'Chief shareholder in the presidency’: Musk on Trump-Zelenskyy Mar-a-Lago call fuels fears

08 Nov 2024, 23:11 by https://www.facebook.com/17108852506 · AlterNet

Elon Musk in London on November 1, 2023 (Creative Commons)
David Badash
November 08, 2024Frontpage news and politics

Elon Musk joined Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when the billionaire and President-elect were at Mar-a-Lago. The move is raising concerns about Musk’s potential role in the upcoming Republican administration, given his status as a federal contractor with access to U.S. defense secrets and relationships with foreign adversaries, including Russia, and its illegal war against Ukraine, as well as his personal socio-political statements about America.

Axios, in an exclusive on Friday, reported Musk’s presence on Trump’s call with President Zelenskyy, details of which “underscore how influential Musk could be in the second Trump administration,” and offer “uncertainty over how exactly Trump will approach Ukraine.”

“Trump’s public messages throughout the election campaign — promising a quick resolution to the war, declining to say which side he wanted to win and criticizing the massive aid packages flowing from Washington — raised alarm bells in Kyiv and throughout Europe,” Axios added, and claimed, “Trump has yet to speak with Vladimir Putin since the election.”

Axios also reported that Musk “joined Trump’s call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”

Last month a bombshell Wall Street Journal exclusive revealed Musk has “been in regular contact” and has had “secret conversations” with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, “since late 2022.”

Musk has also “forged deep business ties with U.S. military and intelligence agencies, giving him unique visibility into some of America’s most sensitive space programs,” The Journal reported. “SpaceX, which operates the Starlink service, won a $1.8 billion classified contract in 2021 and is the primary rocket launcher for the Pentagon and NASA. Musk has a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information.”

Calling Musk “a linchpin of U.S. space efforts,” The Journal noted that “Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.”

During his presidential campaign, Trump claimed if elected, he would end Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine even before being sworn in to office.

“Donald Trump has failed to meet one of his highest-profile pre-election promises—when the war in Ukraine will end,” reports The Daily Beast on Friday. “’I would fix that within 24 hours. And, if I win, before I get into the office, I will have that war settled. A hundred percent sure,’ Trump said on Hannity in 2023. It’s been over 48 hours since Trump won the presidential election, and there’s no end in sight for the conflict. The Wall Street Journalreported Wednesday that Trump actually does not have a specific plan to get Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, and is fielding competing ideas from advisers and allies.”

The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis posted this video of Trump:

— (@)

Meanwhile, news of Musk being at Mar-a-Lago and intimately involved in conversations and possibly negotiations with Trump, Zelenskyy, and possibly even Putin or other world leaders, is drawing great concern.

On Wednesday, Kai Trump, daughter of Donald Trump Jr., posted this photo, leading The New Republic to ask, “Why the hell is Elon Musk in the first Trump family photo after the election?”

— (@)

“The billionaire tech CEO spent election night with Trump, showing that he is now a part of the president-elect’s inner circle,” TNR added. “The photo perhaps is a look at who will be the public faces of the next first family.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired Naval War College professor who has a PhD in government from Georgetown University commented on Musk being in the call to Zelenskyy: “This is dangerous and stupid, but it’s what America voted for. They must have doubled over laughing in Moscow hearing about this.”

The New Yorker’s award-winning investigative journalist Jane Mayer, responding to Musk’s presence on the call to Zelenskyy, asked: “Barred by the Constitution from being president because he was born abroad, will Musk be the shadow president?”

And Susan Glasser, also of The New Yorker, added: “Wow. A preview of what happens when the world’s richest man is also chief shareholder in the US presidency.”

Similarly, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo wrote: “Musk buying Twitter and then going all in with Trump was a bet that is paying off as it looks like he will be majority shareholder in the US Presidency the next 4 years.”

Professor of public policy Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor remarked, “Shocking, but not surprising. Musk put more than $130M of his own money into this election, and he’ll expect to get his money’s worth. I think he’ll be calling a lot of the shots in the Musk-Trump administration.”

Watch the video above or at this link.