Elon Musk, left, and Vivek Ramaswamy
Before billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy became co-chairs of Donald Trump’s bogus Department of Government Efficiency, Ramaswamy had all kinds of awful things 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 history of disparaging statements about his new co-chair.
“I think Tesla is increasingly beholden to China,” Ramaswamy opined during a podcast in 2023 in response to the company’s announcement that it would be building a 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 only increased over the years, and he has been trying very hard to maintain a favorable relationship with the country that provides a large share of his company's profits as well as so much of the raw materials used in Tesla's EV batteries.
In May 2023, Ramaswamy wrote on X that while he appreciated Musk’s purchase of the social media platform, Musk and other “prominent business leaders” were “puppets” of the Chinese Communist Party.
Ramaswamy further criticized Musk in a subsequent post.
“Now the crusader for “free speech” (@elonmusk) kisses the ring of the world’s biggest censor: Xi Jinping,” he wrote.
Musk and Ramaswamy have promised to use DOGE to target hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending cuts by focusing on slashing funding to entities such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives $535 million a year. It is an interesting tactic for Musk, whose entire business 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 told a Fox News podcast in 2022. “[E]ither through subsidies, through the electric car industry, or through actual government contracting in 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 said in the same Fox News interview.
The increasingly tense trade battle over technology ramped up on Tuesday when China announced a ban on the exporting of rare minerals to the U.S. When you factor in Trump’s promises to add hefty trade tariffs to Chinese imports, Ramaswamy’s last claim is sure to be tested in the coming weeks and months.
Predictably, Ramaswamy has changed his tune toward Musk and is now even promising to use DOGE to harass and possibly extinguish Musk’s domestic EV rivals.
According to Ramaswamy, he now has 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 told CNN. “The only country he puts first is the same one I do: the United States of America.”
It’s easy to see how they’re now simpatico, since they both have the same obsessions: money and power.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
