Elon Musk “rented” a house at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and didn’t leave until Christmas, according to a recent New York Times article. Musk is expected to return next week.
Since election night, Musk has been staying at Banyan, one of the closest cabins to the main house at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump and his circle of relatives are staying. While other members of Musk’s Trump entourage have also remained on the property, none have been as consistent as the billionaire CEO, sources close to the scene told the Times.
Trump is said to have boasted that the world’s richest man “rented” one of his properties. But no one knows if Trump will end up charging Musk for the stay. The Banyan usually rents for about $2,000 a night. Trump reportedly increased the club’s annual payout at Mar-a-Lago to $1 million.
This underscores how close Trump and Musk are this year, and especially since the election. The Times noted that Trump privately posted a message on Truth Social for Musk that read, “Where are you?”When are you coming to the “Center of the Universe”, Mar-a-Lago? Bill Gates has asked to come tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be amazing!!DJT. “
Other members of Trump’s inner circle have complained about this bromance, complaining that Musk is crossing the line. Musk has tried to smooth things over with posts about X, the “President Musk” meme persists.
Laura Loomer is still done with Elon Musk.
Appearing on Steve Bannon’s War Room, the anti-immigration activist on Monday called the billionaire a “welfare queen” and a technocrat with enormous influence in American politics thanks to his continued trysts with Donald Trump.
“If you have a group of technological brothers with billions of dollars and direct and unrestricted to the vice president and the president of the United States, and they are also very cordial with our adversaries, like in China and Iran, we see that Elon Musk Are they holding such meetings off the record with Iranian and Chinese officials? What does this mean for us?
The self-proclaimed “white advocate” in a social media feud with the Tesla CEO last week over Musk’s fiery defense of the H-1B paint visa program, which he says offers a solution to a “permanent shortage of suitable engineers. “Far-right parties at odds with the immigration program (and Musk’s position) say the H-1B visa deters corporations from hiring U. S. labor.
In several posts, Loomer accused Musk of “buying his ticket into MAGA,” claimed he was a pawn of China, and said that a “divorce” between “class five” and President-elect Donald Trump was on the horizon.
That was enough to strip Loomer of her verified prestige on the site, a loss that she felt justified a public plea for Musk to reinstate her blue check. Loomer has been banned from virtually every social media platform due to his inflammatory and violent rhetoric.
The H-1B visa program has an annual cap set by Congress, admitting 65,000 foreign workers per year. In 2023, it was estimated that there were more than 700,000 H-1B visa holders in the U.S., according to data from the American Immigration Council.
The worst user you know came up with some wonderful arguments pic. twitter. com/26uPBN0xzD
The German government accused Elon Musk of influencing its election with his X platform.
“It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election,” German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann told reporters on Monday. She added that Musk is free to opine on German politics: “After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.”
“Chancellor Oaf Schitz or whatever his name is will lose,” Musk said in response on X, referring to current German chancellor and center-left Social Democrat Olaf Scholz.
Musk has been a spokesman for Germany’s right-wing, anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, for weeks. Earlier this month, the billionaire wrote: “Only the AfD can save Germany. Last week, he wrote an op-ed. ” In the newspaper Welt am Sonntag he wrote about the match, calling it “the last spark of hope. “
“The AfD, described as far-right, represents a political realism that resonates with many Germans who feel that their considerations are being ignored by the establishment,” Musk wrote. “Portraying the AfD as far-right is obviously wrong, given that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex spouse from Sri Lanka!Does this remind you of Hitler?
The paper’s head opinions editor resigned after this was published.
Musk has also been incredibly influential as a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump this election cycle, and will most likely continue to be so while co-leading DOGE with Vivek Ramaswamy.
As for Germany, the results of his meddling are still unknown. Their election will be held on February 23, 2025.
Following his death, numerous obituaries paid tribute to President Jimmy Carter as a committed and disciplined public servant. President Joe Biden, the first senator to endorse Carter’s run for the White House in 1976, described the century-old Democrat as a guy and politician who “embodied Huguy’s ultimate core values. “
But little praise for the one-term Georgian highlighted his strong ethical stances on U. S. foreign policy, which effusively criticized both parties for America in what he once described as “the most belligerent country on the planet. ”
Here are some of his most difficult quotes:
1. “A superpower is not only the first country in terms of military power, which we will continue to be, but I think the purpose of the American superpower is to be the champion of peace and to be the champion of peace. humans, the champion of the environment and the most generous country on the planet,” Jimmy Carter said in 2015, later noting that the United States had only been at peace for 16 of the 242 years it had existed. like a country.
“We had no reason to worry about Iraq recently,” Carter told The Independent in 2004, long before the highest of political elegance dared to criticize the U. S. invasion. “It is a war based on lies and misinterpretations by London and Washington. “
3. “We cannot be peacemakers if American government leaders are seen as unthinking supporters of any and all actions or policies of the Israeli government currently in place. This is an essential fact that will have to be faced. Carter wrote those words in Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, criticizing Israel for its failure to end its profession of Palestine, its apartheid formula, and its continued punishment of Palestinians.
Facing a backlash from right-wing lobbyists about Israel, Carter redoubled his efforts, saying that a balanced debate about the two nations was “virtually nonexistent” in Congress and the executive branch, and accusing American leaders of being in Israel’s pocket.
Despite direct orders from President-elect Donald Trump, some House Republicans appear to be teeing up to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Trump voiced his support for Johnson on Monday, just two weeks after the president clashed with several House Republicans outraged over his proposing a lengthy bipartisan bill to fund the government. And despite Trump’s series, not all Republicans are following his lead.
Rep. Andy Biggs is the latest to sign his reluctance to adhere to the president-elect’s marching orders. During an interview on Fox News on Monday, the Arizona Republican said he’s not in Johnson’s bag yet.
“I haven’t committed publicly or privately yet,” Biggs said. “I want to talk to the president just to see what his plans are, because there are some issues that I think need to be addressed, specifically those along the lines of the budget. “
Rep. Thomas Massie doubled down on his opposition to Johnson in an article published Monday, drawing on the unpopular House speaker who was once championed through Trump.
“I respect President Trump, but yours for Mike Johnson will work just as well as yours for President Paul Ryan,” Massie wrote. “We saw Johnson partner with Democrats to send cash to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget. »
Beneath his statement undermining Trump’s judgment, billionaire technocrat Elon Musk replied, “You might be right, but let’s see how it goes.”
Massie wasn’t the only one to mention Ryan. La Rep. Victoria Spartaz asked Johnson on Monday how he would follow Trump’s timeline before deigning to help him as president.
“I understand why President Trump supports President Johnson as he did President Ryan, which is really important. However, we will have to have confidence that @SpeakerJohnson will not sell us to the swamp,” he wrote in a post on X Monday.
Spartz sent Johnson a list of demands, including a request for “unbiased ‘non-swamp’ professionals” to help her do her job. The two are expected to discuss the list at a meeting Monday.
Steve Bannon thinks that Americans deserve reparations for having to coexist with immigrants on H-1B visas.
“We have not fought those battles for years and years to allow American citizens of all races, ethnicities and religions to be eviscerated by the sociopathic overlords of Silicon Valley,” Bannon said at his War Room exhibit Monday morning. “David Sacks, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. . . There is no reform. We need that to go away. . . We need reparations for the technical personnel whose lives you stole.
This is another episode of the schism between MAGA “America First” loyalists and MAGA tech plutocrats who need more highly professional immigrants. Former presidential candidate and current DOGE co-leader Vivek Ramaswamy lit the fire last week when he declared: “A culture that celebrates the prom queen more than the math Olympiad champion, or the top athlete. student, will not produce the most productive engineers,” he argues. that it was American culture that led CEOs to look elsewhere for labor. This talking point was picked up by Elon Musk and other right-wing techies, sparking a MAGA backlash that even included Nikki Haley. torchbearer of the old Republican status quo that was defeated by Trump last year.
“There’s nothing to American personnel or American culture,” Haley wrote. “You just have to look at the border and see how many other people need what we have. We deserve to invest in and prioritize Americans, not foreign personnel.
This anti-H-1B energy has culminated in Bannon’s calls for reparations, something usually invoked for African Americans historically disenfranchised by slavery and racism.
“We’re going to root out the H-1B visas and all the staff that you brought. Just as we’re deporting another 15 million people here, we need them deported,” Bannon said later in his broadcast. “And to give those jobs to American citizens today . . . we demand that they obtain reparations. “You stole from them.
Donald Trump tried to stem the growing tide against House Speaker Mike Johnson Monday with a post endorsing his reelection, but whether all House Republicans are actually interested in getting back on the bandwagon is another issue entirely.
In a rambling post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump suggested the “Party of COMMON SENSE” to Johnson’s attempt to hold on to the gavel in the new year.
“LETS NOT BLOW THIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN. The American people need IMMEDIATE relief from all of the destructive policies of the last Administration. Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!” he wrote. Most of the post’s word count was dedicated to his own “flawless” reelection campaign.
By expressing support for Johnson, Trump has established a new loyalty check for House Republicans.
Earlier this month, Johnson came under fire after introducing a 1,547-page continuing resolution to keep the government open until March, among a slew of other bipartisan provisions, inviting the outrage of small-government types like technocrat billionaire Elon Musk, and a slate of sycophantic Republicans.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie was so distraught that he claimed he would not vote for Johnson in the upcoming House speaker election in January.
Johnson then worked with Trump on another spending bill that suspended the debt ceiling, one of the president-elect’s main demands. But this time, 38 House Republicans broke with Trump and voted against the bill. In the end, Trump’s call is for Republicans to find a way to increase or abolish the debt ceiling that remains unresolved.
Last week, Representative Andy Harris, who chairs the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said that Republicans need to think about whether their current leadership “is what we need” and that he was “undecided” on what House leadership should look like moving forward.
More than a few other Republicans have similarly voiced their dissatisfaction with Johnson, as it seems that the GOP’s antiestablishment bent has turned against the party itself.
Elon Musk asks you to make X a more positive place.
The tech billionaire pleaded with his 209 million fans on Sunday, blaming the site’s users for his lower investment in social media than himself.
“Please, content that’s a little more positive or beautiful or informative on this platform,” Musk said.
The X accounts were quick to put the ball back in Musk’s court, urging him to create a set of rules where positive content can simply proliferate.
“You first,” replied lawyer and bluegrass banjo Steve Martin.
“Are you tired of the poisonous desert you created?Author Karen Piper replied.
Musk most likely began to realize the more toxic elements of his site after becoming embroiled in a far-right dispute over H-1B work visas last week. Last week, Musk vowed to “wage war on this issue,” insisting that foreign tech staff will have to be allowed to work in the United States due to a “continuing shortage of appropriate engineering skills. ” painted Musk and other H-1B supporters, such as unofficial DOGE co-chairman Vivek Ramaswamy, as MAGA targets amid Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda (the H-1B visa program has an annual limit set through of Congress, admitting 65,000 foreign workers per year. In 2023, it is estimated that there were more than 700,000 H-1B visa holders in the States. United States, according to data from the American Immigration Council).
But if anyone is to blame for the site’s volatile and disturbing content, it is none other than Musk himself.
In the early days of Musk’s takeover, Twitter witnessed a mass exodus of employees, with Musk claiming he was simply trimming fat by firing upwards of 80 percent of site staff. His “free speech agenda” has further capped and undermined the site’s content moderation abilities, allowing dangerous rhetoric to flow freely on his platform. His dismantling of the site’s infrastructure has also translated to monumental changes on the website that have proved overwhelmingly unpopular. His tweaked algorithm has aggressively promoted advertisements and reshare accounts, restructured threads to the point that they no longer elevate relevant replies, and has even swapped code to ensure his own posts universally appear at the top of users’ timelines.
But despite his defense, not even the nastiest posts seemed to bother Musk, who spread Nazi conspiracies through his private account and allowed another 105% of anti-Semitic hate speech to spread on the platform, according to a 2023 study.
Last year, the technology billionaire admitted that it had lost 90% of its price since acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022.
A three-star U.S. Army general thinks that Elon Musk’s foreign business relationships could make him a significant threat to national security.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré argued in a Sunday column in the New York Times that the SpaceX CEO’s willingness to capitulate to Chinese demands over the years mars his recent influence within Trump’s circle. all the more debatable.
Honoré referenced 2023 quotes from Musk’s DOGE friend Vivek Ramaswamy to make his point. “I have no explanation for thinking that Elon wouldn’t possibly jump around like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in times of need,” Ramaswamy said in an interview. “It is deeply troubling that @elonmusk met with China’s foreign minister yesterday to oppose “the US wants leaders who are not in China’s pocket. “
Ramaswamy has since made amends with Musk, but his concerns still apply. Musk and SpaceX have already been flagged thrice by the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General, and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to disclose his meetings with foreign leaders, something his current security clearance requires him to do. And his China business isn’t going anywhere either.
Musk borrowed at least $1. 4 billion from banks controlled through the Chinese government to finance his large Tesla “gigafactory” in Shanghai. He borrowed this money knowing full well that Chinese law allows the Chinese Communist Party to request information from any company doing business in China in exchange for doing business there – a big red flag for Honoré.
“Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China may simply require him to disclose sensitive and classified information, downloaded either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump. No federal firm has charged him with disclosing such documents, so far. the moment as Mr. United States What we want is for China to have a potentially less difficult way to download classified intelligence and national security information.
This angered both Democrats and Republicans. In 2022, Senator Marco Rubio accused Tesla of obstructing justice for the CCP, and in 2023 he introduced a bill to block NASA and other federal agencies from awarding contracts to Chinese Communist Party-related corporations. Two Democratic senators recently called for an investigation into Musk’s “trustworthiness as a government contractor and permit holder” because of his phone call with Vladimir Putin.
The line between civilian and elected official has become blurrier as Musk further cements himself as part of Trump’s inner circle. As Honoré wrote, the world’s richest man funding Trump’s return to the presidency “does not give the incoming White House the license to look the other way at the national security risks he may pose.”
President Joe Biden funnels the budget to Ukraine before Donald Trump takes the reins of the US reaction to the conflict.
The outgoing leader announced another $6 billion in military and budget aid to Ukraine on Monday. About $1. 25 billion in military aid comes from U. S. reserves, and some other $1. 22 billion comes from Ukraine’s latest security aid package under Biden, Reuters reported. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said the United States had provided $3. 4 billion in additional budget aid to Ukraine amid the ongoing standoff with Russia.
“The Ministry of Defense is delivering thousands of artillery shells, thousands of rockets, and armored car loads that will strengthen Ukraine’s position as winter approaches,” Biden said in a statement. “Under my leadership, the United States will continue to work tirelessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war for the remainder of my term. »
According to Biden, the budget will be used for critical resources and long-term air defense systems, artillery and other weapons systems.
More than 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded the Eastern European nation in February 2022. Cities have been leveled, and 370,000 injuries have been reported, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month. But Biden’s exit from the White House could mark the end of the U.S. commitment to aiding the war-torn nation.
One of Trump’s biggest and boldest campaign promises was that he would immediately end the Russian invasion of Ukraine—though his philosophy on how to achieve that was suspiciously scant of details and, at times, veered toward solutions that would invariably aid Russia.
In June, details dished by some of Trump’s advisers suggested that Trump would be open to an increase in U.S. weapons aid to Ukraine so long as it shows up for peace talks with Russia. The advisers envisioned that the peace talks would also quietly include Ukraine ceding part of the country that is currently occupied by Russian forces.
And some of Trump’s domestic decisions are reportedly “thrilling” Russian mouthpieces. Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, claimed earlier this month that some of Trump’s most unqualified choices for his Cabinet—such as DOGE co-chair nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard—are friendly faces that bring the Kremlin “lots of joy.”
Meanwhile, NATO (from which Trump has long threatened to withdraw the United States) favors an escalation on the Russian front. In early December, NATO leader Mark Rutte warned his members that the foreign alliance needed to adopt a “war mentality,” predicting years of clashes with Russia as the superpower crushes Ukrainian forces.
“Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation, with Ukraine and with us,” Rutte said during a speech in Brussels in which he highlighted the short distance to where “Russian bombs are falling … Iranian drones are flying,” and “North Korean soldiers are fighting.”
“We are not in a position to face what awaits us in four or five years,” continued the secretary general. “It’s time to shift to a war mentality and increase our production and defense spending. “