- cross-posted to:
- economy
- cross-posted to:
- economy
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The richest man in the world needs more money, of course. Enough is never enough.
Why would Elon care about tariffs? He has the money to suffer them, the ear of the president and access to everyone’s personal data down to the penny. He’s golden. Tariffs mean nothing to him.
It reduces his bottom line, particularly when a trade war makes Tesla exports less profitable. Yeah, he’ll survive, but his profits will suffer.
He’s done caring about profits. His purchase of Twitter will never be profitable, but it enabled him to buy a President. He cares about influence and power. He won’t mind paying the tariffs if those same tariffs hurts people he hates.
I’m doubtful about that, to be honest. He’s only ever played the world like a game on easy mode, and the money he has is what allows him to do that, so he has to maintain the flow of that money. For most rich people, that’s the reason they want more money: because it’s the key to influence and power, and that has worked well for rich people for ages.
That’s why, even if (as is not impossible) this president is the last democratically-elected president in history, he has to continue to get money: so that he can continue to wield his level of access and control and influence. Trump doesn’t care about anything other than his bank account and his personal image among a certain crowd, so once Musk is no longer an asset to one or both of those things, he’ll drop Musk.
I don’t think Elon loves anyone or hates anyone or cares about the existence of anyone who isn’t in his immediate circle. Those are the only real people for him. Everyone outside of that is just game mechanics, and he’ll burn through as many as he can to get to the top of the leaderboard. Unfortunately, he has enough money and influence that now he can force other people to play his game, too. Including, currently, the President of the United States.
So, in my opinion, eventually he’ll push back on Trump about the tariffs. It may not work (though it probably will), but he’s not going to stay silent about that forever. He already got Hegseth to buy a bazillion cybertrucks for the DOD so that he could get them off of his lot. He’ll probably start pressuring Duffy to start the money flowing to Tesla to build more Superchargers soon, too.