Tesla head Elon Musk talks to the press as he arrives to have a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 03, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany.
Maja Hitij | Getty Images
Elon Musk has told his tens of millions of social media followers that he “would prefer to stay out of politics.”
Yet, with a mix of trash talk and big spending, the multibillionaire mogul behind Tesla and SpaceX has become a political force.
Musk himself has personally taken shots at politicians and government regulators, including digs at President Joe Biden and a recent sexually tinged insult aimed at a U.S. senator. Behind the scenes, Musk and his biggest companies, SpaceX and Tesla, have for years worked to influence the U.S. political landscape, including through lobbying and political donations. Combined, SpaceX and Tesla have spent over $2 million on lobbying this year.
Musk has also recently vocally opposed Biden’s support for organized labor. In particular, he objects to a tax credit proposal that would give a $4,500 discount to consumers buying electric vehicles made by unionized autoworkers, giving Big Three automakers an edge over Tesla, Toyota and others.
Musk has also ranted against a proposed billionaire’s income tax, accused federal vehicle safety regulators of anti-Tesla bias, and upbraided the Federal Aviation Administration for having a “fundamentally broken regulatory structure,” in his view.
His companies have put their money to work to influence the government in other ways. During the third quarter, which spanned from July through September, Tesla and SpaceX both lobbied Biden’s White House and other parts of his administration, according to recent disclosures.
Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, has spent just under $1.8 million this year alone on lobbying, after spending over $2 million last year, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Tesla, the electric car and renewable energy company he runs, has spent over $400,000 on federal lobbying this year through September, already more than it spent in the entirety of last year.
By way of comparison, Ford has spent $2.6 million on lobbying this year. (The company sells millions of vehicles annually, while Tesla has not yet surpassed 1 million deliveries in a single year.) Jeff Bezos’ aerospace venture, Blue Origin, has spent around $1.4 million on lobbying so far this year.
Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and the White House did not return requests for comment for this story.
Working with both sides
Even when he avoids commenting on a hot button issue, such as Texas’ restrictive abortion law, Musk makes political waves.
“In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness,” Musk told CNBC in a September tweet responding to a question about the Texas law. “That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.” Musk’s companies and private foundation are growing their operations substantially in Texas.
Musk hasn’t been shy about backing certain candidates, either.
In 2020, Musk verbally endorsed Andrew Yang as a Democratic candidate for president, based on Yang’s support of a universal basic income. He also called California’s coronavirus stay at home orders “fascist” and famously kept Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory running for weeks, openly defying the orders.
During that time, he tweeted “Take the red pill,” including a red rose emoji with the tweet. The “red pill” is a symbol from “The Matrix” co-opted by right wing extremists and others, while the red rose is a symbol used by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Musk has regularly contributed to candidates of both parties, too, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics that dates back to about 2002 (see chart below). Other business leaders such as longtime investors Nelson Peltz and Leon Cooperman employ the same bipartisan giving strategy.
Musk has contributed to a wide variety of campaigns, with the most recent Federal Election Commission filings showing he gave to the Republican National Committee. Those individual contributions do not include the SpaceX political action committee’s $210,000-plus in campaign contributions to congressional candidates from both sides of the aisle during the first half of 2021.
Musk, historically, has contributed slightly more to Democrats and their causes, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. In the previous 2020 election cycle, Musk contributed to Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Gary Peters, D-Mich. He also gave to Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Musk’s companies also rely on lobbyists with links to both major parties.
Recently, Tesla and SpaceX hired at least two new lobbyists that have prior experience working on Capitol Hill.
Jonathan Carter, who was a legislative aide to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., became a policy advisor to Tesla in April, according to his LinkedIn page. Carter was a “lead staff member to Senator Blumenthal on Auto Safety, Census, Small Business, Sports, and Trade issues,” his profile says.
Blumenthal is a member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee, which has jurisdiction over highway safety, transportation and nonmilitary aeronautical and space science, among other items that impact Tesla’s business.
Blumenthal has publicly taken aim at Tesla’s driver assistance systems, marketed as Autopilot and Full Self-Driving software. In a tweet in September, Blumenthal said using this technology was a form of “Russian Roulette” for drivers.
Carter was among a group of Tesla lobbyists that in the third quarter lobbied Biden’s White House, the Departments of Energy and Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Commerce. Carter’s team also engaged with House and Senate lawmakers last quarter.
A disclosure report shows that the lobbying effort by Tesla focused on a variety of issues, including solar permitting, autonomous vehicle related policies, infrastructure, the Highway Trust Fund and EV charging.
Meanwhile, over that same time period, Musk suggested at a conference in late September that he and Tesla were being treated unfairly because they weren’t invited to an electric vehicle summit at the White House.
“Does this sound maybe a little biased or something? And you know, just — it’s not the friendliest administration. Seems to be controlled by unions, as far as I can tell,” Musk said at the time. The White House summit was in August.
His space company in the third quarter also recently hired at least one former aide to a powerful senator and has engaged directly with Biden’s administration, including the White House.
Joseph Petrzelka, who was an aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for over four years, became a global government affairs manager for SpaceX in September, according to his LinkedIn page. Feinstein is a member of the transportation, housing and urban development subcommittee, which is under the Senate Appropriations Committee. Their jurisdiction covers the Department of Transportation.
Though Petrzelka is not listed on SpaceX’s third quarter report, the company spent $590,000 directly lobbying lawmakers, including Biden’s Executive Office of the President, Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, the Department of Transportation, the National Security Council and the Federal Aviation Administration. NASA certified SpaceX in November 2020 to carry astronauts to-and-from orbit. SpaceX also lobbied members of Congress.
For its part, SpaceX has notched federal contracts worth a total of about $10.5 billion since 2003, most of that from its work with NASA. In 2021, those contracts have amounted to around $2 billion with $1.6 billion of that from NASA, according to data tracked by GovWin that was viewed by CNBC.
SpaceX is going through a tense, environmental review process that will determine whether they can start building out and launching their Starship vehicle from a site in Boca Chica, Texas, or whether they need to complete a more formal assessment that could cost them years.
The over $500,000 paid by SpaceX last quarter for lobbying does not include separate fees paid to outside government influencers.
SpaceX paid $90,000 in the third quarter to Invariant, which was founded by longtime lobbyist Heather Podesta, to lobby the Executive Office of the President, the Department of Transportation and Department of Interior, according to the latest disclosure report. Podesta, who has raised campaign money for Democrats for well over a decade, is one of the Invariant lobbyists engaging lawmakers for SpaceX.
The lobbying report says the firm attempted to influence the Biden administration for SpaceX to “support commercial launch provisions in NASA programs, appropriations, reconciliation, and S.1260, United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021.”
SpaceX also hired Miller Strategies, which is run by Jeff Miller, a staunch ally of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, and former President Donald Trump. SpaceX paid the firm $30,000 in the third quarter to lobby the House and Senate on “issues as they relate to space transportation and space transportation costs,” according to the latest lobbying report. Miller was one of the lobbyists trying to influence lawmakers for SpaceX last quarter.
Regulatory fights
Musk’s battles with regulators are often public and messy.
After the National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated Tesla for vehicle safety defects this year, Musk accused them of bias.
One recent major NHTSA probe of Tesla will determine whether the company’s Autopilot driver assistance software was partly or wholly to blame in crashes that involved Tesla cars ramming into parked, first responder vehicles on the side of the road.
After that probe was underway, the White House said that it was appointing Steven Cliff to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and would also hire a former Navy fighter pilot and Duke University engineering and computer science professor, Missy Cummings, as a senior advisor for safety.
Musk targeted Cummings, a known Tesla critic, on Twitter, saying “objectively, her track record is extremely biased against Tesla.” Fans of Tesla and Musk began haranguing her on social media while attempting to deface her biography page on Wikipedia.
Cummings had industry experience as a board member for Veoneer, an autonomous vehicle tech company. Some Tesla fans asked whether that affiliation was a potential conflict of interest. Cummings resigned from the company’s board effective Nov. 1 having accepted the NHTSA job.
Meanwhile, Musk who has clashed with the NTSB for years, and Tesla have refused to adopt safety recommendations from the independent federal safety authority.
Musk has also expressed his displeasure with the SEC on multiple occasions on Twitter. In 2018, Musk and the commission reached a settlement over remarks Musk made about an ultimately abandoned plan to take Tesla private.
Twitter flame wars
Musk has taken multiple digs at Biden. When SpaceX launched a nonprofessional flight crew into orbit in September, for instance, Musk groused that the president did not personally call to congratulate the astronauts involved in the historic mission.
Musk has also taken aim at Biden by echoing a joke made by Trump. “He’s still sleeping,” Musk said at the time, almost mirroring the former president’s “Sleepy Joe” insults.
Politics can be personal for Musk, too, especially when it comes to the battle over his billions.
Musk has the highest estimated net worth in the world at over $300 billion, according to Forbes. He is one of about 700 people who would be effected by a new tax proposal from Democrats floated by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore. in October.
The proposal is for a tax on billionaires’ investment gains annually to help finance President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion safety net package. The so-called billionaire’s income tax would close a loophole that has enabled the super rich to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely, a strategy known as “buy, borrow, die.”
When Wyden published the billionaire’s income tax proposal, Musk vociferously objected on Twitter:
In recent days, the CEO asked his 62.5 million followers to vote in an informal Twitter poll to determine whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla holdings, and face a big tax bill.
In response, Wyden wrote in a tweet: “Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll.”
Musk hit back at Wyden with a vulgar and disparaging tweet, saying “Why does your pp [profile picture] look like u just came?”
Wyden’s spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.
OTTAWA – The federal agency that investigates election infractions found insufficient evidence to support suggestions Beijing wielded undue influence against the Conservatives in the Vancouver area during the 2021 general election.
The Commissioner of Canada Elections’ recently completed review of the lingering issue was tabled Tuesday at a federal inquiry into foreign interference.
The review focused on the unsuccessful campaign of Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu in the riding of Steveston-Richmond East and the party’s larger efforts in the Vancouver area.
It says the evidence uncovered did not trigger the threshold to initiate a formal investigation under the Canada Elections Act.
Investigators therefore recommended that the review be concluded.
A summary of the review results was shared with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP. The review says both agencies indicated the election commissioner’s findings were consistent with their own understanding of the situation.
During the exercise, the commissioner’s investigators met with Chinese Canadian residents of Chiu’s riding and surrounding ones.
They were told of an extensive network of Chinese Canadian associations, businesses and media organizations that offers the diaspora a lifestyle that mirrors that of China in many ways.
“Further, this diaspora has continuing and extensive commercial, social and familial relations with China,” the review says.
Some interviewees reported that this “has created aspects of a parallel society involving many Chinese Canadians in the Lower Mainland area, which includes concerted support, direction and control by individuals from or involved with China’s Vancouver consulate and the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in China.”
Investigators were also made aware of members of three Chinese Canadian associations, as well as others, who were alleged to have used their positions to influence the choice of Chinese Canadian voters during the 2021 election in a direction favourable to the interests of Beijing, the review says.
These efforts were sparked by elements of the Conservative party’s election platform and by actions and statements by Chiu “that were leveraged to bolster claims that both the platform and Chiu were anti-China and were encouraging anti-Chinese discrimination and racism.”
These messages were amplified through repetition in social media, chat groups and posts, as well as in Chinese in online, print and radio media throughout the Vancouver area.
Upon examination, the messages “were found to not be in contravention” of the Canada Elections Act, says the review, citing the Supreme Court of Canada’s position that the concept of uninhibited speech permeates all truly democratic societies and institutions.
The review says the effectiveness of the anti-Conservative, anti-Chiu campaigns was enhanced by circumstances “unique to the Chinese diaspora and the assertive nature of Chinese government interests.”
It notes the election was prefaced by statements from China’s ambassador to Canada and the Vancouver consul general as well as articles published or broadcast in Beijing-controlled Chinese Canadian media entities.
“According to Chinese Canadian interview subjects, this invoked a widespread fear amongst electors, described as a fear of retributive measures from Chinese authorities should a (Conservative) government be elected.”
This included the possibility that Chinese authorities could interfere with travel to and from China, as well as measures being taken against family members or business interests in China, the review says.
“Several Chinese Canadian interview subjects were of the view that Chinese authorities could exercise such retributive measures, and that this fear was most acute with Chinese Canadian electors from mainland China. One said ‘everybody understands’ the need to only say nice things about China.”
However, no interview subject was willing to name electors who were directly affected by the anti-Tory campaign, nor community leaders who claimed to speak on a voter’s behalf.
Several weeks of public inquiry hearings will focus on the capacity of federal agencies to detect, deter and counter foreign meddling.
In other testimony Tuesday, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis told the inquiry that parliamentarians who were targeted by Chinese hackers could have taken immediate protective steps if they had been informed sooner.
It emerged earlier this year that in 2021 some MPs and senators faced cyberattacks from the hackers because of their involvement with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which pushes for accountability from Beijing.
In 2022, U.S. authorities apparently informed the Canadian government of the attacks, and it in turn advised parliamentary IT officials — but not individual MPs.
Genuis, a Canadian co-chair of the inter-parliamentary alliance, told the inquiry Tuesday that it remains mysterious to him why he wasn’t informed about the attacks sooner.
Liberal MP John McKay, also a Canadian co-chair of the alliance, said there should be a clear protocol for advising parliamentarians of cyberthreats.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
