Ryan Cooper
Thus far in President Trump’s second term, shadow president Elon Musk’s rampage through America’s basic constitutional structure has gotten extensive coverage in the press. It is becoming clear that Musk and his goon squad of tech bros in their early twenties are attempting to seize direct control of the system by which the federal government disburses more than $5 trillion in payments annually, apparently so they can pick and choose who and what gets funded. And they have rifled through personnel files, scientific data involving health care and the environment, and bunches of other government information, for purposes of either propaganda or opposition research.
But there is another aspect to Musk’s rule in Washington that is partly flying under the radar: the national-security threat, particularly regarding China. Musk has huge and extensive connections to the Chinese dictatorship, both personally and through his businesses, and he has a long history of bending over backwards to appease its desires.
Now, national security has often been the justification for terrible crimes in American history—illegal surveillance, toppling democratically elected governments, wars of aggression, and so on. But that doesn’t mean the idea is meaningless. Nations like Russia, North Korea, and yes, China have carried out espionage attacks on the United States government and American citizens alike. It doesn’t make one Paul Wolfowitz to think that a man subject to stupendous influence from a sinister foreign dictatorship should not have unilateral control over the Treasury Department’s payments system.
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