Interesting and shocking story from BARRON’S from Wall
Street’s MARKET WATCH site with the below headline (formatted to fit the Blog as
usual):
“Elon Musk Could Get a
Job in the Trump White House. That’s Not All Bad.”
Elon Musk volunteered to
head up a government efficiency council. He might add some more work to his prodigious inbox
if Trump wins November’s presidential election. That could
make Tesla investors nervous but there is a silver lining.
The Wall Street Journal reported that
former President Trump was going to adopt Elon Musk’s proposal for a government
efficiency commission.
Musk & Trump talked about wasteful spending
during their August two-hour conversation hosted on Musk’s
social-media platform X. Musk has tweeted about government waste since then.
Musk already answered Trump’s call, tweeting: “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no
title, no recognition is needed.” (I Note: No authority -
none whatsoever).
Trump said in an appearance at the Economic Club of NY according to portions
of the speech viewed by The Wall Street Journal: “The Musk commission would conduct a complete financial and performance
audit of the entire federal government and make recommendations for drastic
reform.” (No
approval authority).
A complete audit sounds like a big job. And Musk already has
plenty to do. He runs the larger firms Tesla; Space X; X (formerly Twitter); xAI; the smaller
Boring Company; and Neuralink.
Tesla is the only publicly traded company in the bunch and the source of most of Musk’s wealth. Tesla investors might get as bit nervous about the management distraction, an issue that came up after Musk’s eventually successful bid for Twitter now renamed X.
Tesla stock was at about
$328 a share when Musk tweeted he had made an offer for the social media
company in April 2022.
Shares ended that year at
about $123 a share. Many things influenced Tesla stock that year, but Musk’s
acquisition of Twitter, which necessitated the sale of some Tesla stock, was
part of the story.
Tesla stock recovered from
2022 lows, partly because Wall Street believes Musk is fully engaged at his EV Company.
Ben Rose, and analyst at “Battleroad Research” rates Tesla
stock as a “Buy rating” but has no
price target. A “Buy rating” for Rose
essentially means he expects shares to outperform the market.
Rose sees a positive
too, adding: “Musk isn’t likely to
conduct audits of the Federal Government personally. Many executives serve on
government-related councils. Leading a commission could be
a distraction, but I am inclined to think that he will have staff to
do the brunt of the work, By supporting and donating funds to the Trump
campaign, Elon Musk is fundamentally hedging his bets in the event that Trump
wins in November. While VP Harris is likely to remain committed to
climate-friendly policies, including EV tax credits, Musk is concerned
that EV tax credits help subsidize his competitors.”
My 2 Cents: Wow – what a story with uncertain shaky possibilities at least in my view. Like what could possibly go wrong with the world’s richest man working for Trump to “Make America Great Again” – ouch!!! This decision on top of Trump picking JD Vance to be his VP are both crazy and just plain awful.
Only billionaires will have a field day with Trump (quid pro quo comes to mind).
Recall what Trump
already promised billionaires if he wins like this article reported. Then this from NBC news awhile back:
“Trump tells billionaires he'll keep their
taxes low at $50 million fundraising gala”
Related: President Biden released a video hitting Trump for
promising to extend his 2017 tax cut failures as seen in this report CBPP.
So I ask again what could
possibly go wrong under Trump and a flock of billionaires in charge of the country
starting in 2025 if Trump were to win – and hopefully he will not.
That is too difficult and
yes, even quite scary to contemplate our country resorting to that kind of
government, isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by.
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