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Elon Musk is not spending $45 million a month to elect former President Donald Trump, though he has created a new super political action committee (PAC) to fund the Republican candidate, the billionaire told conservative commentator Jordan Peterson during an interview Monday evening. 

During the interview, which was hosted on Musk’s platform, X, Peterson asked Musk if he had “shocked” himself by donating a substantial amount of money to Trump’s campaign. Musk – who has previously criticized Trump, calling him a “bull in a china shop” – paused to correct the “media.” 

“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true,” Musk said. “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.”

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[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 183 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

I'm sorry what? Is he using the distinction between donating to a PAC and a candidate as cover? 🤦🤦‍♀️🤦‍♂️

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 102 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"It's not for Trump, that's a lie... It was for the PAC I made"

Fortune: "Why are they lying about poor Elon!?"

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 47 points 3 months ago

This is fucking hilarious. Thanks for confirming.

That's crazy, why would he even try something so transparent. What happened when the journalist followed up with that obvious clarifying ques-

conservative commentator Jordan Peterson

-oh. Nevermind.

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago

“I’m not giving him any money. I’m simply putting loads of cash into a piggy bank and then incidentally giving that piggy bank directly to him”

[–] skysurfer@lemmy.world 85 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Knowing Elon's past history with wording, he is probably actually donating $45,999,999.99 or $45,000,000.01 just to say the media reports are not true. He never denied donating money, just disputed that exact figure.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 42 points 3 months ago

Nah, the word salad decryption is I'm giving 45 mil/ month to a PAC that just so happens to be giving their money to Donald Trump. Yeah, I founded the PAC, what of it. I'm not giving him that, I'm giving the PAC it. No campaign finance laws were broken wink wink.

[–] andallthat@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think you're all focusing on the wrong part. I didn't donate $45M, I made an investment that I expect to pay back a lot more. Donating to Trump would indeed be cult of personality, buying a US President to protect me and be my pet is pure Elon.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

He wants to take a bite from Boeing and Lockheeds contracts.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

My thought as well. Why didn't Peterson ask more about it, though.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago

Because he's not interested in doing any sort of bona fide journalism.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Look what Musk did when Don Lemon asked him not especially challenging questions.

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 85 points 3 months ago (1 children)

doesn't subscribe to cult of personality

Well that tracks. Cult leaders don't really like to acknowledge other cults.

[–] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 2 points 3 months ago

I mean, you make more money as the leader, but have more fun as a follower.

[–] Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world 46 points 3 months ago

*clears throat*

lol

[–] Erasmus@lemmy.world 42 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

‘I don’t subscribe to the Cult of Personality, it subscribed to me’

Elon Musk (probably)

[–] eskimofry@lemm.ee 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't musk the one who tweeted this? Why is he lying saying that media reported something that is not true when the source was himself?

[–] CaptSneeze@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I thought so too, but I just went searching for the source and it appears that everyone gives attribution for this as “according to the WSJ”, and the WSJ attributes it to “people familiar with the matter”. So, no actual statement from Musk that I could find.

That said, I still think he’s likely contributing to a PAC (which makes it technically true that isn’t directly giving to Trump…). I also suspect that it’s very likely he has an agreement with the PAC that they will then spend this money on ads at Twitter, though I have no evidence to back that up.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What does it mean when rats suddenly vacate a ship?

[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"I haven't donated $45m".

He could have donated 50m, so I'd take it with a grain of salt until the fillings are actually public

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago

"I have not donated $45m to Trump (it was donated to the PAC)."

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 28 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Man, I was one of two people I knew whilst in college sounding the alarm about Citizens United, and everyone acted like I was overreacting, that it would get fixed (somehow) because Obama was going to save us all!

Oh fucking well I guess.

Here we a decade plus later, everything is broken, everything is literally on fire (forest fire season was NOT a commonly used term when I grew up), and there is no point in saying I told you so.

I wish I was Dr. Manhattan and could just sit on Mars.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Forest fire season has definitely been around since at least when I was a kid- it kind of depended on where you are, though.

Fires in California definitely were seasonal (as were Australian bush fires,) (I was like seven, but I gotta say, firemen were cool and Aussie firemen that did that thing were even cooler.)(okay it might have been the accent.)

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I grew up in Western WA, in and near Seattle.

It used to be extremely rare for a forest fire to have any kind of effect on basically anywhere within 100 miles of Seattle.

Now, that region itself is getting previously unheard of heat domes, and its now basically multiple times per summer that a much larger than normal forest fire in southwest WA, or Oregon or even BC ends up making it so bad that news and the University of WA will tell people to jerry rig makeshift smoke filters out of HVAC filters and a box fan, and to basically not go outside for more than 15 minutes without a mask.

A whole lot of homes and apartments in western WA do not have AC, because it used to be the case that you would get maybe 5 to 10 days, nonconcurrent, above 85. You could just take it easy and have a lazy non productive day.

Now its a solid week, or multiple solid weeks of 90+ temps, and huge numbers of people do not have AC because we did not used to need it.

When I last lived in WA, in a 2.1k apartment, I had to buy my own window AC unit, cover the windows in mylar to reflect the heat and then use black out curtains after that, and also jerry rig the AC unit with an HVAC filter to just barely be able to keep one room below 95 degrees for about a week straight, with the whole room smelling like burning wood.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Oh it’s wide spread now, and much much worse.

The sadly ironic reality is most of the US was a fire ecology. With the total suppression of all wildfires, we’ve been sitting on a powder keg for decades. We’ve known it for decades, and climate change is a giant road flare slowly falling into it.

I was born in cali, and yeah, they had “fire season” there, in Minnesota we didn’t - at least not till recently when things finally got traction. The conversation is entirely different

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 20 points 3 months ago

It's a Good Thing Republicans and Muskets do their Own Research! Otherwise they might have thought Elon Musk was donating $45MILLION a Month to Trump when Elon Musk said he was donating $45MILLION a Month to Trump!

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think it’s funny that benzo psychologist who’s afraid of pronouns is still relevant.

[–] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Oddly, not 10 mins before seeing this post I was having to convince someone that anyone espousing Jordan B Peterson probably isn't reading the political climate from a reasonable vantage point.

[–] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I must call a doctor because I have a boner that's been lasting way more than 4 hours and it just keeps getting harder with every new headline I read.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Kamala works no? Now if she'd go with Bernie's pro-worker agenda, I'd cum and go to sleep in peace.

[–] MataVatnik@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm expecting a continuation of the same neoliberal nonsense but one can dream.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Wait now, Joe did break with the neolibs on spending and workers rights. Not as hard as needed of course. But nevertheless he followed Kelton's advice on spending and strengthened labor including the NLRB. Now I'm not saying neoliberalism ended under Biden but I think it's important to acknowledge the breaks from the norm. 🥹

But to your point I'm afraid she or whoever ends up replacing Joe would revert back even on these points to standard neoliberalism. I hope it doesn't happen of course. The UAW smackdown was too boner-worthy. It has to happen again.

[–] reliv3@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Folks, we do understand that when Kamala was a senator, her vote on topics were statistically aligned with Bernie Sanders.

While a senator, Kamala's votes aligned almost 100% with protecting the environment (according to the League of Conservation voters.

She agreed with Bernie Sanders "College for all" act which would fund tuition for lower income students looking to go to a public university.

She co-sponsered a bill to ban assault rifles, high capacity magazines, and to limit gunstores advertising campaigns.

She backed the "Medicare for all" bill sponsored by Bernie Sanders, which would have established a government funded Healthcare system which would provide health insurance to all Americans and remove private health insurance.

In terms of immigration, she wanted to put ICE under a microscope and reexamine their practices, she supports DACA, opposes a border wall, and wants to investigate a means to alleviate illegal immigration by attacking the problems in central and South America which is causing these folks to try to run to the USA.

At the end of the day, I would not be surprised if Biden was influenced by her ideas, because if you look at what he has done in his four year term, he has moved his political needle more left.

Sauce: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-kamala-harris-believe-where-the-candidate-stands-on-9-issues

[–] DancingBear@midwest.social -3 points 3 months ago

Are you on crack?

[–] garretble@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

“Sir if you go full MAGA the liberals won’t buy your cars any more.”

(Though he can still donate all this money to PACs I’m sure and no one will know so by saying this he’s probably just trying to save face and stuff give money to the shit heads.)

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Honestly, at this point, now that he has the biggest golden parachute in history, I doubt he cares about the fate of Tesla.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm actually in the market for a new car, and prefer to get an EV, but Tesla is out of the question. Not just because of Musk, mind you, though it does play a big part, but also because they're hideous and aren't known for quality.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

That last part, is totally because of musk.

The CT, for example was what happens when he rides herd on the engineers designing it. You can see how each version of Tesla got more and more complicated and over engineered and that’s directly because of musk.

[–] pelletbucket@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago

bro these guys never spend their own money.

[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Just like every other one of elon's promises.

[–] robocall@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Did his lawyer call him and demand he clarify his comments?

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

He denied saying he'll buy twitter for 42.69 was it?

[–] sushimi@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

The interview actually had much more interesting content..