Elon Musk says "vote Republican," suddenly being investigated as a national security threat

Britta Pedersen/Pool via AP

Elon Musk has been a hero to liberals for years. Unsurprising, given that he pretty much single handedly created a real market for electric cars and is aiming to become a clean energy superpower using solar panels and battery storage. He supported Democrats both rhetorically and financially until recently, and was well regarded as a success story.

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I am personally a fan more for his amazing success in revolutionizing the space industry. This year and last he has put twice as much mass into orbit than the rest of world combined. His Starlink internet service is so revolutionary that Ukraine might be losing the war with Russia if it did not have access to the system. He donated the use of Starlink free of charge.

The Left, now has turned on him. And it can all be traced to something that has happened over the past year: Elon fell out of love with the Left, and they are returning the favor big time. In April Musk made his troubled bid to buy Twitter in order to turn it back into a free speech friendly site, criticizing the politically motivated censorship that the election season and COVID accelerated.

In May Musk told his followers that he was voting Republican because Democrats had become the Party of division and hate.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk wrote.

He then bashed the Democratic Party, writing: “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.”

“Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold,” Musk wrote, adding a popcorn emoji to his tweet.

It is in this context that you should understand what was just revealed. The dirty tricks campaign is on full display, and the MSM and the Left are all in on destroying Musk entirely.

News hit the wire today that the Biden Administration is considering labeling Musk a National Security threat and subjecting all his deals to federal reviews on that basis.

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Bloomberg reports that the

Biden administration officials are discussing whether the US should subject some of Elon Musk’s ventures to national security reviews, including the deal for Twitter Inc. and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to people familiar with the matter.

Twitter shares fell 5.1% as the market opened in New York on Friday.

US officials have grown uncomfortable over Musk’s recent threat to stop supplying the Starlink satellite service to Ukraine — he said it had cost him $80 million so far — and what they see as his increasingly Russia-friendly stance following a series of tweets that outlined peace proposals favorable to President Vladimir Putin. They are also concerned by his plans to buy Twitter with a group of foreign investors.

The discussions are still at an early stage, the people familiar said on condition of anonymity. Officials in the US government and intelligence community are weighing what tools, if any, are available that would allow the federal government to review Musk’s ventures.

One possibility is through the law governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review Musk’s deals and operations for national security risks, they said.

Now you have to understand how ridiculous this is on so many levels. NASA and the US military have been relying on SpaceX as a major partner in expanding our presence in space and as a potential provider of transportation services to the military. They have viewed SpaceX as a partner, and rightly so. For years the US government relied upon Russia of all countries to bolster our access to space, and now they have an American company providing the most reliable, inexpensive, and rapid access to space available in world history.

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NASA has worked for a decade, spent billions, and can’t launch Artemis into space. Yet SpaceX can do it cheaply and reliably almost on demand.

There is one and only one reason the Biden Administration is doing this, and it ain’t concerns about national security. SpaceX has done more than any non-government entity to prop up Ukraine in its war with Russia, and all they asked for was a little consideration given how much they have invested. How about helping them not bleed cash by having the US government start picking up the tab, as they do with literally every other company supporting the war effort?

This is about Musk’s no longer supporting Democrats, as he did financially for years. He is now giving donations to Republicans and the response of the Biden Administration is to turn the full force of the US Security state against one of their most important partners. This is exactly what fascists do: make everybody bend their knee to the state and party, and it is utterly anti-American.

Forcing businesses and businessmen to comply to the political whims of the party in power is vile and in a normal political environment beyond the pale.

But not in Joe Biden’s America.

Love or hate Elon Musk, this is a wake up call to all of us. Unless you think a political party should be empowered to threaten to destroy their political enemies using the power of the state at whim, you need to punish the Biden cabal.

UPDATE: If you aren’t convinced that the US government has precisely zero real concerns about Musk’s threat to national security, consider this: at the same time they are threatening Musk and considering scotching his deals they are asking him to turn on Starlink for Iran. Musk, for all his flakiness, has been a real force for good in the world. He may not create a clean energy future, but he sure is shaping the future for the better:

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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