Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / BREAKING NEWS! $400 Million for Armored Tesla's from TRUMP and ELON's Rampage Of Open Corruption

Transcript

BREAKING NEWS! $400 Million for Armored Tesla's from TRUMP and ELON's Rampage Of Open Corruption · Elon Musk Podcast

0:05
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
0:08
I'm your host, Will Walden, and if you're new here, this is a
0:11
show all about Elon Musk and his groundbreaking work that he's
0:14
doing with his various companies, including Tesla,
0:16
SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neurolink, and of course, X.
0:21
And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share a
0:24
quick insight from our shows analytics.
0:27
It turns out the 45% of you listening right now are
0:31
subscribed to the show and thank you for that.
0:34
But that means that 55% of you are not.
0:36
So I'm offering you a deal. I promise to do everything in my
0:40
power to keep bringing you the latest and most interesting news
0:43
about Elon Musk every single day and about his companies.
0:47
If you'll do me one favor and hit the subscribe or follow
0:50
button on your podcast platform right now, that's it.
0:55
Pretty simple and straightforward.
0:56
It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference
1:00
for the show. Mr. President, I'm a big Boston
1:03
Red Sox fan, and one of the most famous players in Red Sox recent
1:10
history is Manny Ramirez. Manny Ramirez was a good
1:13
baseball player, but he had a habit of doing some pretty
1:17
ridiculous things on the field and off the field that were
1:22
really detrimental to the team. Some really bizarre on field
1:27
behaviour, cutting off throws from other outfielders before
1:30
they got to the infield. Bizarre off the field behaviour
1:34
that disrupted the team. It became so regular that a
1:39
phrase was adopted amongst the Red Sox fans.
1:43
That's just Manny being Manny. And over the years it just was
1:48
accepted that every year Manny Ramirez is going to do a whole
1:50
bunch of stuff that was really detrimental to the team.
1:55
And over time, it just kind of became accepted that that was a
1:59
fact of life, a way of life with Manny Ramirez.
2:03
And as time went on, people reacted less hostilely.
2:08
It barely got noticed in some cases when he was engaged in
2:12
these detrimental forms of conduct.
2:16
And I tell that story because it stands for, you know, a kind of
2:19
universal concept. When bad behavior gets
2:23
normalized, it no longer feels like bad behavior, even if that
2:29
behavior is hurting people. Today, the world is littered
2:36
with corrupt governments. Governments where the leaders
2:40
and the really rich men who surround the leaders, the
2:43
oligarchs, they steal from people.
2:47
That's what they do. The leaders and the leaders,
2:49
friends just keep a hand constantly in the government
2:53
treasury and they steal taxpayer dollars.
2:56
They rig the rules of the economy in order to make
2:59
themselves fabulously rich. They hurt the citizens of those
3:03
countries. Vladimir Putin, for instance,
3:07
has never had a job outside of government, but he's reportedly
3:10
worth $200 billion. One of his many houses cost $1.4
3:17
billion to build. Supposedly, the landscaping
3:20
costs on an annual basis for that house are $2,000,000 alone.
3:26
That $1.4 billion house was paid for by money he stole from the
3:31
Russian treasury. In other words, he stole it from
3:34
the Russian people. Putin and his friends have been
3:38
doing it for so long, and doing it so openly and brazenly.
3:44
Putin, for instance, wears a watch that retails for a half,
3:49
$1,000,000. Excuse me, for half, $1,000,000,
3:55
even though his official salary is only $140,000.
4:01
They've been doing this so openly and brazenly.
4:03
They're so public in their corruption in Russia that it's
4:07
just accepted. It's just mainstream.
4:11
The fact that Putin and his cronies steal from the Russian
4:15
people. That's what's happening in
4:19
America today. And it's heartbreaking for me to
4:21
say this, but in the first six months of the Trump presidency,
4:26
Trump and Elon Musk and their billionaire friends have engaged
4:31
in a stunning rampage of open public corruption.
4:38
It's not fundamentally different than what happened in Russia.
4:44
These are efforts to steal from the American people, to enrich
4:49
themselves. And their strategy is to do it
4:54
all out in the open, to do it at such a dizzying pace that the
5:00
country just gets overwhelmed or anesthetized or dulled into a
5:06
sense that we just all have to accept the corruption.
5:10
Or maybe more charitably, that this is just how government
5:13
works, That government is just corrupt.
5:16
And so the fact that it's happening out in the open
5:18
instead of happening secretly, well, it's really nothing new.
5:22
But this is not how government works.
5:25
The things that have happened over the last six weeks are
5:29
unprecedented. The president and his
5:32
billionaire friends are not supposed to steal from us.
5:36
They are not supposed to use their power and their access to
5:41
power, their access to government levers to rig the
5:46
rules to enrich themselves. That has always been wrong.
5:52
It is still wrong, and we do not have to accept this.
5:57
And so in the next few minutes, I want to try out an exercise.
6:03
I want to try to lay out for you as quickly as I can, just some
6:08
of the most significant instances of blatantly corrupt
6:13
activity that's happened in just the first six weeks of Trump's
6:16
presidency. When you see it all together,
6:19
there is no way to avoid a simple conclusion.
6:23
This White House is on its way to being the most corrupt in the
6:27
history of the country, and just because they are doing it out in
6:30
the open for everybody to see doesn't mean that it's not
6:35
corrupt. And my hope is that if you see
6:39
it all in one place, the gravity of this moment may hit you.
6:43
My hope is that my colleagues in the public choose not to
6:47
normalize a president or his advisors using the Oval Office
6:53
as a blunt mechanism to make themselves even wealthier.
6:58
It is our decision, our decision to have 0 tolerance for
7:03
corruption. It's also our decision to just
7:07
decide to become a place like Russia where our leaders are
7:10
allowed to routinely steal from us.
7:14
So this is a heartbreakingly long list.
7:18
This is just 20 or so examples of corrupt behavior in the 1st
7:23
six weeks of the Trump presidency.
7:28
So here it goes. We're going to start on January
7:31
17th. On January 17th, Trump launches
7:35
the meme coin. This is maybe the most corrupt
7:37
of all the acts, because what is the meme coin?
7:39
The meme coin is essentially a mechanism by which Russian
7:44
oligarchs or corporate CE OS can literally send money privately
7:49
directly to Donald Trump. Nobody knows who buys the meme
7:52
coin, but Trump makes money when people buy it, and so it is just
7:58
an open sewer valve that allows for anybody who is trying to
8:02
influence the Trump administration to be able to
8:05
secretly funnel money to Donald Trump.
8:08
He reserves 80% of the coin. He waits to release that coin
8:12
until the price jumps back up again, which essentially means
8:15
he's waiting for people who want favors from him to buy a bunch
8:20
of the coin to inflate the value so that he that he releases more
8:23
and makes more money. It's it's a disgusting kind of
8:28
corruption because this is essentially Trump just posting
8:31
his Venmo for anybody secretly to wire him as much money as
8:36
they want. We've never seen something like
8:38
this before where anybody who has anything to gain from the
8:42
Trump administration through a manipulation of the value of
8:45
Trump's meme coin can funnel money directly to the president.
8:50
Whisper in his ear, That was me. That was me that purchased all
8:54
that coin that jumped up the value that allowed you to
8:56
release new coin. Hey, take care of me on the back
9:00
end. On January 20th, when he sworn
9:03
in, he institutes his new energy agenda.
9:09
Now open reporting suggested that during the campaign he met
9:12
with the oil and gas industry and they cut a deal in which the
9:16
oil and gas industry would give him a billion dollars of
9:18
campaign contributions in order to receive favorable treatment
9:22
when Trump was sworn in. And guess what happens?
9:24
On January 20th, Trump unveils his energy strategy and what
9:28
does it do? It preferences oil and gas, and
9:30
it punishes oil and gases competitors.
9:34
It, for instance, freezes all permits on wind projects, both
9:38
for the land and the sea. It undercuts permitting
9:41
processes not for oil and gas, but for oil and gases
9:44
competitors. Oil and gas got exactly what
9:46
they asked for. They gave a campaign
9:47
contribution, and they got the favorable treatment.
9:52
Five days later, Trump fires 17 inspectors general.
9:58
What do inspectors general do? They look for corruption inside
10:03
of these agencies. What do you do if you are trying
10:06
to engage in corruption? If you are trying to steal from
10:08
the American people, you fire the inspectors general.
10:12
Two days later, on January 27th, Trump fires Quinn Wilcox from
10:19
the NLRB. This is the National Labour
10:21
Relations Board. When she's fired, the National
10:24
Labour Relations Board cannot function any longer.
10:27
Why does this matter? Because the person that has been
10:29
put in charge of reviewing the hirings and firings of these
10:34
agencies is Elon Musk, who by the way has lots of cases before
10:39
the NLRB. So do the people that are
10:42
standing behind Trump during the inauguration.
10:45
Almost all of them have active cases before the NLRB.
10:48
The billionaire supporting Donald Trump now don't have to
10:51
worry about the NLRB. Because on January 27th, the
10:54
NLRB is rendered powerlessness. 3 days later, on January 30th,
11:02
Trump awards more than $800,000 worth of stock to several of the
11:08
board members of the Trump Media and Technology Group.
11:11
This is the publicly traded company behind his social media
11:14
platforms. So now his cabinet members,
11:17
people like Cash Patel and Linda McMahon, are owning equity in
11:23
Trump's media platform, equity that can be cashed out, sold to
11:27
people who want to buy them out of their interests at any time.
11:31
Those people who might want to buy them out, Cabinet members
11:34
could be individuals with issues before the Department of
11:37
Education, before the FBI. Yet another Ave. in which people
11:42
who have influence, who want to gain influence inside the Trump
11:45
administration have a conduit to be able to move cash from their
11:49
pocketbooks, from their treasury, from their bank
11:51
accounts into the bank accounts of Trump cabinet members.
11:58
Shortly thereafter, we start to see the weaponization of the
12:02
DOJ. On February 23rd, a civil
12:06
complaint from DOJ that had been pending against SpaceX, Elon
12:12
Musk's signature company, is dropped.
12:15
Eight days later, the DOJ drops a case against a Republican
12:20
congressman on February 19th. Two or three weeks later, the
12:26
DOJ opens up something called Operation Whirlwind, which seeks
12:29
to target anyone who dares try to obstruct or criticize the
12:34
work of Elon Musk and Doge. Over the course of the first few
12:38
weeks, the DOJ is turned into an entity that drops cases against
12:45
those who are loyal to Donald Trump and pursues aggressively
12:48
investigations against those who are trying to criticize Donald
12:52
Trump. On February 1st, Trump fires the
12:56
director of the CFPB and announces plans to shut down to
13:01
shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Board.
13:04
Again, very much like the NLRB, this is an agency that was at
13:09
the moment that it was rendered powerless investigating Elon
13:13
Musk and many of the biggest financial backers of Donald
13:17
Trump. So once again, those that have
13:20
access to Donald Trump, the billionaires that are close to
13:23
him now don't have to worry about labour violations being
13:27
investigated by the NLRB. Now they don't have to worry
13:30
about consumer protection actions being taken against them
13:35
by the CFPB. On February 4th, there is the
13:39
first of two extraordinary meetings in the White House in
13:42
which Donald Trump convenes his business partners, his business
13:47
partners, the Saudi Golf League and the PGA, to try to negotiate
13:52
a solution to the dispute between those 2G leagues.
13:56
Why? Because Trump has a business
13:58
interest in that dispute being resolved.
14:01
The Saudi Golf League plays tournaments at Trump's course
14:04
courses in the United States, and so if the White House, using
14:08
its official power, can try to negotiate a settlement between
14:11
those two groups, Trump stands to make money.
14:16
On February 6th, something absolutely stunning happens.
14:20
Pam Bondi, the AG, issues a memorandum in which she proposes
14:28
to dull the criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents
14:32
Registration Act. If you are representing a
14:36
foreign government before the United States, you have to
14:40
register so that we know if you are acting on behalf of American
14:45
interests or you are acting on behalf of foreign interests.
14:48
In the prior Trump administration, Trump officials
14:51
got in big trouble for secretly working for and getting paid by
14:56
foreign governments without registering.
14:58
Well, what does Trump announce? That they are going to limit the
15:03
applicability of the enforcement of that statue, making it much
15:07
easier for Trump's friends from for his Mogga crowd, for the
15:11
people who show up tomorrow, Lago to get paid quietly by
15:15
foreign governments in order to influence Donald Trump on
15:21
February 10th. Maybe aside from the meme coin,
15:25
the most stunning act of corruption, the Eric Adams quid
15:29
pro quo, in which Eric Adams indicted for corruption, is let
15:34
off the hook. His charges are dismissed in
15:37
exchange for the mayor's pledge of political loyalty to Donald
15:43
Trump. They literally went on TV and
15:44
announced the deal that we're getting rid of the charges
15:48
against Eric Adams as long as the mayor pledges political
15:51
loyalty to the president. That was so corrupt that six or
15:54
seven DOJ officials resigned because they refused to withdraw
15:59
those charges. But the deal went through
16:01
because the 7th or the 8th or the 9th official finally filed
16:05
the withdrawal. And now in America, it is 100%
16:09
clear that if you want to get away with corruption, if you
16:12
want to steal from your constituents and you're an
16:15
elected official in this country, all you have to do is
16:17
just sign up for political loyalty with Donald Trump, and
16:20
he will instruct the Department of Justice to let you get away
16:24
with it. On February 10th, Donald Trump
16:26
directs the DOJ to pause enforcement of US laws that
16:30
prohibit companies from paying bribes overseas.
16:32
Come on, like, come on. He instructs the DOJ to pause
16:38
enforcement of US laws that prohibit companies to pay bribes
16:41
overseas. Here's an example.
16:42
Goldman Sachs was engaged in outright bribery.
16:46
They were paying bribes to Malaysian officials so that they
16:50
could get a contract to manage the resources of the Malaysian
16:54
sovereign wealth fund. American companies should not be
16:58
overseas bribing foreign governments.
17:01
That compromises America's reputation and America's
17:04
national security. But now we are going to pause
17:06
enforcement of the laws that stop American companies from
17:10
bribing foreign governments because corruption is now being
17:12
normalized. This is what you do if you want
17:14
to normalize corruption, is that you make it legal for American
17:17
companies to engage in corruption overseas.
17:20
That makes it easier for Trump to get away with corruption
17:22
here. Two days later, on February
17:25
12th, the announcement comes out that the State Department is
17:28
going to buy $400 million of armored Teslas.
17:32
OK, so now it's getting even more blatant.
17:34
It's getting even more brazen. The State Department is just
17:37
going to buy a whole bunch of product from Elon Musk, product
17:40
that they were not previously scheduled to buy.
17:42
It is true that the Biden administration had a blueprint
17:46
that was going to buy some electric vehicles, but it was
17:49
around $483,000 worth of vehicles.
17:53
Trump revises that blueprint of spending so that now the federal
17:57
government is going to spend $400 million on on armored
18:01
Tesla's from Elon Musk. Let's see, that's February 12th.
18:08
That same day, Elon Musk's people infiltrate the Department
18:13
of Labor, and reporting suggests that during that infiltration,
18:17
Elon Musk's personal representatives get access to
18:21
enforcement information at OSHA, not only against Elon Musk's
18:25
companies. And by the way, SpaceX has an
18:28
employee injury rate that is 9 times higher than the industry
18:33
average, but also workplace safety violations against Elon
18:38
Musk's competitors. Here's the message.
18:40
If you are close to Donald Trump personally, if you support him
18:43
politically, you can get secret access to enforcement data
18:47
against your country, against your company's and your
18:49
company's competitors. That's what happens on February
18:52
12th. 3 days later, there's some suspicious firings at the FDA
18:58
again related to Elon Musk's personal financial interests.
19:02
Elon Musk's owns a medical device company called Neuralink.
19:06
It is currently being reviewed by the FDA.
19:08
And guess what? On February 15th and 16th, all
19:11
over a weekend, there are 20 people fired from the FD as
19:16
Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine devices fired
19:21
by DOGE, run by Elon Musk. Clear message, you're going to
19:27
get fired if you aren't on the right side of Elon Musk's
19:32
application. Now, whether that was explicit
19:34
or not, if the guy who is firing you has a pending application
19:39
before your department, aren't you going to think twice?
19:42
Aren't you going to think twice about ruling against his
19:45
interests? This is why this is all
19:47
unprecedented. It gives us feels normal because
19:50
it's been happening every day, but never before in American
19:53
history have we allowed someone who has a pending application
19:58
for approval of a medicine or a medical device to be able to
20:02
personally decide who gets hired and who gets fired at the
20:06
Regulatory agency making the decision over that medical
20:10
device. But now this stuff is happening
20:13
every day because on February 15th as well, that same weekend,
20:18
there's an announcement that the FDA cuts are going to be even
20:22
deeper, perhaps as big as 50%. That means that hundreds of
20:29
drugs and devices won't get approved at the FDA.
20:33
And you know who benefits from that?
20:35
The folks that are selling the snake oil products.
20:39
And guess who's selling the skate?
20:40
The snake oil products? The people who work for Donald
20:43
Trump selling Vita gummy scams. The director of the FBI is
20:49
selling vaccine reversal pills. When the FDA gets gutted, it's
20:52
the people who sell those unregulated products who stand
20:56
to gain. On February 19th, 4 days later,
21:00
we find out that the IRS is going to be cut by 7000 people
21:07
and the biggest chunk of the folks are going to be laid off.
21:11
Or the people who do the audits of the billionaires and the
21:14
millionaires and the corporations.
21:17
And so once again, Elon Musk and the people standing behind
21:22
Donald Trump on Inauguration Day are going to get off because the
21:27
IRS just had its enforcement powers, its audit powers
21:33
absolutely gutted. That same day, on February 19th,
21:39
you start to receive word that advertising on Elon Musk's
21:45
platform is starting to grow again.
21:48
And the reporting on February 19th indicates that American
21:53
companies have come to the collective decision that they
21:56
need to keep advertising on Elon Musk's platform because Elon
22:02
Musk has so much regulatory power inside the federal
22:06
government that they need to make sure that they're paying
22:10
Musk through Twitter and through X so that if they ultimately
22:15
need something from the federal government, they can get it.
22:17
This again, is why we have never, ever in the history of
22:21
this country allowed for the richest man in the world,
22:25
somebody who controls major companies, to also have an
22:29
official position inside the government.
22:32
Because of course, of course, it opens up these clear avenues
22:36
where people are going to do business with him privately, to
22:39
try to Curry favor with him publicly.
22:44
I'm not done. It just keeps going.
22:47
The next day on February 20th, the CDC's Advisory Committee on
22:53
Immunization Practices monthly meeting is canceled and not
23:00
rescheduled. And so we were very worried that
23:04
Robert F Kennedy Junior, who makes money off of his attacks
23:09
on vaccines, would continue those attacks when he took over
23:14
HHS. Because if faith in vaccines
23:18
continues to plummet, it is very likely that RFK junior will make
23:23
money. Why?
23:24
Because the not-for-profit that he will likely return to, the
23:27
company they will return to after he leaves, makes money as
23:31
vaccine misinformation spreads. And he also continues to collect
23:35
fees for referring cases to a company that handles claims of
23:42
personal injury due to vaccines. And so when the CDC's advisory
23:48
committee on amortization Practices is cancelled, it is a
23:50
clear indication that, yes, this campaign of assault on vaccines
23:55
is going to continue. Which, not surprisingly, is
24:00
likely to make RFK Junior even more money.
24:05
On February 26th, we see Trump's MAGA hats that are for sale on
24:13
his website displayed in the Oval Office.
24:16
And it's just a reminder that so many people inside Trump's
24:21
universe continue to sell merchandise on the side in order
24:26
to make money. Donald Trump has always done
24:28
this and we've just kind of accepted it even though it is a
24:31
kind of corruption in and of itself.
24:33
But Cash Patel, the director of the FBI, is still sent selling
24:38
cash branded merchandise even while he's going to run the FBI.
24:44
Elon Musk and others are selling doge merchandise.
24:48
So as they trumpet their brand inside the government, they're
24:52
making money off their brand outside of the government.
24:56
On February 26th may be the third most significant of brazen
25:00
corruption happens. News breaks that Elon Musk is
25:04
just going to have the FAA cancel a contract with Verizon
25:08
that has been in the works for years and instead just
25:11
substitute in Starlink for Verizon.
25:15
Just extraordinary that this is happening in Plainview of
25:19
everybody. Elon Musk takes his private
25:22
company, uses his access to government to just shove out of
25:26
the way his competitors and instead insert himself and his
25:31
company. Again, we've never seen this
25:33
ever before in American history. Now it's happening on a daily
25:36
basis. And now we get to this week.
25:39
This week, Wired reports that guests are paying millions of
25:43
dollars to dine with Donald Trump at Mar A Lago and business
25:47
leaders are being targeted with advertisements that sell access
25:52
to a one-on-one meeting with the President of the United States
25:55
for $5,000,000. Come on.
26:00
Like, seriously, there's advertisements that say if
26:05
you're a business CEO and you pay $5,000,000 to Donald Trump,
26:11
you can get a meeting with him. Like, this isn't OK.
26:18
And yet, because it happens every single day, Every single
26:22
day, they're asking for us to pretend that this is normal.
26:31
This is just six weeks. It's just six weeks.
26:39
And the last thing on the list is an offer to meet with the
26:43
president for $1,000,000 or $5 million.
26:48
If any previous president had sent out an advertisement
26:52
suggesting that you can meet with them for a payment to them
26:56
of 1,000,000 to $5,000,000, in and of itself we would deem that
27:00
to be unacceptable. But Donald Trump and Elon Musk
27:04
believe that because they have arranged this dizzying pace of
27:10
corruption in which not a day goes by in which something
27:15
doesn't happen inside our government, in which Elon Musk
27:18
or Donald Trump use their power in order to rig the rules to
27:22
enrich themselves, that we are all going to feel that it's
27:27
normal. This is how democracies die.
27:36
Democracies die when the very powerful people steal from us so
27:44
regularly, so openly, so unapologetically, that we come
27:51
to believe that it's normal. And listen, I understand that
27:56
many Americans may think that all of this stuff just used to
27:59
happen quietly. And the only difference is that
28:03
Trump and Musk are just putting it all out in the open.
28:08
And I'm not saying that there haven't been instances of
28:11
corruption. Democrats and Republicans in
28:13
this body have been accused of and convicted of acts of
28:18
corruption. It has been a fact of life in
28:21
American politics for a long time.
28:23
But never before has the corruption happened this openly
28:28
or this frequently. And so I lay it all out for you
28:33
this afternoon in the hopes that it is not too late for us to
28:40
decide to stand up as a body and as a nation to say that this
28:46
isn't OK. The Trump meme coin is not OK.
28:51
It's not OK for people who have interests before the federal
28:57
government to be able to anonymously funnel money to the
29:00
president of the United States. It's not OK for Elon Musk to
29:04
have access to Department of Labor enforcement data against
29:08
him or his competitors that nobody else gets access to.
29:13
It's not OK to just cancel contracts that we're going to
29:19
the Musk's competitors and substitute in his own business
29:23
just because he has the ability to do it as a friend of Donald
29:26
Trump. Like the rule of law matters,
29:29
Doing things by the rules matter.
29:32
This level of corruption was not occurring behind the scenes
29:37
prior. It is not just that the cover
29:39
got pulled off of it all. And it's our decision as a body
29:44
and as a country to decide not to normalize this scale of
29:50
corruption. I yield the floor.
29:59
Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
30:00
I really do appreciate your support.
30:02
If you could take a second and hit this subscribe or the follow
30:05
button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening
30:07
on right now, I greatly appreciate it.
30:10
It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never
30:13
miss an episode. And each episode is about 10
30:16
minutes or less to get you caught up quickly.
30:19
And please, if you want to support the show even more, go
30:21
to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves
30:27
and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.