“He’s finished”
“He’s finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him.” These are things people tend to say about their consultants or weak incumbents behind closed doors – typically on the condition of anonymity, not someone who outright owned their party just a month before. The GOP operative going on record to Politico was saying this about Elon Musk, who has gone from a fixture of the Trump administration – claiming credit for bringing Trump’s new supporters into the fold – to someone who barely gets mentioned much anymore.
Elon Musk hasn’t vanished entirely, though he’s largely stepped out of the picture while also promising to give less campaign contributions in the future to Republicans. This is in large part to the voters who pushed back against him – particularly in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race where he spent a record $21 million only for his candidate to lose by double digits in embarrassing fashion.
While Musk may have brought Trump new support, his media hungry presence has clearly gotten under Trump’s skin, as well as the rest of the GOP who have kept note of his consistent failures with DOGE and even getting their candidates elected. Our pushback and forcing a wedge between Republicans on this issue has worked – regardless of how much money Musk tries to throw at his problems.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making