Earlier than billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy grew to become co-chairs of Donald Trump’s bogus Division of Authorities Effectivity, Ramaswamy had all types of terrible issues to say about Musk, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest right-wing misinformation peddler. CNN’s KFile did a deep dive into Ramaswamy’s historical past of disparaging statements about his new co-chair.
“I think Tesla is increasingly beholden to China,” Ramaswamy opined throughout a podcast in 2023 in response to the corporate’s announcement that it might be constructing a brand new battery plant in Shanghai. “I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need.”
Musk’s reliance on China has solely elevated over time, and he has been making an attempt very laborious to preserve a positive relationship with the nation that gives a massive share of his firm’s income in addition to a lot of the uncooked supplies utilized in Tesla’s EV batteries.
In Could 2023, Ramaswamy wrote on X that whereas he appreciated Musk’s buy of the social media platform, Musk and different “prominent business leaders” had been “puppets” of the Chinese language Communist Celebration.
Ramaswamy additional criticized Musk in a subsequent put up.
“Now the crusader for “free speech” (@elonmusk) kisses the ring of the world’s largest censor: Xi Jinping,” he wrote.
Musk and Ramaswamy have promised to make use of DOGE to goal tons of of billions of {dollars} in authorities spending cuts by specializing in slashing funding to entities such because the Company for Public Broadcasting, which receives $535 million a 12 months. It’s an attention-grabbing tactic for Musk, whose total enterprise empire was buoyed by billions (with a “B”) of taxpayer {dollars}.
“Both Tesla and SpaceX quite likely would not exist as successful businesses if it were not for the use of public funding,” Ramaswamy instructed a Fox Information podcast in 2022. “[E]ither by way of subsidies, by way of the electrical automobile trade, or by way of precise authorities contracting within the case of SpaceX.”
“Elon Musk has, I think, demonstrated his willingness to change his political tunes based on the favors that he gets to be able to do business in China,” Ramaswamy mentioned in the identical Fox Information interview.
The more and more tense commerce battle over know-how ramped up on Tuesday when China introduced a ban on the exporting of uncommon minerals to the U.S. If you consider Trump’s guarantees so as to add hefty commerce tariffs to Chinese language imports, Ramaswamy’s final declare is certain to be examined within the coming weeks and months.
Predictably, Ramaswamy has modified his tune towards Musk and is now even promising to make use of DOGE to harass and probably extinguish Musk’s home EV rivals.
In response to Ramaswamy, he now has coronary heart eyes for Musk.
“I love him and respect the hell out of him, and I’m proud to call him a friend,” a smarmy Ramaswamy instructed CNN. “The only country he puts first is the same one I do: the United States of America.”
It’s straightforward to see how they’re now simpatico, since they each have the identical obsessions: cash and energy.
