yes:
Had he always had a problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion - even before he began a crusade to end those protections for marginalized workers?
Had his upbringing in Apartheid South Africa, or his descending from Nazi lineage, influenced him, leading him to support Trump, as well as the German neo-Nazi party Alternative for Deutschland or AfD and the British Reform Party?
Perhaps these things had always lurked beneath the surface, and finally came to the forefront in time for election 2024.
Or, perhaps, Elon Musk just wanted to avoid going to prison, and believed that Republicans were his best hope for that?
“If he loses, I’m fucked,” Musk told Tucker Carlson of the Republican nominee in an interview broadcast on X a month before the election. “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Will I see my children? I don’t know.”
[Read Robert Reich’s article on Substack about the many laws that Musk has likely violated.]
Regardless of the reasons behind his suddenly swerving to the right, Musk would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, donating to Political Action Committees - some of which he formed - and to the candidate himself.
In the days leading up to the election, he was even pledging to pay voters millions of dollars directly in a $1 million dollar a day sweepstakes, a scheme which appeared to be designed to get around rules intended to keep the wealthy from buying votes directly.
And, in the end, Republicans would win.
And while falling short of the mandate they have continuously claimed ever since - Trump actually won with less than half of American voters supporting him - he would win the White House, nonetheless.
Trump would avoid consequences for the crimes he’d been previously convicted of.
Elon Musk would not go to prison.
And the Trump 47/Musk era would begin…
Musk, not content to have bought his way into the Executive, and DOGE, would go on to effectively purchase the Republican half of the Legislative Branch, as well, with threats to spend millions more to fund primary opponents for any politicians that did not back the Musk/Trump agenda.
“Musk warned Republican lawmakers in December that he was compiling a “naughty list” of members who buck Trump’s agenda. He also pledged shortly after Election Day that his political action committee would “play a significant role in primaries” next year.”
Republican lawmakers admitted that the threats appeared to be working, especially where Trump’s cabinet picks were concerned.
(Some would privately confess that they were “scared shitless” of Trump’s ire, and his ability to turn his most violent fans on them at a moment’s notice.)
THE HUNT FOR WASTE, FRAUD & AND ABUSE™…
Elon Musk - a billionaire from Praetoria, South Africa, and the World’s Richest Man™, claims to have come into the American government to find “waste, fraud, and abuse”.
He was, it would seem to many Republicans, the only person in the world qualified or capable of doing so.
A billionaire from South Africa - a man who also holds citizenship in the US and Canada, and who has business dealings with China, and Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and many other countries around the globe - was the only person America could trust to get to the bottom of our spending problems.
So Musk was tasked with hunting down Waste, Fraud, & Abuse™.
It didn’t take him long to find it.
In the first month of his new life’s goal, being conducted Only for the Good of America™, Musk fired 200,000 government employees - many said to be members of the Deep State™ - via his presentially-appointed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)™.
All of those positions, he would claim, were nothing more than Wasteful Government Spending.™
Federal employees across many different departments would first be given the opportunity to resign - and, supposedly, be paid for staying home for months.
Shortly thereafter, those who had not taken ‘the deal’ would begin having their jobs cut in ‘mass layoffs’, by Musk and his team.
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the legislative point person from DOGE, would assert that federal workers “don’t deserve their paychecks.”
“They’re consuming taxpayer dollars,” Greene said during a Congressional hearing. “Those jobs are paid for by the American tax people, who work real jobs, earn real income, pay federal taxes and then pay these federal employees.”
Federal jobs, it would seem to Taylor Greene, and Musk, and Trump, and others, aren’t “real jobs” at all!
What if I told you that, in at many of those cases, they’re dead wrong?
They were federal employees - some career employees.
All were Americans.
The government, which has about 3 million employees, is the largest employer in the country.
About 30% of its employees are typically veterans.
Many of these workers had families.
They lost their jobs, and in a country that ties healthcare to employment, they'll go on to lose their healthcare next.
And Elon Musk did all of this “waste-cutting” with absolute glee.
He seemed to enjoy every minute of it.
He and his followers gloated and celebrated wildly as
USDA inspectors, including those at borders and those tasked with bird flu work
All saw their careers unceremoniously ended.
DISPROPORTIONATE EFFECT ON THE DISENFRANCHISED?
What if I told you that America’s most disenfranchised citizens have longed turned to careers with the federal government?
Much of the Black middle class, it is said, were built by federal jobs. For decades the federal government provided both reliable jobs and guardrails to offset systemic racial bias in hiring and promotions, offering an alternative for Black workers who might be overlooked or ignored in the private sector.
While companies like Elon Musk's Tesla were being accused of racism, the federal government served as a safe place for people of color to build careers.
Shortly after declaring diversity, equity, and inclusion to be unfair to white people and ending DEI programs, usk, and Trump began laying off federal workers. In February, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke accused Trump of trying to "purge" non-White workers from the federal government.
People of color aren't the only disenfranchised communities that relied on federal jobs.
For some disabled veterans, a job with the federal government means a chance at a normal life.
(Trump and Musk are said to have fired more than 6,000 veterans in their first six weeks in office - the most of any US presidential administration in history.)
As of February 26, Rep. Derek Tran, a freshman Democratic congressman and Army veteran, had introduced a bill to protect the jobs of veterans during the mass firings instituted by Trump and Musk.
ZERO EMPATHY
Musk laid off people - Americans all, including minorities, and the disabled - knowing full well that many would struggle to obtain work in the private sector, where these groups are hired at a lower rate than by the federal government.
And he conducted all of this “waste, fraud, and abuse” cutting with absolute glee!
Right wing sycophants - of which Musk has many - egged him on, celebrating the ousters of department heads and the firings of rank-and-file employees alike. To many Republicans the federal government is “the enemy”, and Elon Musk and his team of DOGE was absolutely slaying during those weeks.
Musk even spent time at conservatives’ CPAC conference revving up a chainsaw onstage - he called it the “chainsaw of bureaucracy” - a symbol of how he laid waste to the federal government in just a matter of days.
So much celebrating of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse™!
But at the same time, celebrating lives and careers destroyed…
DOES MUSK REALLY CARE ABOUT WASTE, FRAUD & ABUSE™?!
What if I told you that many Democrats, and even some Republicans, were skeptical that Musk’s hunt for Waste, Fraud, and Abuse™ - and the mass layoffs and department cuts that followed - were really about “waste”, “fraud”, or “abuse” at all?
The many, many conflicts of interest that would arise - and be dismissed by Musk and those in the Trump campaign - seemed outrageous to some.
Many of Elon Musk’s companies would appear to directly benefit from his interventions - as would Musk himself.
Among the layoffs DOGE would recommend would be employees from agencies he deals with directly in his business dealings.
For starters, it's important to consider the many programs that Musk and his team found to be wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive.
A tool that helps educators sift through dense curriculum research.
Surveys on school crime.
Long-term studies examining outcomes for high schoolers after graduation.
A program providing prosthetic limbs to soldiers injured in Ukraine.
Clearing landmines in Africa.
Humanitarian aid programs relying heavily on goods and services provided by U.S. companies and nonprofits were ordered shuttered by Musk and Trump.
Compare those “wasteful” programs with worthy programs that Musk and his DOGE team apparently found to be good old-fashioned government spending for The Good of America™.
Flying NASA to the moon - $20.7 billion in government contracts, research grants, and other forms of public assistance
Secretive DoD satellite launches - payments of up to $32 billion
$400 million in EV purchases from Tesla to transport diplomats - this may be canceled following an outcry
Tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal - find the funding anywhere! with the FAA
$2.4 billion for a communications system overhaul - so long as the contract goes from Verizon to SpaceX, instead.
USAID
Among the first agencies on the chopping block: USAID, the agency charged with providing humanitarian aid around the world, including food and healthcare in Africa, and Food for Peace, the government's longest-running permanent program for international food assistance - as well as thousand of US farmers receiving subsidies as a part of that program.
USAID had previously provided over a million dollars in funding to SpaceX for its Starlink satellites. Its inspector general had initiated a probe into Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine.
In January, Elon Musk froze the funding of the agency and put dozens of its employees on leave.
“With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with (Trump) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said in a X Spaces conversation on February 3.
In citing the need to shutter the program, Musk and Trump repeatedly referred to funding they claimed DOGE discovered providing for “$50 million for condoms to Gaza.” No evidence of this would ever be shown. He also posted on Twitter/X that taxes should be used to better the lives of Americans, not those outside of the US.
CONSUMER FINANCE PROTECTION BUREAU
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) was created in 2010 to regulate the financial services industry and protect consumers. The CFPB was a response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis. The agency has jurisdiction over financial products and services from many companies, including banks, credit unions, mortgage lenders, and debt collectors.
Musk and DOGE announced plans to shutter the agency through a change in leadership - Trump fired CFPB Director Rohit Chopra before naming Heritage Foundation head and Project 2025 architect Russel Vought Acting Director. (Musk himself would tweet “RIP CFRB” with a tombstone emoji). Soon, mass layoffs would begin…
On the surface, it might seem difficult to fathom why any politician would want to shut down a popular agency whose sole purpose is to protect consumers.
$17.5 billion returned directly to Americans in the form of monetary compensation, principal reductions, canceled debts, and other consumer relief resulting from CFPB enforcement and supervision work.
$4 billion imposed in civil money penalties on companies and individuals that violate the law - deposited into the victims relief fund providing compensation to people who have been harmed by violations of federal consumer financial protection law.
$175 million in monetary relief, the result of 39 public enforcement actions that involved harm to servicemembers and veterans.
Republicans, it would seem, had their sights set on the CFPB for some time. Their donors - including many companies from the financial sector - were often targets of the agency’s investigations. In the years that the CFPB operated, some of America’s largest banks were charged with all manner of misdeeds:
Double-dipping on non-sufficient fund fees
Opening unauthorized consumer financial accounts
Making misleading statements regarding certain credit card rewards
Violating laws in auto loans and mortgage product lines
The agency would also target junk fees, deceptive marketing practices from credit bureaus, and loan companies. You can read many of their accomplishments here.
The answer to why anyone would want an agency doing such good work shut down is as transparent as glass: the companies, themselves, donate to Republican lawmakers who as a result would seem to have no qualms about fighting for the ending of consumer protection.
Musk, too, would seem to benefit from the CFPB being shut down.
The bureau had received more than 300 complaints regarding Tesla financing, and was investigating those.
(That agency also had plans to regulate his social media platform X when it begins offering in-app payments in the future).
With the actions of Musk, DOGE, and Trump, all of those investigations and potential for regulations go away…
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
In February, in what CNN called a “dream come true” for Musk, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was essentially shut down after President Donald Trump fired one of its board members, leaving it without the quorum it needs to function.
The NLRB had sued SpaceX after eight employees alleged they were fired for speaking critically of Musk, after they wrote management a letter asking them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media, including “inappropriate, disparaging, sexually charged comments on Twitter.” They stated that Musk’s behavior created a hostile work environment, and that they were seeking leadership accountability and enforcement of SpaceX’s “No Asshole” policy.
(SpaceX sued the NLRB in response, arguing against the agency’s order to hold a proceeding on the complaints, alleging that the proceeding is unlawful and the structure of NLRB violates Article II of the United States Constitution, as well as the Fifth and Seventh amendments.)
Tesla had also been on the receiving end of NLRB enforcement, after Musk was ordered to remove a three year-old tweet threatening to take away stock options for employees who voted to unionize. It ruled that Tesla and its CEO engaged in illegal actions against US employees trying to organize a union, via the tweet and other actions, including interrogating employees about their union activities, and disciplining or otherwise discriminating against employees because they support the union. (One employee was ordered to be rehired).
The NLRB has battled other companies on their anti-union behavior, including billionaire Jeff Bezo's Amazon and billionaire Howard Schultz’s Starbucks, both notoriously anti-union.
During a discussion about government spending in August 2024, Donald Trump praised Musk for firing workers who went on strike.
“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump told Musk. “I look at what you do. You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ I won’t mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say, ’That’s OK. You’re all gone.'” He and Musk concluded by having a laugh at his remarks.
The United Auto Workers union later filed a complaint against Tesla with the NLRB, which was investigating.
For the time being, any investigations are likely on hold. In Trump’s firing of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, he had announced that her firing was because her record showed she was “unduly disfavoring the interests of employers large and small.” Questions about the impartiality of any future investigations in a cabinet stacked with billionaires and business owners would appear to be moot.
EEOC
Elon Musk’s Tesla has repeatedly been hit with damages in racism suits by individual workers and is also fighting claims by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California’s civil rights agency.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's lawsuit against the company alleging racial discrimination at its Fremont, California car plant was filed in 2023. In April 2024 a federal judge gave the green light for the agency to proceed with its suit for "severe or pervasive racial harassment" of workers, ruling that almost 6,000 Black workers from Tesla Inc.’s California factory. (That suit joins two lawsuits currently pending in Alameda County Superior Court that also allege there has been a racially hostile work environment at the factory).
The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by Tesla worker Marcus Vaughn, who claimed that the factory production floor was a “hotbed of racist behavior.” According to the complaint, co-workers and supervisors routinely used racial slurs, and employee complaints to human resources went largely unanswered.
The judge said that among the EEOC's allegations were that non-Black managers and employees repeatedly used the N-word to address Black employees. She quoted another federal judge who wrote, "Perhaps no single act can more quickly alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment than the use of an unambiguously racial epithet such as [the N-word] by a supervisor in the presence of his subordinates."
Tesla had already settled a racist discrimination lawsuit in March 2024 which a federal jury previously to Owen Diaz, a Black man who worked as an elevator operator at its Fremont, California factory in 2015.
“When I started this case, I suggested that the conduct would stop if Elon Musk would make a statement and a commitment to his employees that this is not tolerated. We haven’t heard that after seven years of litigation, a nine-figure verdict then a seven-figure verdict. Why isn’t he stopping this conduct? That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Tesla is supposed to be the factory of the future. But this conduct is from the Jim Crow past.” Attorney Lawrence Organ, with the California Civil Rights Law Group, said.
Trump targeted enforcement of race-based protections on his first day in office, signing an executive order on Inauguration Day which many believe spells the end of the EEOC investigation into Tesla and its alleged racist practices.
FAA
Musk’s SpaceX had been the target of investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration, whose administrator, Michael Whitaker, had proposed fines of more than $600,000 for SpaceX in September 2024. (The agency assessed $350,000 in fines for two violations of the license for a June 2023 launch where SpaceX used a different control center and did not conduct a poll two hours before launch as outlined in its communications plan. It assessed a $283,009 fine for the use of an unapproved propellant tank farm for another launch in July 2023).
SpaceX criticized the fines, saying that their actions had not affected safety and, besides, the FAA was too slow to approve permits.
After Trump was elected, Musk demanded the FAA head resign, and he did, leaving his post on January 20.
Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, would promise TX Senator Ted Cruz during his confirmation hearing that he would “commit to doing a review and working with you in following up on the space launches and what’s been happening at the FAA.”
“Fines like these, in my judgement, are not only corrosive but are counter to U.S. law, which states that DOT should ‘encourage, facilitate and promote’ commercial space, not stymie, curtail and obstruct it,” Cruz said, asking Duffy to also examine “curtailing bureaucratic overreach” for commercial launches.
Musk, apparently, would agree. Soon hundreds of FAA employees would be fired.
Soon after, it was announced that Musk’s SpaceX team would be sent in to overhaul the entire system - signaling potentially billions more in government contracts for the company.
In the wake of that, Musk would declare that his competitor, Verizon, was incapable of maintaining a contract already awarded - and that the only company that could deliver was his company, SpaceX.
Go figure.
SEC
In February 2024 Musk’s DOGE announced it would “audit the SEC” - to much celebrating from Republicans and those on the far right.
This would appear to present a major conflict of interest, as Musk and the SEC have been at odds for years and the agency has an active lawsuit against him for what they allege to be a violation of securities law. (They allege that the X owner misled shareholders about his Twitter stock purchases in 2022, enabling him to purchase shares of Twitter at artificially low prices before his $44 billion takeover of the social media site).
Even before that, Musk had been accused of manipulating stock prices at Tesla with misleading - and some might say dishonest - tweets regarding taking the company private.
A requirement that Musk get all tweets approved by a Tesla attorney before being published - a requirement that he has been accused of ignoring since.
Trump vowed to fire the SEC Chair Gary Gensler “on day one”; Gensler stepped down before Trump could fire him, leaving a Republican majority at the SEC, and Musk and DOGE to "investigate” the agency once charged with investigating him.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (DOT) & NHTSA:
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was established by the Highway Safety Act of 1970.
Their mission is to:
Save lives
Prevent injuries
Reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes
Encourage Americans to make safer choices when they drive, ride, and walk
One of their functions is to investigate complaints into automobile crashes. In the 55 years the agency has been working, they’ve been crediting with reducing traffic deaths - those dropped from over 52,000 to about 36,000 between 1970 and 2019, even though the population grew - as well as increasing seat belt use (up 91%), mandating safety features like electronic stability control and tire pressure monitoring systems, and setting set a "quiet car" safety standard to protect pedestrians.
In February, it was announced that Musk and DOGE would cut at least 10% of the agency’s employees.
Also potentially on the chopping block: multiple NHTSA crash investigations into Tesla’s partially automated vehicles.
One investigation was closed last April 2024 after the agency pressured Tesla into recalling its vehicles to bolster a weak system that made sure drivers are paying attention. A few weeks after the recall that changed that system, in October 2024 the NHTSB began investigating Tesla following reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian and another that caused an injury.
Tesla has twice recalled “Full Self-Driving” under pressure from NHTSA, which in July sought information from law enforcement and the company after a Tesla using the system struck and killed a motorcyclist near Seattle. The recalls were issued because the system was programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds and because the system disobeyed other traffic laws. Both problems were to be fixed with online software updates.
Critics have said that Tesla’s system, which uses only cameras to spot hazards, doesn’t have proper sensors to be fully self driving. Nearly all other companies working on autonomous vehicles use radar and laser sensors in addition to cameras to see better in the dark or poor visibility conditions.
NHTSA began its Autopilot crash investigation in 2021, after receiving 11 reports that Teslas that were using Autopilot struck parked emergency vehicles. In documents explaining why the investigation was ended, NHTSA said it ultimately found 467 crashes involving Autopilot resulting in 54 injuries and 14 deaths. Autopilot is a fancy version of cruise control, while “Full Self-Driving” has been billed by Musk as capable of driving without human intervention.
Another Justice Department criminal probe examining whether Musk and Tesla have overstated their cars’ self-driving capabilities; and a government mandate to report crash data on vehicles using technology like Tesla’s Autopilot, could be “deleted” as well. The consequences of such actions could prove dire, say safety advocates who credit the federal investigations and recalls with saving lives.
“Musk wants to run the Department of Transportation,” said Missy Cummings, a former senior safety adviser at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “I’ve lost count of the number of investigations that are underway with Tesla. They will all be gone.”
USDA: ANIMAL ABUSE
Musk’s Neuralink company, working to treat neurological disorders like paralysis with brain-embedded chip implants, has been investigated for animal abuse.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a group that campaigns for alternatives to animal testing, obtained public records detailing the experiments that Neuralink was conducting on rhesus monkeys, sheep, pigs, mice and rats. The findings were gruesome:
One rhesus macaque monkey’s nausea was “so severe that the animal vomited and had open sores in her esophagus before she was finally killed,” according to Ryan Merkley, PCRM’s director of research advocacy.
Surgeons used an unapproved adhesive to fill open spaces in an animal’s skull, created from implanting the Neuralink device, “which then caused the animal to suffer greatly due to brain hemorrhaging.”
“Instances of animals suffering from chronic infections, like staph infections where the implant was in their head. There were animals pulling out their hair and self-mutilating, which are signs of really poor psychological health in laboratory animals and are very common in rhesus macaques” and other primates.
Since 2018, the company has tested on and killed at least 1,500 animals — over 280 sheep, pigs, and monkeys, as well as mice and rats.
You read read the entire report from VOX here.
The animal testing laboratory was found to have "objectionable conditions or practices" by the Food and Drug Administration, which cited the company and urged it to address the problems. FDA inspectors identified the issues at Neuralink's animal testing facilities in California in June 2023, several weeks after the agency had given the company the green light for a small study of its brain implant in humans, according to a letter to Congress. (It had initially rejected the company’s request to begin clinical trials over safety concerns).
In February 2025, the FDA official overseeing the team that reviews Neuralink’s implants, Ross Segan, director of the Office of Product Evaluation and Quality at the FDA’s medical device center, was let go. At least 11 of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, which oversees medical device reviews, would later be rehired, according to Reuters, as DOGE and Musk were forced to ‘claw back’ thousands of abrupt firings, amid public outcry.
EPA & DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR: THE ENVIRONMENT
EPA regulators have settled multiple lawsuits with Tesla over violations of the Clean Air Act and hazardous waste laws at the company’s automotive manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
The EPA Inspector General was fired by Trump.
The Department of the Interior oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which monitors the federal lands near SpaceX’s launch site in Texas for any damage to threatened species’ habitats. Elon Musk has tweeted that he considers DOI reviews to be “unacceptable.”
The DOI Inspector General was fired by Trump.
AND MANY OTHERS…
On top of those listed here, there are complaints and/or lawsuits pending with a number of agencies against Musk, most of which stand a good chance of going away as the result of Musk’s close association with Trump, and his involvement with DOGE.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is investigating a number of complaint filed during the last election cycle.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has expressed concerns that Musk’s visits with heads of states with which Musk’s companies have business could result in state secrets being revealed.
The director the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) - the very office normally charged with investigating the many apparent (and some seemingly obvious) conflicts of interest listed here - was recently fired by Trump.
The list of the benefits that Elon Musk and his companies appear to be gleaning from his heavy-handed agency cutting and mass firings under the guise of “waste, fraud, and abuse” are just too plentiful to keep up on here.
For a full list of them, the House Committee on the Judiciary has prepared a fact sheet entitled Trump Administration, DOGE Punish Agencies Investigation Elon Musk’s Companies. You can read that here in PDF format.
You can also read this article from The New York Times, which provided a very detailed overview.
LAWSUITS DROPPED
February 2025 was a good month for Musk’s companies where private lawsuits were concerned, as well.
A lawsuit filed against the company by the South Texas environmental group ‘Save RGV’ was voluntarily dismissed, ending one of the ongoing environmental debates surrounding the company’s Boca Chica launch site. (The suit alleged that SpaceX was polluting local waters in violation of the Clean Water Act. The lawsuit aimed to compel SpaceX to comply with environmental regulations or face penalties.)
DOGE - A CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
Even the name “DOGE”, the anagram chosen for the Department of Government Efficiency - would appear to be a conflict of interest in itself.
For those who don’t know, Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered the first "meme coin”. And it is beloved by Elon Musk and his loyal followers on Twitter.
In April 2023, a Dogecoin increase in value of more than 30% was attributed to Elon Musk temporarily changing the logo on the Twitter app to ta Doge logo.
In June 2023, Musk was accused of insider trading by investors based on a series of stunts including the change of the logo.
In August 2024, Musk and Tesla won the dismissal of a federal lawsuit accusing them of defrauding investors by hyping the cryptocurrency dogecoin and conducting insider trading, causing billions of dollars of losses. In dismissing the lawsuit, the judge stated that reasonable investors shouldn’t base investments solely on tweets.
(Some would argue that the tweets of the World’s Richest Man, and the owner of the platform, might be given more weight by investors than ordinary tweets. The judge, apparently, was unconvinced).
So naming an entire governmental agency DOGE - well, any normal person can see where that could be very profitable for those who hold a stake in Dogecoin.
And the logo? The official DOGE logo is arguably the first governmental agency to have a logo fashioned after a meme coin. (The first version would make only but a brief appearance, before being yanked down in less than 24 hours).
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS BENEFITS
Musk’s purchase of the Executive Branch of the federal government may offer benefits to him where legal battles are concerned in other countries, as well.
In September 2024 then-candidate for Vice President JD Vance suggested that American support for NATO should depend on the European Union not regulating Elon Musk and his X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.
“What America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech,” Vance said, after complaining about what he said was a European leader threatening to ban Musk’s Twitter/X.
And in February 2025 Vance appeared to threaten Germany at CPAC, taking aim at their long-standing ban on Holocaust denial and any glorification of the country’s Nazi past in a speech that referenced what many believe is the rise of Nazi-ism on Musk’s Twitter/X platform.
“There are thousands upon thousands of American troops in Germany today. Do you think that the American taxpayer is going to stand for that, if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet? Of course they’re not.”
I’m not sure that the weight of the Office of the Vice President has ever been so publicly thrown around the benefit a private business before - especially threats to other governments! Imagine being a business owner and having the Vice President of the Untied States go to bat for your business - and, apparently, Naziism - by threatening entire countries, and our country’s support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, something we’ve been steadfast in since 1949.
You can’t buy that kind of support.
(Just kidding! It appears you can. For $300 million).
LOVE THE BRAND.
WOULDN’T BRAKE FOR THE CEO.
[Speaking out against the politics of Elon Musk on ‘X’ is a no-no in the ‘Tesla Community’.]
Where does Elon even find them??
Should be some excitement at the next family reunion…
IT’S NOT JUST ELON MUSK - IT’S ALL BILLIONAIRES
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
Elon Musk isn’t the only billionaire using our system of government for his benefit.
What about Bill Gates?
What about George Soros?
So let me say that my level of distain for wealth inequality in this country knows no limits where political party is concerned.
I believe that many of the people who bootlick billionaires across the social media landscape are paid shitposters.
The social response apparatus has repeatedly been shown to be influenced by those with a motive to sew division and discord.
Elections 2016
Elections 2020
Foreign Elections
Take, for example, any Twitter post by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich - one of the nation’s foremost opponents of wealth inequality. His posts are allmost immediate bombarded by responses that fawn over the successes of Elon Musk and other “great men of genius”!
Example
Example
Example
The responses are so fast as to make you wonder how the posters even had time to watch the video or read the article.
They are so over-the-top you have to wonder if the commenters even expect to be taken seriously.
Some appear to be poorly-constructed, as if perhaps written by those for whom English is not their first language - ironic, since Musk and Trump have gone to war against immigrants.
https://x.com/tab8905/status/1893315180186001643
What if I told you that it’s possible to believe that every billionaire is inherently evil - but that Elon Musk, purchaser of governments, is especially heinous?
THE TRUMP TAX CUTS, SEASON 45
The major tax law that President Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress enacted in 2017 was heavily skewed to households with high incomes. It was also expensive, costing $1.9 trillion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2018 estimate. And it failed to deliver the economic gains its backers promised; studies found the benefits didn’t “trickle down” to most workers.
Despite that, Trump supporters - many of them the very people who would be harmed by his policies - fought for them harder than anyone.
Extending the expiring tax cuts would cost $4.2 trillion over the decade 2026-2035, and roughly half of the benefits would go to people making over roughly $320,000 (that is, people with incomes in the top 5 percent).
For more on this, here’s an overview from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
AND MANY CEOS, TOO…
In complaining about wealth inequality, I would be remiss if I left out the corporate officers who have advocated for this system.
The pay for chief executives at major companies in the United States increased by an astonishing 1,085% from 1978 to 2023, while the typical worker's earnings rose by only 24%, as reported by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.
CEOs earned approximately $1.87 million annually in 1978, which ballooned to $22.21 million by last year. In contrast, private-sector workers saw a much more modest change: their annual earnings grew from $57,000 to just $71,000 over the same nearly 50-year period. These figures have been carefully adjusted for inflation, making the comparison even more striking.
In 2023, chief executives earned 290 times the salary of an average worker, a significant increase compared to 1965, when their compensation was only 21 times that of a typical employee.
“CEOs are getting paid more because of their leverage over corporate boards, not because of their skills or contributions they make to their firms,” the EPI report stated. “Exorbitant CEO pay has contributed to rising inequality in recent decades as it has likely pulled up the pay of other top earners—concentrating earnings at the top and leaving fewer gains for ordinary workers.”
In response to growing concerns about exorbitant executive salaries, U.S. lawmakers implemented a cap on the tax deductibility of these payments. However, this well-intentioned measure had an unexpected consequence. Rather than reining in CEO pay, it prompted companies to explore alternative forms of compensation.
Corporations began to rely heavily on stock options and other equity-based rewards, which were not subject to the same tax restrictions. This pivot toward stock-based compensation not only circumvented the salary cap but also aligned executive pay more closely with company performance—at least in theory. The unintended result was a meteoric rise in the earnings of CEOs, as stock market gains amplified the value of these new compensation packages, far outpacing the growth of average worker wages.
DO I REALLY WANT A CEO TO BE KILLED?
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking - justifying killing for any reason is just wrong!
And it’s true: I, like anyone else, I was raised to think that killing is wrong.
So when the Texas Rangers placed barriers in waterways that many said could in the death of migrants trying to come to the USA for a better life, I was against it.
These were human beings. Americans? No. But a life is a life.
I was horrified when Texas military officers prevented federal border officials from aiding women and children, just letting them drown.
Innocent lives lost, and for what?
I supported ending the war in Gaza before it turned into a full-fledged genocide. More than 17,000 children killed - including infants and babies. (Side note: I support bringing the perpetrators of it to justice, even as some in the US honored them with standing ovations).
So many innocent lives just… obliterated.
I supported reasonable gun control reforms when American children were murdered in elementary and secondary schools across the United States.
Sandy Hook Elementary School: 28 killed.
Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas: 22 killed.
Parkland High School: 17 killed.
Santa Fe High School: 10 killed.
And so many, many others.
Many politicians offered nothing more than ‘thoughts and prayers’ after each of these, and some even voted against any meaningful reforms - even measures that were popular with most Americans, like ending the private sale background check exemption.
The result of this disregard for human life, of course, has been scores more deaths in mass shooting after mass shooting across the US - musical festivals, and grocery stores, and even churches and synagogues.
Scores of innocent lives snuffed out - so many of them children. And for what?
I even supported commuting the death sentences of those on death row, because I believe that killing in the name of the judicial system is wrong, and that life in prison is the more appropriate punishment. I was disappointed when Trump announced that he was pushing for more executions on his first day in office.
Guilty lives? Yes. But still lives, nonetheless.
And a life is a life, right?
Taking a life is morally wrong, right?
In each of the cases above I found myself on the side of wanting to stop the killing, even while many who chose to debate me took an opposing viewpoint.
I heard it over and over: that each of those lives lost were ‘collateral damage’, in the case of children killed in Gaza… or an “unavoidable tragedy” - in the cases of drowning migrants and gunned-down schoolchildren.
In fact, some have even referred to the deaths above as “justice” - and not just those lives ended on a gurney by employees of the Justice Department.
No, I saw the old “justice” argument made over and over in the other scenarios, too:
Palestinian children being killed were “justice” for Israel and the events of October 7, 2023
Migrants drowning were “justice” because they tried to enter our country illegally
So while I admit I am not pro-killing, per se, in a country where people are 26 times more likely to be shot and killed than in other high-income countries, I’ve probably become as desensitized to death as anyone else.
When you see it over and over - innocent lives lost, and Americans defending the deaths of migrant children, Palestinian, children and even American children in the name of a political cause - I guess you could say most of us have become desensitized to violence.
So when you ask me if I think CEOs or the ultrawealthy should be a target of the public, I just reverse the question and ask you: should anyone?
And I point to the fact that angry young men have been massacring schoolchildren with an alarming regularity for a while now. It’s been described as our greatest public health crisis.
Our approach to solving the crisis has been to do little to nothing but wring our hands and hope.
So the question I pose to you isn’t whether a CEO’s life, or a billionaire’s life, should be taken.
It is why anyone would think that a CEO’s life, or a billionaire’s life, is more worthy than the life over any other human being?
And why a CEO should receive any more protection than the rest of us?
OTHER COUNTRIES KILL…
No, I know what you're thinking. We're thinking that death is far too severe a penalty for something like corruption.
Around the world, though, death sentences are routinely handed out in corruption cases.
China
The former chairman of the Bank of China, Liu Liange, was on Tuesday sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for corruption and illegal issuance of loans.
He was found to have accepted bribes worth over 121 million yuan ( $16.8 million), a court in Jinan city in China's eastern Shandong Province said in its verdict.
Liu was deprived of political rights for life, all of his personal property will be confiscated, and all his illegal gains must be recovered and turned over to the state treasury, the court sentence read, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Bai Tianhui, an ex-general manager of China Huarong International Holdings, was found guilty of taking bribes worth $151 million from 2014 to 2018.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bai-tianhui-sentenced-to-death-china-151m-huarong-bribes-2024-5
Vietnam
Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan recently lost her appeal against a death sentence for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud. Vietnamese law states that if she can pay back 75% of what she took, her sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.
Talk about a motivator!!
Indonesia, Morocco, and Thailand are also included in the list of countries that have imposed the death penalty for corruption.
TRUMP PROPOSES DEATH PENALTY
Now I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking that, those things happened in other countries, and on other continents. America is civilized, we'd never use the death penalty for something like that here.
Wrong again.
While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump routinely called for execution for drug dealers, and those convicted of human trafficking.
“These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country,” Trump said of traffickers when he announced his 2024 candidacy. “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” he added.
TRUMP CALLS FOR DEATH
No, I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking that those would be sentences needed out by a judge, after a trial. Surely no one would ever call for extrajudicial death sentences in the United States?
Wrong again.
In August 2016 Trump appeared to call for political violence against his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at a rally in North Carolina.
"Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said. "By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-campaign-defends-2nd-amendment-comment-n626601
You can watch the video to decide for yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58SawH2FJ4Q
Then there's a time Trump told a rally in Ohio, in March 2024, that if he didn't win the election, there would be a "bloodbath" for the United States.
“Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it,” he added. “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.”
Later, he added, “If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-bloodbath-loses-election-2024-rcna143746
(His handlers would later say he was referring to an economic bloodbath).
Or the many, many times that Steven Bannon, a Donald Trump strategist, has urged his followers to “ready the bayonets” - a thinly-veiled call to violence.
As recently as the CPAC conference in 2025, Bannon - who also offered a Nazi salute at the event - were told to get those bayonets sharpened up.
Take Donald Trump's refusal to condemn white supremacist. When debate moderator, Chris Wallace suggested that Trump might want to condemn them, he instead called them to action.
“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem.”
There are even an articles dedicated to all of the times Trump has called for political violence.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-violent-rhetoric-timeline/680403/
Trump has referred to his threats as "political rhetoric" and has even said that his violent rhetoric "brings people together.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/trump-dismisses-critics-political-gain-1451001
PARDON ME?
Now, I know what you were thinking.
This is just Donald Trump being Donald Trump.
It's bluster from a straight shooter, a man who tells it like it is.
It's nothing more than political rhetoric. No reasonable person would take it seriously.
Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.
Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023.
The Republican governor had previously ordered the board to review Perry’s case and said earlier that he would sign a pardon if recommended. The board, which is appointed by the governor, announced its unanimous recommendation in a message posted on the agency website, and Abbott’s pardon swiftly followed.
Court records showed that in the weeks leading up to the murder, Perry sent racist messages about protesters, shared white supremacist memes and talked about how he “might have to kill a few people” who were demonstrating outside his house. In a 76-page filing containing Perry’s private and public communications, he compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shit”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/16/texas-greg-abbott-pardons-daniel-perry
And take the case of Jacob Rittenhouse.
When the protests over Jacob Blake's shooting became violent, Mr Rittenhouse travelled to the city and armed himself with a semi-automatic rifle, with the intention of protecting property, he said.
"Part of my job also is to protect people. If someone is hurt, I'm running into harm's way," he Told journalist the night before the murder.
He was captured on video at different times during that night. At one point, he speaks to police who offer him water.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53934109
Or the case of Christopher Knipe, 48, will accept a sentence of 17 years in prison for killing Sean Kealiher in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2019, according to court records.
Kealiher, who was 23 when he was killed, was a well-known presence at protests for antifascist and other causes. Kealiher first began engaging in political activism during the 2011 Occupy Portland protests and became an active figure in demonstrations for social justice and police reform causes during the early years of the Trump presidency. Knipe and Kealiher’s family have said the killing was the result of a drunken confrontation rather than politics.
Laura Kealiher, Sean Kealiher’s mother, said she had hoped to see the case go to trial, which was scheduled to begin Oct. 23.
“We as a family said we really didn’t want a plea deal,” Kealiher told OPB this week. “We wanted it to go to trial. We wanted to go for murder because he did the three-point turn (and) drove up onto the sidewalk. But, nope.”
Under the plea agreement, Knipe will accept guilt for a first-degree manslaughter charge and receive a sentence of 17 years. Knipe will have to serve 10 years of that sentence at a minimum, with the possibility of earning up to a 20% reduction for good behavior on the final seven years of the sentence.
Knipe’s attorney, Russell Barnett, declined to comment.
Laura Kealiher had long accused Knipe of being involved in the killing, though police did not arrest him until Aug. 4, 2022. Laura Kealiher has insisted that Portland police slow-walked the investigation into her son’s death because of his political opinions.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/09/21/portland-protests-christopher-knipe-sean-kealiher/
No, I know what you're thinking. Political violence is always committed by those on the right.
But that’s not always true.
Take the case of
Aaron J. Danielson say he wasn’t an agitator or radical, but a “freedom-loving American,” amid the politically charged atmosphere in the city.
Danielson was fatally shot in the chest Saturday during clashes between pro-Trump groups and left-wing protesters, according to police.
He was positively identified by the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office, the Portland Police Bureau announced in a statement Monday. The fatal shooting came after the “Trump 2020 Cruise Rally in Portland,” in which supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in cars and drove in a caravan into Portland. Video footage from CNN affiliate KOIN showed pickup trucks with American flags, “Thin Blue Line” flags, and Trump 2020 flags.
The far-right group Patriot Prayer, which has previously clashed with left-wing demonstrators, mourned Danielson’s death.
“(H)e had [such] a huge heart,” group organizer Joey Gibson said on his Facebook page. “God bless [him and] the life he lived.”
Gibson had shared a truck bed with Danielson at Saturday’s rally, CNN affiliate KATU reported.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, blamed Saturday night’s violence on the caravan and Patriot Prayer, saying the group and other self-proclaimed militia members drove into downtown Portland “armed and looking for a fight.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/politics/trump-fugitive-shooting/index.html
Now, I know what you’re thinking. In the case of someone on the left who commits political violence, surely there would be no not guilty verdict at trial. And there would be no pardon coming, either from the president or the governor.
And this time, you’d be right!
In fact, there would be no trial at all.
“We sent in the US Marshals,” Trump said during a campaign rally in North Carolina, adding that it “took 15 minutes (and) it was over.”
The President immediately followed that statement by appearing to indicate that authorities had no intention of ever taking Reinoehl alive.
“They knew who he was; they didn’t want to arrest him, and in 15 minutes that ended,” Trump told the crowd.
When the violence being committed is someone other than a Trump supporter, the treatment they receive, it turns out, is very different…
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/us/portland-shooting-victim-aaron-j-danielson/index.html
SUPPORT FOR LUIGI MANGIONE
In the days that followed the United Healthcare CEO shooting, when asked by Generation Lab with whom they sympathize more, 45% of respondents chose suspect Luigi Mangione, 17% chose CEO Brian Thompson, and 37% said neither.
48% said they view the killing as totally or somewhat justified.
And in an Emerson College poll, 41% of voters under 30 found the killing "acceptable," far more than in any other age group.
A different poll showed that, even if he was found guilty, only 2% of respondents felt that he should receive the death penalty, and an additional 14% felt he should receive life without parole.
In the days after his arrest, TikTokers reported that his prison commissary account had been suspended because of the excessive volume of deposits it received.
NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch referred to it as “a shocking and appalling celebration” of Mangione.
Even Elon Musk, arguably the world's most villainous, CEO, and richest man, had something to say.
In the months since a crowdsource fundraising platform has seen donations pour in to his legal defense fund, which is exploding - it has swelled to over half a million dollars as of February 2025.
(In the interest of transparency, one of the donations was made by me).
Case Updates: https://www.luigimangioneinfo.com
IMAGINE IF CEOS…
Nobody wants to see people be killed.
But what if the fear of retaliation from command, ordinary, everyday American citizens was something suddenly felt by this country’s executives?
What if the risk of doing that job was so great that it became difficult to even find people to do it without compensating them a ridiculous - almost criminal - amount?
What if CEOs were so much at risk that they regularly commanded exorbitant salaries - I’m talking pay 290 times greater than their average employee?
What if being a CEO was so scary that someone completing their term was considered worthy of a payment termed a ‘golden parachute’ that gave them riches that almost seem obscene - like $70 million, $80 million, or even $90 million?
Or if executives considered their lives in such peril that companies spent tens of millions of dollars providing security teams to protect them from the public?
I imagine the fear of vigilante justice would cause that spending to skyrocket? Some might even spend their own money to hire private security.
What if CEOs, or billionaires, were so afraid of violence at the hands of the regular people that they chastised the media for simply reporting on their present location at any given time - publicly available information - calling them “basically assassination coordinates”?
And what if billionaires were so afraid of the rising up of the common citizen that they began building homes with top-secret underground bunkers, or living on exclusive islands, to separate themselves from the rest of society?
IS LUIGI MANGIONE A POLITICAL PRISONER? MUST COME AFTER MICHAEL REINOEHL…
Now, I know what you’re thinking: how do we even know that Luigi Mangione - who, unlike Michael Reinoehl, is presumed not guilty until otherwise adjudged at trial - committed the act he is accused of for any particular political motivations?
The answer is that the federal government has told us so.
“Luigi Mangione allegedly conducted the carefully premeditated and targeted execution of Brian Thompson to incite national debates,” Assistant Director James E. Dennehy of the FBI New York Field Office said in a press release. “This alleged plot demonstrates a cavalier attitude towards humanity - deeming murder an appropriate recourse to satiate personal grievances. Through continued close partnership with the NYPD, the FBI maintains our steadfast commitment to fervently pursue any individual who promotes a personal agenda through violence.”
“As alleged in the complaint, over the course of the last several months, Mangione meticulously planned the execution of Brian Thompson in an effort to initiate a public discussion about the healthcare industry,” the release proclaims.
Now, I know what you’re thinking.
What if he did plan the shooting as part of an effort to get the world talking about the healthcare industry in the United States?
On thing we can say for sure: the world we live in was forever changed when Luigi Mangione met United Healthcare CEO Brian on the street in New York City.
The conversation in this country briefly strayed from the upcoming election and was very much indeed centered around the awfulness that is healthcare in the United States.
TikTok was awash in story after story of people who had been victimized by the policies of United Healthcare and, to a lesser degree, other companies.
There was more conversation around healthcare, and companies that allow patients to die because it’s better for the bottom line, than we’ve seen in a generation.
The result was a celebration that is still unbated on social media platforms. [Example 1] [Example 2]
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1219032782
https://www.newsweek.com/luigi-mangione-fan-mail-commissary-prison-2004696
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/luigi-mangione-is-america-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
This newest generation of America isn't playing around, and I suspect that, when Mr. Mangione finally sees his day in court, it will be corruption and corporate greed that will be on trial.
More than half a generation believes that he should be acquitted.
So when Donald Trump tweeted that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” many across social media platforms immediately associated the sentiment behind his words with a man they believed had done just that.
Probably not the reaction that Donald Trump or Elon Musk had been hoping for.
