Trump says he has 'no choice' but to support electric vehicles because Elon Musk 'endorsed me very strongly'

return2ozma@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 773 points –
Trump says he has 'no choice' but to support electric vehicles because Elon Musk 'endorsed me very strongly'
businessinsider.com
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Translation: "give me enough money and I'll promote whatever you want."

Most presidents at least pretended they couldn't be bought.

Did someone say frijoles?

Trumps and Beans

And I haven't bought Goya since.

Ah yes. Thanks for the reminder of those times, which COVID had distracted me from.

I can't decide whether this pic or the photo of George W. Bush literally holding hands with the king of Saudi Arabia is worse. I mean, at least Goya doesn't have people cut up with bone saws and they definitely had nothing to do with 9/11.

I like to substitute Trump's middle initial with a G instead of a J.

Donathan Goya Trump

Nah. Imo, this is him telling oil company that they need to step up and fully fund his requests for money "or else". Didn't he recently ask the oil industry for an insane amount of money at the beginning of his campaign or something?

That's not really contradicting what I'm saying.

No, you're right. But I think this is specifically a message to the oil industry.

Bought and paid for politician Trump is.

Except he doesn't sell himself to the highest buidder, he'll sell out to any and all of them at the same time.

Dude's made a living selling his stupid face every opportunity he can to get attention, why would he let a little thing like presidential integrity get in the way? It certainly didn't when he was actually president!

"Some fok'll never tip their hand, but then again some fok'll. Like Donald the Slack-jawed Yokel."

Trump: "It wasn't my fault, he had a LOT
of money."

No translation needed, since he is saying it outright.

Fr wtf, the shamelessness adds insult to injury.

I thought you were supposed to not admit to the bribe.

The argument has always been, “No, we just give to candidates who support our cause.” Of course everyone knows that’s BS, because the support always follows the cash. But then here comes this dumbass and just- up and admits to corruption.

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How the US does not read this as: "I was bribed by the CEO of < company > to enact policies that benefit them" is beyond me.

Be better America.

A large swath of the US are people with a single braincell bouncing around their skull like a DVD logo.

"I'm no puppet! You're the puppet!"

Translation: Elon musk is giving me money and is calling me a cool guy. I have to help him.

Trump says the quiet part ("I am totally bribe-able") out loud, all the time because he's a complete freaking idiot. There is no filter between his mouth and what's left of his brain.

This is the real Trump. The moron. This isn't "off the cuff","exaggeration" or "locker room talk" Believe people when they show you what they really are.

because he's a complete freaking idiot.

The scary part is nobody's listening. I can scream at the top of my lungs the fact that vaccines are harmless but measles outbreaks are increasing. People out there hunting immigrants while the 1% pockets their surplus value.

People aren't thinking, they are just reacting on emotions.

The problem is lots of folks have been more or less made that way through decades of action by the right. Seriously the more or less complete collapse of leftist action back in the 70s and 80s fucked us, it meant that the right was able to hog wild and build up massive institutions like talk radio and fox. Theres one thing we have going for us and thats the fact these institutions are finally going up against actual resistance, and that has only been rebuilt over the last 14 years or so.

But why did " collapse of leftist action back in the 70s and 80s"?

I over exaggerate a bit but basically thats when the boomers came into influence, combine that with the fact the fuckery started with Nixon and well any action would seem to be non existant. Also by the 90s it seems to be irrelevant snough that I cant name any large instances besides the some minor actions done by the alt crowd.

At least he should have gone with the talk of "I was skeptical of them and like those iconic petrol cars like every American patriot, but I've talked to this great man, and after consideration I've decided to support electric cars. I bet soon they will be just as iconic as those muscle cars with their V8 engines.".

And funnily enough, if Trump were to be elected, then suddenly Trump would forget about how much Elon helped him. Trump has a terrible record for keeping contracts, so I don't think he's good with returning favors.

Depends on what Big Oil is willing to pay him personally, I suppose.

God damnit, yesterday I explained to someone in another thread what Trump meant when he said he could get Elon to kneel and beg, that Trump as President could revoke EV subsidies and/or heavily influence or defund NASA such that they stop funding SpaceX.

I did not expect this goddamned moron to just actually say as much, directly, out loud, 12 hours later.

He actually said the opposite here.

What the parent comment is saying is the implication is that without Elon's money, he wouldn't consider EVs. So same meaning.

Saying that he "has no choice" now doesn't really sound like he's the one in control of the decision. That's definitely not the same thing.

No, he said the converse.

"Opposite" would necessarily suggest a different outcome (i.e. Musk not beholden to Trump).

(Haven't had a logic course in literal decades, so maybe someone can correct me if I'm misremembering. I forget how to draw those logic square thingies...)

300m+ citizens, and policy is based on the employer of one man.

Just waiting for MAGA idiots to start buying EVs to "own the libs". I mean, I'd rather people shift to EVs because it's less damaging to the environment; but, a win is a win, I guess.

OK, LGBTQ organizations, Librarians, Pro-Choice organizations, and Satanic Temple - you know what to do now. He'll have no choice but to support you and then what will his base do? Checkmate magas!! ;)

Trump endorsed EVs for $180 million, I wonder what his rock-bottom lowest price is?

Twenty bucks?

There's an anecdote I've seen a few times on the Internet about a newspaper in the 80s sending rich people checks for tiny amounts of money, like $.15, just to see who'd cash 'em. Trump was the only one who did.

Not an anecdote - Spy magazine actually did this. Trump was not the only one to cash the tiny checks, but what Spy did was start with an amount like $1.86 to see who cashed them and then reduced the amount twice, finally ending at 13 cents. Trump was one of only two to cash the 13 cent checks. It was also apparent that Trump endorsed the checks personally.

It's one president, Michael. How much could he cost, $10?

Musk rescinded the $45 million per month offer.

Lol so he just said that he can't argue with being bought. Hmm, noticed the "drain the swamp" tagline coincidentally has faded out since 2015.

Someome should ask him how many times he's been paid to change his mind

He wouldn't even understand the question, it would rely on him having actual values of his own, instead of a jumbled ball of piss and hate.

It's funny to see the aesthetic transformation of Tesla's vehicles overlaid with the timeline of Musk's weirdification. I mean he was always a shitheel fuck, but in the past he was a lot more confused about who to game and how to game them.

What aesthetic transformation?

I imagine they're referring to the difference between a car that looks like a normal sedan, vs something Christopher Nolan would have used to build the Batmobile around for The Dark Knight.

Edit: I realize that sounds too complimentary. I assure you it wasn't meant that way.

Sooo… he’s admitting to being bought and paid for, right out in the open because he knows no one will touch him.

There are no EV mandates. The article presents Trump's statements about repealing an EV mandate that doesn't exist without ever noting that no such mandate exists.

Without seeing video of the statements it's hard to say how much that was Trump selling policy for donations and saying the quiet part out loud vs just making a joke. But either way, I'm pretty sure it's based on a flawed premise because at this point I don't think Elon gives a shit about electric cars either.

And finally, the talk about the cost of charging infrastructure is framing the issue in the stupidest way possible. How much did it cost to build infrastructure for ICE vehicles, to have gas stations all over the place and a supply chain to keep them running? A hell of lot more than it will take to add charging infrastructure, that's for sure. But we don't talk about that cost because no single entity paid for it all, and those that did mostly did so as an investment, which generally paid off. People will pay for public chargers. We don't need public funds to cover everything, they just help get the investments rolling in faster.

What we do need is a rule forcing apartments to add charging of some kind to all residential parking. Even a standard wall outlet for each space would be enough to solve the majority of the charging problem.

Nice cheap words. Nothing enforceable. Just like a car salesman. Look at the contract. Project 2025 to know what the real plan is

What happened to "bigly?" This was a missed opportunity to use his formerly favorite adverb.

putin supports trump bigly. It must be a wonderbra made of tit-anum, one can only assume. Or lots of money. It could be money 💰 yeah.

Good thing is that there are other auto makers that make EVs, and even their worst EVs are still better than a Tesla.

But Musk has more recently embraced conservative politics, especially the issue of free speech. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, rebranded it to X, and has dismantled many of the checks and balances meant to limit hateful speech and misinformation on the platform.

Why is free speech a conservative cause nowadays? It should not be.

Because what it actually means is the freedom for them to spew their hate speech without consequences. Freedom of their speech, not others'. They hate being "punished" for their hateful ideologies and view it as censorship. Being able to spread their hateful beliefs to large groups is extremely important in propagating it to other people. Conservative created platforms are inherently limited by the fact that their audience is not only quite small but also everyone there already believes their bullshit. They want and need to place their hate in mainstream places where others will see it and hopefully come to believe it

There's also the bonus effect of reducing both the amount and proportion of non-conservative voices.

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Seems nobody has mentioned how NHTSA has been looking very closely at Tesla autopilot and FSD. Its no wonder Musk would shell out what amounts to nothing for him in an effort to be able to continue offering his unsafe products.

I like Presidents who make Decisions based off who pays them the MOST money!

Trump brilliantly outs millions of people with no sense of humor in one sentence.