Quick! Who is the cutting-edge kind of a guy that believes people should have more children, that Congress should “can” the Biden infrastr...
Quick! Who is the cutting-edge kind of a guy that believes people should have more children, that Congress should “can” the Biden infrastructure bill and that there should be no subsidies for electric cars?
Elon Musk, that’s who.
No subsidies for electric cars? According to the CEO of the company pushing electrification, Tesla?
What’s this guy all about, anyway?
Interviewed recently at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit and summarized in a Just the News story, Musk, who also heads SpaceX, expressed indifference on the part of Tesla toward the infrastructure bill.
“We don’t think about it at all, really,” he said.
Yet, Musk warned against the country’s $3 trillion deficit: “It might be better if the bill doesn’t pass because we’ve spent so much money – you know, it’s like the federal budget deficit is insane … It’s like $3 trillion. Federal expenditures are $7 trillion. Federal revenue is $4 trillion. That’s a $3 trillion difference.”
“And if this was a company, it would be a $3 trillion loss, so I don’t know if we should be adding to that loss. That seems pretty crazy. Something’s gotta give.”
Serial entrepreneur Musk, listed by Forbes as the richest man in the world, donates to both political parties, leaning slightly more toward Democrats, and his companies are heavily involved in bipartisan lobbying, according to CNBC.
He served on several business advisory councils to former President Trump, but he quit when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreements, according to Vox.
Yet, Musk claims some very non-Democrat territory, including opposition to Biden’s so-called “Build Back Better” infrastructure bill.
“Honestly, I would just can this whole bill,” Musk said. “Don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation.”
And, he said, the federal government, instead of being a “player on the field,” should just function as a “referee.” It should “get out of the way and not impede progress,” Just the News reported.
“Rules and regulations are immortal,” according to Musk. “They don’t die. The vast majority of rules and regulations live forever.”
“… there’s not really an effective garbage collection system for removing rules and regulations, so this hardens the arteries of civilization where you are able to do less and less over time.”
Musk’s criticisms of the bill include subsidies for the electric cars built by his company, Tesla.
“Unnecessary,” Musk said. “Do we need support for gas stations? We don’t. I’m literally saying get rid of all subsidies.”
All subsidies? Has anybody informed the solar industry?
Meanwhile, Biden’s infrastructure bill includes a subsidy of $7,500 for purchase of an electric vehicle and a $4,500 subsidy for buying a union-made car. Tesla is non-union.
Musk’s criticism of government doesn’t stop with subsidies.
“The government is simply the biggest corporation, with a monopoly on violence and where you have no recourse. It’s the only one that’s allowed to legally do violence,” Musk explained.
He’s not totally opposed to government, but, like a good American Constitutionalist, he wants to see its role minimized.
In addition, Musk lamented the low numbers of individuals in the workforce and said people should have more children.
He noted ongoing Chinese expansion and said he has a “good relationship” with China, although he does not endorse everything its government does, according to Just the News.
So unconventional is Musk’s thinking that, to the sound of some laughter from the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, he disparaged the term CEO.
“There’s actually only three legal – three titles that actually mean anything to a corporation. It’s president, secretary and treasurer, and technically, they can be the same person,” he said.
“And all these other titles are just basically made up: CEO is a made up title, CFO is a made up title, general counsel is a made up title. They don’t mean anything.”
Although Musk remains chief executive officer of Tesla, the Securities and Exchange Commission bumped him from the company’s chairmanship due to a fraud charge regarding taking the company private, according to CNBC.
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