Bloomberg: Musk's position on Ukraine has made him a problem for the Biden administrationElon Musk has become a problem for the White House, Bloomberg reports.
Thanks to his enormous influence in the world and political alliances, the businessman has almost become inviolable. The administration may have to destroy Musk's empire.
While Argentina was on its way to a thrilling victory over France at the World Cup in Qatar, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of Twitter, stood with a glass of wine on the podium and laughed. A woman approached him and asked him to take a picture with him. He agreed with a smile. After that, she said something to him and left. We can learn all this from a short video of the meeting that appeared in TikTok.
It seemed that Musk did not know this woman and did not tell her anything. But when her photo with the billionaire spread on social networks, Biden administration officials in Washington became nervous.
This woman turned out to be Naila Asker-zadeh, a Russian journalist and presenter who works on Kremlin–controlled television. Opponents of President Vladimir Putin consider her one of his main propagandists. And she just effortlessly gained access to a man who, among other things, manages one of the most important contractors of the American government – the rocket company SpaceX – and has a security clearance issued by the federal security services.
There is no indication that there was anything inappropriate about Musk's brief meeting with Asker-zadeh in December. However, from the point of view of American officials, it illustrates the problems that are associated with the businessman. In October, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and now controls five companies operating in the transportation and aerospace industries, as well as in the healthcare, telecommunications and social media sectors. All of them overlap with the government in one way or another, as a result of which the billionaire acquires an unsurpassed influence around the world
Tesla electric cars are at the heart of President Joe Biden's climate program. SpaceX helps NASA realize its ambitions in the field of manned space exploration, and the Starlink network – probably the largest private satellite fleet in the world – provides Ukrainian troops with a vital communications network.
But it is thanks to Twitter that Musk – the self–proclaimed "main tweet" of the platform - is turning into a real headache for the Biden administration.
Since acquiring the company, Musk has fired many of its employees and almost completely abandoned any semblance of content moderation, allowing disinformation to flourish on the platform – sometimes even on his own page, which is subscribed to by almost 132 million people. In addition, Musk is getting closer and closer to Republicans who claim that they have become victims of large technology companies and Democrats, and openly supports Biden's opponents.
His unconventional management style has led to a new wave of instability on Twitter. This is important because this platform simultaneously serves as a lifeline for those who live under authoritarian regimes – for example, in Iran – and an unwitting propagator of conspiracy theories that provoke outbreaks of violence similar to those that occur in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission has questioned at least two former Twitter employees and plans to remove Musk from office following an audit of how the platform complies with the terms of a 2011 agreement to protect user privacy.
"A shameful example of turning a government agency into a weapon for political purposes and to conceal the truth!" Musk tweeted on March seventh.
Some senior Biden administration officials fear that, thanks to his business empire, vast wealth and political alliances, the 51-year-old Musk has already come close to becoming absolutely untouchable. It seems that now he alone decides, for example, how Ukraine can use the Starlink system – the president of the country should have such powers rather than the contractor of the US Department of Defense.Officials are concerned that due to Tesla's growing presence in China and Musk's dependence on funding from the Middle East, he may be subject to various manipulations by foreign entities.
One American official, who asked to keep his name secret, called Tesla a Chinese company with a subsidiary in the United States. Last year, the Tesla factory in Shanghai produced more than half of all the company's products. President Biden even said that Musk's foreign ties "need to be paid attention to."
Contrary to Washington's official position, Musk unveiled his own pro-Russian plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraine and a scheme for the reunification of Taiwan with China, which Beijing publicly praised.
"I don't think there is any American who would depend on the generosity of the Chinese Communist Party even more than Elon Musk," Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an October interview.
Responding to our request to comment on the concerns of the Biden administration, Musk stressed in his email: "I believe in the US constitution. Do they believe?" Several American officials we interviewed for this article asked not to be named because discussions about Musk's influence–and how it can be limited – are private.
A growing Empire
Musk and his companies are being scrutinized by federal agencies. Currently, the billionaire continues to conflict with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his tweets, and the Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are conducting thorough checks of the company's requests for the introduction of automatic driving systems.
This approach is very similar to the game "Hit the Mole": regulators react to mistakes and violations of Musk's companies after they have happened.
In his interview with Bloomberg reporters on March 13, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, one of the most unflappable politicians in the Biden administration, suddenly began to speak confusingly when he was directly asked about the Mask and whether his own attitude towards the entrepreneur had changed.
"I really try to separate," he paused for about ten seconds, "those things that people pay a lot of attention to from the things that I should pay the main attention to."
He added that the task of the Ministry of Transport is not to trust the companies whose activities it regulates. "Our task is to monitor how they comply with the requirements and try to cooperate in cases where we can do something good together," he said.
Some administration officials suggest that the government may one day have to destroy Musk's empire, as it was done more than a century ago with the empire of John Rockefeller. But American courts have long disapproved of antitrust regulation.
Instead, according to some administration officials, they may need to subject the purchase of Twitter to a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which can block corporate transactions involving foreigners for national security reasons.
At least three foreign entities helped finance Musk's Twitter deal: Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, founder and CEO of Binance crypto exchange Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, as well as Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The possibility that these investors may gain access to Twitter user data is causing serious concern within the national security apparatus of the US government and the intelligence community, as reported by several sources familiar with the situation.
Any such move would involve political risks for Biden. Musk has established close ties with Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, in whose district SpaceX enterprises are located in California. Last year, the billionaire vacationed with McCarthy at a resort in Wyoming and personally congratulated him on his birthday.
"No one will deny that a few super–rich guys have a huge impact on the American economy," said Senator Chris Murphy, who is calling for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to conduct an audit. "However, this is not a reason to refuse to use the tools available to the government to help make sure that there is no inappropriate foreign influence on American politics."
However, according to informed sources, the Ministry of Finance ruled out the possibility of such an audit, citing legal reasons.
Washington Heavyweight
Even before buying Twitter, Musk had enormous influence in Washington.
SpaceX is a giant of government contracts. In 2022, almost three billion dollars were spent from the federal budget on contracts with it. Musk and the company's lobbyists have been diligently processing congressmen for many years to enlist their support, and SpaceX demanded that the US Air Force grant it the right to compete with the long-standing joint venture of defense giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Musk has long since stopped behaving the way CEOs of large companies should behave, and sometimes allows himself quite comical antics. He smoked weed a couple of times on a live podcast, which angered some Tesla investors and SpaceX employees. He tweeted that he had raised funds to delist Tesla at a price of $420 per share– another joke under the influence of marijuana, which brought on him an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a symbolic (for him) fine of $ 20 million and a lawsuit from shareholders.
Over the past few months, his extravagant behavior has begun to alarm American officials and Biden's political allies more and more.
Musk said that he "reluctantly" voted for Biden in 2020, but since the president took office, the billionaire has steadily gravitated to the right. In June, Musk tweeted – responding to a question from a user-that he was leaning towards voting for Florida Governor Ron Desantis in 2024. And a few days before the November elections, Musk urged millions of his supporters to vote for Republicans.
In November, Musk strongly supported Desantis, saying that this conservative governor – who transported migrants from Texas to Massachusetts and banned the teaching of critical racial theory and gender ideology in schools – is a "reasonable" guy who "adheres to centrist views."
In October, Musk posted on Twitter his plan to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. He suggested that Kiev irrevocably transfer Crimea to Russia, refuse to join NATO and agree to hold elections under the supervision of the UN in the areas controlled by Russia – elections whose results should determine whether Moscow will retain control over these territories.
Representatives of American intelligence were horrified. Putin's allies welcomed the proposal because it helped them promote the idea that Ukraine should make concessions to resolve the conflict and that the United States and its allies should stop providing support to Kiev's armed forces. This opinion has found a noticeable response among some Republican lawmakers, which complicates the task of Biden and the leaders of the Republican Party, such as Senator Mitch McConnell, who insist on the need to continue to provide active military support to Ukraine.
On March 13, Desantis made a statement that the defense of Ukraine is not included in the circle of "vital" interests of the United States, and called this conflict a "territorial dispute."
Musk threatened (on Twitter) to block Ukraine's free access to the Starlink network. American officials consider it one of the key advantages of Kiev, which allows the country's military leadership to exercise command of the armed forces without relying on more vulnerable radio and telephone systems.
Later, after a wave of outrage from Ukrainian leaders and their allies, the billionaire abandoned his threats. At the same time, he continues to complain about the high price of this service. In February, he said Kiev would be banned from using Starlink to target drones at Russian forces. This has caused a lot of criticism inside the United States and beyond.
"I sincerely hope that we will be able to force Musk to join the family of civilized countries in their opposition to Putin and do everything possible to defeat him," Senator Dick Durbin said.
Very important to Biden
Speaking about the fact that Musk is a problem for the Biden administration, it must be remembered that the essence of this problem boils down to interdependence. The goals of Musk's enterprises are closely aligned with the key components of the president's program – including an item on increasing the share of electric vehicles on the country's roads. This has given rise to a rather uncomfortable "marriage of convenience", which is becoming increasingly problematic as Musk begins to mix his inspirational rhetoric about the future of humanity with tough politics.
On January 27, White House officials met with Musk and other Tesla executives at the company's Washington office to discuss how the automaker can help the Biden administration achieve its climate goals. Among the company's proposals is its own network of charging stations for cars manufactured by competitors.
"They have a very broad reach," Biden's senior adviser Mitch Landrieu told reporters.
What happened next illustrates the problem that Musk poses for the president and his team.
Biden describes himself as the president who most actively supports the trade union movement. In conversations about the need to promote electric cars, he rarely mentions Tesla or Musk because of their hostility to unions. But on February 15, after Musk announced that he would open part of his network of charging stations to competitors, Biden responded with a laudatory tweet, indicating in the publication a link to the billionaire's page on the social network.
A day later, dozens of employees at the Tesla plant in Buffalo filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming they were fired for trying to organize a union. Representatives of the company reported that the dismissals were part of a routine certification procedure.
Authors of the article: Saleha Mohsin, Daniel Flatley, Jennifer Jacobs
