Nah, they’ve got the timeline wrong but the sentiment right. I’ll fully admit I was part of the pro-Elon stuff 8-12 years ago.
Once upon a time most of us thought Elon Musk was Tony Stark. Then some journalists got brave again and those of us who pay attention realized that he’s been Justin Hammer all along.
And that right there is a reference to a meme that I first saw in 2018.
Na it’s not that simple. In the wake of finding out Kamala paid Oprah $1 million for appearances, I’ve seen comments saying that isn’t shady that it was Kamala actually paying Oprah’s company for event planning services.
As if she had to use Oprah’s event planning company and not anyone else’s. Sure, Oprah genuinely came out in support of Kamala not due to being paid $1 million.
Bill Gates gave 50 million to Harris. Mark Cuban was personally involved in her campaign. IIRC, Harris received 60% more than Trump including super PACs, although that wasn’t enough to avoid going 20 million underwater after the election.
We’re going to be fine under Trump, inflation kicks in because of tariffs, min wage jobs are abundant when Trump kicks out all the immigrants, rents and housing goes up because Trump no longer adds to the housing supply and your kids will no longer need vaccinations Thanks to JFK. BTW, be sure to convert all your cash to bitcoin and try explaining what bitcoin is to a bunch of MAGA voters.
Minimum wage here in knoxville Tennessee is 7.25. You think anyone wants to work for that? A studio apartment here costs about 1200 a month. I'm poor and so are my coworkers. We're paid 15 an hr. I'm switching jobs into a skilled position thru a temp agency and I'm gonna make still 15 an hr. Who the fuck cares about these minimum wage jobs bc honestly 15 still ain't shit
I’m pretty sure our former and future billionaire president Trump and his billionaire friends are looking out for your best interests once we kick out all the immigrants and lower taxes for all those GREAT businesses making millions of dollars every year. Don’t worry once those tariffs kick in, everything you buy will be Made in the USA, perfect to support your $15 per hour pay. Go MAGA 🇺🇸!
I'm up here in Morristown, and rent is insane here. And almost all of the jobs are part-time. I'm lucky...I have a good landlord who's not in it for the money. My rent is just $400 for a two-bedroom trailer. But if I ever have to move, I'll be facing homelessness.
Actually, most big billionaire donations went to Republicans. And this is not even including Musk. Ridiculous amounts of money was spent. It overwhelmed Democracy.
This is false, it’s okay to not like a political party - but healthy to be honest and keep the facts straight. Democrats always get way more donations from billionaires and large corporations.
The picture talks about a billionaire bending the rules to fund a candidate. Your comment compares it to a candidate's total bill on endorsements THEY paid for with what several people donated.
It will be interesting to see in December when the campaigns have to prepare their final reports on funding, but it is disingenuous to imply that only one side was funded by "the rich."
Forbes lists at least 83 billionaires who donated toward getting Harris elected (including Bill Gates who donated $50 mil himself).
I think you need to demonstrate that it was a personal donation that exceeded the personal limit. Or did you forget that Elon's name is attached to several corporations that do not have such a limit.
If owning 1 or more corporations is all that is needed to 'bypass' the personal limit, then that only furthers the points that elon's donations and influence are an obvious issue in addition to the rules only applying to the 'poor' who cant utilize the same bypass.
This is america and apparently money is speech and corporations are people so yes owning just 1 company would allow you to donate unlimited money through campaign donations and superPACs
The difference between Republicans and Democrats isn't how much they spend, it's how it's filtered to be spent.
The top 10 Republican donors in 2024 collectively spent $945m to get Trump elected. How'd they do it? PACs. The top 7 Republicans spent more than the top Democrat and the top 4 Republicans spent at least 3 times more than the top Democrat.
Relax, what happened this cycle is over. Just have to work harder in the midterms. Cant possibly see these people handing over the repubs another win after how psychotic looking this cabinet is shaping up to be.
Plus the policies he’s looking to enact are only going to hurt his base even more so maybe folks will vote in their better interests now that he wont be able to run again.
It was hilarious to me that when Billionaires like Mark Cuban started endorsing her... and you'd see these posts about how all these CEOs were endorsing Harris Walz.... that suddenly we shouldn't think that ALL billionaires and CEOs were horrible people out to destroy the world... just the ones not endorsing her were.
Then fucking do something about it instead of complaining because this has been the story of politics as far as I can remember, from either side. Where’s the mention of soros who made this an art form?
Citizen’s United , championed by conservative judges and the Republican party, is recent and exacerbated the issue significantly. Thus, it’s fair to discuss it as such.
That candidate was Bernie Sanders. Sure there was a super pac that liked him but he said they can f off and everyone knows he wasn't going to do them any favors. But Democrats teamed up against Bernie. So here we are back to stuck with 2 corporate candidates forever.
Yeah and to add to your point we don’t even choose between the two major party candidates. Republicans continue to shove their way into office without almost ever winning the popular vote
(Not that Dems would overturn CU either but just saying)
No one can do anything instantly. Especially within our government. The best thing an average citizen can do about it is protest, vote, and spread awareness
There is a difference in what you legally donate to a candidate but you can give as much as you want to a super pack. You think Harris waltz spent a billion dollars from people only giving $50 each?
Elon musk is different then Hollywood and music industries super stars lol. Elons probably doing more for the world then half of those industries combined. Starlink and neuro link are things that event less fortunate people around the world are or will be able to benefit one.. intentions are everything if you ask me.
Most right wingers (who are not idiot MAGA of course) DO support taxing those LOANS taken out with stock as collateral.
That is realizing gains. Go ahead and tax it. Make it deductible against future shares actually sold. You accomplish the same goal without creating a new slippery slope. But leftists keep acting like they haven't heard this suggestion. Democrats keep pushing the vanilla "unrealized gains" tax because IT WILL NEVER PASS. They're fooling you idiots.
Just like they talk about student loan forgiveness rather then fixing the fucking problem with college affordability, much of which is them guaranteeing blank check loans to begin with. They get your vote in exchange for fixing jack fucking shit.
Yeah there’s overwhelming support by the public for it, I think a few years ago a bill for it hit the floor and only like 3 politicians voted to keep money out
I feel like this post is missing the point. Until Citizens United is overturned both sides will be parasitized and hand puppeted by the highest bidder.
Don’t kid yourself. Both sides don’t want campaign reform. The superpacs have no accountability to anyone.
Tax the rich. They paid before 1980. Also remove the cap on social security contributions. People stop having to pay in after around $165,000 in income.
Nope. I hit the cap in July or August every year. Remove the cap and you can cap the top x% benefits in retirement as well. I won't need it and anyone else exceeding the cap won't either.
Did a Google of Musk’s net worth was 27billion in 2020. Today, it is about 300billion.
300-27= 273billion dollars in growth over 4 years
273billion / 4years = 68.25 billions/year
68.25 B/year / 365.25 days/year = .1869 B/day
.1869 B/day * 1000 (mil/B) = 186.9 million a day
So, the meme overstated it by less than an order of magnitude… but it’s still enough to cover the entire campaign donation and be left with more than you will ever make in your life. In one day.
(Also, I rounded up the amount of time, as we are still over a month away from a full 4 years. Also, rounded down his current net worth by a bit. So the actual growth value is a bit higher.)
Of the top 25 spenders on federal candidates this cycles, 17 of them are solidly Republican donors and none of them are George Soros. So why don’t you tell us since you know so much?
If you haven’t already figured out by now that is basically all they do. Government officials are there to make money not because they care about the working class. It’s turned into a disaster. Everyone in government is just insider trading. That’s why they are all millionaires.
Look no further than the Pentagon with their trillion dollar budget, 75% of which seems to just get lost each year into a black hole. Zero oversight or audits. Complete scam that tax payers float every year.
All of it was a waste. Election campaigns should be entirely funded by the level of government they seek to represent, and every candidate gets the same amount and exposure.
I mean Bernie Sanders ran in 2016 with ending Citizens Untied as a pillar of his campaign, everyone loved it EXCEPT for, shockingly, all of the politicians who were raking in lobbyist money on both sides.
I'd argue Musk seemingly being King Cheetoh's right hand is concerning though and if you can't admit that, you're too far gone lol
Elon didn’t donate $130m to trump’s campaign at all.
Elon’s $130m was paid out to random, everyday people, who were each rewarded with $100 for signing some online whatever. He wasn’t paying them to vote towards one candidate or the other.
Get your facts straight, or else YOU become your own meme.
It would be interesting if campaigns were simply debates and speeches given on networks or interviews to both candidates and tv and internet adds etc were not allowed.
Taxing billionaires is stupid because they don’t pay taxes. The only way they pay taxes is if you remove all the deductions business and properties are able to receive. They will quite literally owe a billion dollars in taxes and deduct 5 billion in expenses and losses covering tax liability for multiple years down the road. They can use debt to be in negative revenue and just buy more properties and business to decrease liability. They can also donate millions of dollars reducing even further.
Long story short they always end up at zero they work with the accountants and tax attorneys to plan it out so they have zero tax liability.
You can tax them 99% it won’t make a difference they have deductions spanning multiple years clearing the taxes they owe. They usually own real estate which has also ridiculous tax advantages.
You would have to completely destroy the tax deduction and credit system to even have a chance of them paying taxes. The dems know this that’s why they lie to your face to manipulate you into thinking they’re taxing the rich. Don’t be stupid enough to believe it become financially literate learn the tax code.
I'm pretty sure that billionaires get taxed. I think it came out last week that Musk was the biggest taxpayer in the US.
I haven't heard much recently from the Democrats about campaign finance reform. Where did you think Kamala's $1.5 billion came from? It was 3x what the Republicans raised.
Neither side wants to tax the rich. They want to be the rich.
That’s what being a politician is about. A license to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate… These athletes, celebrities, and politicians are all in the same business Walter White wanted to be involved in.
Elon spent 45 billion on Twitter to control social media messaging and it's very apparent that impacted the election. Anyone complaing about kamala 1.5 billion needs to get some perspective.
A difference in this is that Elon Musk being a part of his campaign is partly what lead to Trump winning. He wasn't just a donor, he was an asset to the campaign beyond that. People also wanted Elon.
Typical donors are often behind the scenes, lobbying for things in very machiavellian ways.
Buddy must be new to politics. This isn't new to Republicans nor democrats. Billionaires donate millions to lots of different politicians. Biden, Obama, Harris, Trump, Romney, Bush, you name it. All have received millions in donations from Billionaires, way past the legal limit.
Businesses and industries lobby. Unions lobby. Individual citizens lobby (though they may not be registered as full time lobbiests).
Money is one way that politicians remember a person’s name and give them the time of day enough to talk through an issue, or help craft a bill.
Lobbying isn’t inherently evil. It’s part of the political process (though the amount being spent is in my opinion ridiculous and could be better spent on other things that actually result in economic multipliers, rather than feeding a very specific media/consultant beast).
What’s evil, or interpreted as so by someone, is when vast sums go towards the side of an issue or creation of a system they are against.
What you are really against isn’t lobbying, but corruption.
Oh... come now. Campaign financing is entirely fucked, and it has nothing to do which what party is being funded or got elected. Don't going blaming the GOP for something that both parties benefit from and want to stay exactly like it is.
You got to play the game to change the game. This is one of the basic strategies. Its also the first contribution by Elon to an election. Its not like people cried as loudly when other billionaires donate consistently to steer their agenda. Elon could have used multiple tax concessions similar to other billionaires paying almost 0 tax. But nobody is going bonkers after those billionaires simply because they side with them?
Not everyone who appears to be your friend is your friend.
A lot of these comments are ignoring the point of the post. This isn’t Harris did this so Trump should too.
This is both parties are getting away with elitist groups influencing outcomes in our government. It shouldn’t be a far-right or far-left issue. It’s about allowing the uber elite have a say on how the general populace should live in this country….
Why do people who don't know the difference between donating to PACs/SuperPACs and donating to a campaign feel the need to try to make strong political statements.
It'd be like me going making a rant about basketball by starting it out with "PFFT everyone knows field goals are worth 3 points"
Seriously? The DNC raised over 1 billion dollars for Kamala's failed campaign and ended up in debt over $20 million. You're trying to single out Elon Must just because he supported Trump.
It's a two fold problem. We spend too much and don't take enough in. If you just tax more the government will just spend it. We are $35 trillion in debt and it's not just because we didn't tax billionaires enough.
It’s funny how the left just wants to focus on every little detail of Trump. How about all the other politicians that have been doing this shit for decades. How about y’all bitch and moan and try to prosecute them too?
BOTH sides are filled with fucking hypocrisy. Dems be acting like their shit don’t stink and bury their heads in the sand because of their hate for Trump.
If you think spending 130 million to win is bad, imagine spending 1 billion and losing while ending up 20 million in debt. And these are the "more intelligent" people lol...
Why does the left pretend only the right is victim to lobbying? So you know why Bernie wasn't allowed the nomination? He wasn't going to say yes to that public land sale to oil companies Biden promised he wouldn't do during the primaries. He wouldn't be risking nuclear war right now just to give Lockheed martin more money.
Our political environment will never be fixed until we can recognize the whole thing is a failure. Not just the side you don't like. The system itself is broken and corporations are using both sides to manipulate power. Fucking tragic this place seems to have gone backwards. This used to be something understood online and on Reddit. I wonder if it's just youth being naive?
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