Page 73 of 107 Days

And our democracy shouldn’t belong to the world’s richest man.

I have always been one of my party’s most successful fundraisers, and I don’t apologize for that.

To do good work, you must get elected. And, unfortunately, until Congress has the courage to change the laws, it’s ridiculously expensive.

After Joe dropped out, I raised more money more quickly than any candidate, ever.

But it wasn’t from a single billionaire with huge government contracts who essentially bought himself an unelected co-presidency.

Musk lied about his sweepstakes, saying names would be drawn at random and any registered voter in a swing state who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments could be in the drawing.

But when courts questioned the legality of that, his lawyers admitted that the winners were not random. They were vetted “spokespeople.”

As for his paid door knockers, many were individuals who had to sign contracts before they knew whom they would be canvassing for.

They included low-income Black people who were transported to their canvassing turf in the backs of U-Hauls with no seat belts—or even seats—forced to share rooms with strangers, and given impossible work quotas.

Some who objected were fired without pay and without fares to return to their home states.

While Musk takes a chain saw to programs that help the poorest people in our own country and abroad, he is okay with government spending when it comes to his own companies, which have received about $38 billion in contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits.

(Roughly $15 billion from NASA and about $7 billion from defense agencies.

For some, like the spy satellite Starshield defense project, the amounts are not publicly documented.)

As the former head of the National Space Council, I am enthusiastic about space exploration.

I support technological innovation and national security.

But when you never talk about government spending on your own interests, no matter how laudable those interests, it’s hypocritical to critique spending on equally valuable programs such as research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

His companies also stand to benefit from slashed regulations on environmental protection, and the lack of consumer protections for autonomous vehicles.

No good public policy can be made with a chain saw.