By Brian Shillhavy | Source

What happens when one psychopath billionaire tries to partner with another psychopath billionaire and they try to work together?

More than likely, only one of those psychopaths will come out on top.

So it is that since the 2024 U.S. national elections, two billionaire psychopaths have been competing to see which one will come out on top: Donald Trump, the declared winner of the U.S. 2024 Presidential race, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who supported him, and wants to run the United States through Trump.

The cracks in this relationship have been opening and expanding since the elections ended, where Trump told Congressional leaders that “Musk won’t go home” as Musk hung around Mar-a-Lago during the days and first couple of weeks after the elections.

More cracks appeared in this “relationship” last Sunday, where a Trump rally occurred in Phoenix, which Musk apparently was not invited to participate in.

At that speech last Sunday, Trump stated in public that Musk was not running the presidency, and pointed out that Musk could never be president because he was not born in the U.S., but South Africa.

And now here in the last days of 2024, before Trump has even taken office yet, the “cracks” in this relationship between two psychopath billionaires have apparently become a huge fissure over the immigration issue, where Musk has become totally unhinged and has threatened MAGA Republicans who disagree with him on his X bully pulpit:

“Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”

This is what Billionaire tyrants do when they cannot debate issues based on the facts and people do not see things the same way they do. They claim superior knowledge based on their wealth, and then threaten people.

Meanwhile, Susie Wiles, Trump’s top advisor who will run the White House, appears to be keeping Trump under wraps for now, as at the time of this writing he has not responded to this issue.

I am not a betting man, but if I were, I would bet that Susie Wiles and Trump will come out on top on this one, because they have the White House (or will have the White House once Trump is inaugurated – Jill Biden still has it for now), not Musk.

The H-1B Visa Controversy

The current online temper tantrum by Musk is over the issue of H-1B visas.

Elon Musk pledges “war” over H-1B visa program, calls opponents racists

Elon Musk pledged Friday night to go to “war” to defend the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers, branding some Republican opponents as “hateful, unrepentant racists.”

Why it matters: The MAGA-DOGE civil war that erupted over the last 48 hours has now come to a tipping point, with President-elect Trump’s new techno-libertarian coalition of billionaires taking full aim at his traditional base.

• Trump, who has remained silent thus far on the schism, faces a quickly deepening conflict between his richest and most powerful advisors on one hand, and the people who swept him to office on the other.

Catch up quick: The skirmishes started last Sunday, with anti-immigration and anti-Indian vitriol against Trump’s pick of venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as his AI advisor.

• It escalated into full conflict Thursday when Musk ally and DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy took to X to blast American “mediocrity” culture. Musk defended Ramaswamy, and the two sides started engaging in an increasingly bitter war of words.
• On Friday afternoon, Musk doubled down, saying MAGA adherents who continued to blast immigration and the tech community were “contemptible fools,” later clarifying he was talking about “racists” who would “absolutely be the downfall of the Republican Party if they are not removed.”

Zoom in: Just before midnight Friday, Musk once again defended the H-1B program in vulgar, all-caps terms, saying the program was the key to the success of his (and other big American) companies.

• “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” Musk wrote.
• In a separate post, he pledged to “fight to my last drop of blood” to keep America a meritocracy.

What they’re saying: As with Musk’s previous posts defending Ramaswamy and condemning his opponents, Trump supporters did not react well to Musk’s promise to defend the H-1B program.

• “May God bless and protect President Trump from these people,” outspoken right-wing commentator Laura Loomer wrote, after accusing Musk of trying to censor her.

The intrigue: Though Trump has been silent on the matter, those around him have started showing their hands.

• Michael Seifert, the CEO of online marketplace Public Square, whose board of directors includes Donald Trump Jr., took to social media Friday to say the H-1B program was “destroying the lives of American workers.”
• Steve Bannon, one of the longest-tenured voices in Trump’s orbit, had multiple guests on his show this week to talk about his hardline anti-H-1B views.
• Bannon tells Axios he helped kick off the debate with a now-viral Gettr post earlier this month calling out a lack of support for the Black and Hispanic communities in Big Tech.

Steve Bannon, who was the chief executive officer of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and is probably on speed dial on Susie Wiles’ cell phone, had this to say:

The H-1B visa controversy is not new. Many U.S. citizens working in Tech have complained about this visa for years now, claiming it takes away American jobs because Tech workers from India will work for less.

Ron Hira, professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, has been one of the outspoken critics of the H-1B visa.

He criticized The Economist magazine earlier this year about publishing false information regarding these visas, claiming that the Department of Labor in the U.S. prevented India immigrants from taking jobs away from U.S. citizens in the Tech sector.

Economist Magazine’s Fairy Tales About Scandalous H-1B Visa – Doubles Down With Misleading “Correction”

I wrote about The Economist Magazine’s plainly false claim about H-1B visas in its Aug 17 24 cover story about high-skilled immigration.

The Economist claimed:

“The firm must apply to the Department of Labour, showing it has tried to find an American citizen…” [before hiring an H-1B worker].

But that declaration is completely rubbished by the US Department of Labor’s clear guidance that states:

“The H-1B employer is not required to recruit U.S. workers”

The magazine’s false claim served as the central argument for its cover story narrative, i.e., the H-1B program has extraordinary protections for workers, and therefore the program should be expanded significantly.

But as I and others have written for years the anti-worker H-1B program has too-WEAK protections for workers, harming both H-1B and US workers alike.

I informed the magazine of its obvious error on August 20th and it took 10(!) days before it issued a correction (buried, no less).

The issued correction can only be characterized as purposely misleading, intended to misinform its readers rather than provide clarity.

BEFORE:

“The firm must apply to the Department of Labour, showing it has tried to find an American citizen…”

AFTER:

“If the firm already has more than a certain number of H1-B-holding staff, it must apply to the Department of Labour, showing it has tried to find an American citizen…”

Hmmm… you might say, well maybe this was a simple matter of shades of gray (or grey). The Economist is clarifying that not all, but presumably a significant number of, employers must “show[ing] it has tried to find an American citizen…” before hiring an H-1B.

But nothing could be further from the “real” truth. Virtually no employer is “required to recruit U.S. workers.”

A fair, just, informative, and ethical correction would have simply said, “there is no requirement to recruit U.S. workers,” … except in extremely rare cases. (one could even leave off that last clause and be truthful).

Why? Because, actual usage shows 99% of all H-1B positions are NOT subject U.S. recruitment requirements.

We know this because employers disclose it in publicly available data, data that are easily available to The Economist and the H-1B experts, like The Wharton School Prof. Zeke Hernandez, it relies upon. (Full article.)

Elon Musk Deletes Tweets He Does Not Agree With – “Free Speech” on X is a Myth

As I have documented numerous times since Musk bought Twitter, “free speech” on X is a myth.

But as Chris Menahan wrote yesterday, this latest event and the great purge that happened on X for those who opposed Musk, should remove any doubt about X and Musk being a “champion of free speech,” as he is now deciding who should be a Republican, and who should not.

Elon Musk Launches Twitter Purge, Bans Critics of His Push to Expand Indian Immigration

The short-lived era of Elon Musk’s Twitter being a semi-“free speech platform” came to an end on Friday after Musk started banning right-wing critics of his who vocally opposed his plan to radically expand Indian immigration.

On Friday night, Musk called MAGA critics of Indian immigration “contemptible fools” who “must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem.”

Musk, who became a Republican just two years ago and originally supported DeSantis over Trump, made the comment in response to a post from Neera Tanden telling her fellow Indians to vote Democrat because Republicans are racist against Indians.

Neera Tanden is a lifelong Democrat activist who has worked under Clinton, Obama and Biden.

We’re basically as far away from an election as you can get and yet Musk evidently decided that the feelings of Tanden should be setting GOP policy.

He swiftly launched a massive purge of right-wing accounts he labeled “coordinated reply spammers/scammers.” (Full article.)

Elon Musk has also given full control of X to Zionists to hunt down those who are “antisemitic.”

DOGE “Department of Government Efficiency” = Make Musk Great, Make Musk’s Companies Rich, and Protect the Pedophiles

It will be interesting to see where this latest temper tantrum by Musk leads, as many GOP lawmakers praised him just a few days ago for helping to kill the original CR budget bill.

Republicans embrace “our prime minister” Elon Musk

Republican members of Congress took to the Sunday shows to praise Trump lieutenant Elon Musk’s involvement in last week’s government funding saga, with one likening him to “our prime minister.”

“It’s kind of interesting, we have a president, we have a vice president, we have a speaker. It feels like Elon Musk is our prime minister,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) said in a CBS “Face the Nation” hit.

Gonzales said he spoke with Musk “a couple times this week,” adding that “many of us” did so while acknowledging the Tesla CEO is “unelected.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that his idea to elect Musk as House speaker “might have been tongue-in-cheek,” but, “I do appreciate his input.”

“Thank god Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that’s the only way we would even know what’s in this bill,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said of Musk’s efforts to kill the bipartisan bill on CNN’s “State of the Union.” (Full article.)

Musk got the two main provisions of that bill removed that he did not like, the provision to force him and other Billionaires who own Social Media companies to take down child porn developed by AI, and the provision to limit investments in China.

He got President-elect Trump to join him in killing the original bill, but Trump, in return, wanted to move the debt ceiling limit out two years in the CR budget bill.

Musk got what he wanted, but Trump did not. See:

Elon Musk and his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) is an effort by Elon Musk to influence government and remove regulations that will make him and his companies richer, but the American people poorer and less safe.

Trump team wants to scrap car-crash reporting rule that Tesla opposes

The Trump transition team wants the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla, according to a document seen by Reuters, a move that could cripple the government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems.

Musk, the world’s richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November.

Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data.

The recommendation to kill the crash-reporting rule came from a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The group called the measure a mandate for “excessive” data collection, the document seen by Reuters shows.

The Trump transition team, Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not determine what role, if any, Musk may have played in crafting the transition-team recommendations or the likelihood that the administration would enact them. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing most major automakers except Tesla, has also criticized the requirement as burdensome.

A Reuters analysis of the NHTSA crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA through Oct. 15. (Source.)

The only question now is how much of a leash is Trump Susie Wiles going to give him, if any?

And as far as the immigration and migrant issue goes, this is a nonpartisan issue because border control and immigration is a BUSINESS, not a real political issue.