Trump and Elon Lesson in Criticizing Publicly and Politicians
Level 2 - Value Investor
We’re sure you all saw the crazy headlines.
Trump says he expects the Elon relationship to get worse
Elon goes on a tirade about the $5T spending bill being irresponsible
Elon then talks about Trump and the Epstein List
Trump then talks about cutting Tesla subsidies
Elon says he’ll stop projects if that’s the case and says Trump would have lost without him
We’re sure there were a few other ones followed by a bunch of JD Vance memes.
Did This Benefit Anyone?
Nope. Didn’t benefit anyone really. The USA just looks bad and both Trump and Elon look bad. Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Elon exited his heavier involvement in the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)
If you look back in your own person life we can all but guarantee public criticism never worked out well. If you have an issue 99.99% of the time it is better to to solve it privately. It’s part of the reason that one of the Jungle mantras is “win and help win”
Unless your personal safety is involved or something ultra extreme, it just never ends well. Debate/criticize/provide feedback privately - publicly only highlight positive thing. That’s the general rule of life for personal interacitons.
In short, this was low Emotional Intelligence (EQ).
That statement is coming from the antithesis of empathy (something we struggle with). Which means it was that bad.
Elon Now Floating in Space (Literally)
He backed away from the Liberal party once he realized he was being turned on by the Democratic party. So much so that he left the state of California for Texas and went full blown support of the Republican party.
The main mistake he made is over estimating how much control/weight he would carry by going all in. He’s used to running companies being the CEO and point man at all times. Creates a tough set up since no one is going to outshine the master (any sitting President is the master in this case). Same result would have occurred if for some reason he joined the Dems and moved from Texas to California
Why? Same old incentive problems. Once the election was won there is no real reason to hand over more decision making to Elon
How Does this End? Long-term doesn’t make a big difference. Tesla stock is down on the news but the USA (and Trump) will not suddenly shut down Tesla. They need and want Elon to be pro-America and innovating/developing in the USA.
When all of this passes, he’ll be back focused on building. Perhaps he leaves Earth for Mars when eventually figuring out a way to create a colony on a different plant (joking of course, just explaining how laser focused he is on expansion).
Politicians Tell You What Won’t Change
Now that this fiasco is over, people are missing the bigger picture. The Government is telling you publicly that they will print money. Full stop, no real debate anymore.
If Warren and Trump are saying we need to get rid of debt ceilings and push for tax cuts, that is what *everyone* prefers.
Have you ever heard of a politician saying they will increase taxes on everyone? Nope. They know they will lose the election. The entire game is convincing the middle class that they will “go after the greedy rich” but not 99% of the population. This allows them to gather votes.
Have you ever heard of a politician saying they will eliminate social security, decrease government pensions or increase taxes on primary residences? Nope! Yet another tell that those things will be around unless we get into an extremely dire situation.
Have you ever heard of a politician saying that China is *not* a big threat to the United States? Or that the USA needs *less* infrastructure. Nope! Once again this means both parties will always run on making the USA a leader compared to China and investing in better roads/schools etc (stateside).
The last big one is censorship/free speech. You’l never see a politician run on that either since it would create the largest uproar you’ve ever seen. De-platforming/Big Tech and preserving freedom of speech is going to be promoted by both parties
While there are no guarantees in this game of life, those items are as close to a guarantee as it gets: 1) spending more, 2) keeping taxes as low as possible, 3) never impacting the older population as they are the ones that vote the most - roughly 80-83% voter turnout for ages 40+ vs. around 58-59% for ages below 40, 4) always paint China as a risky adversary and 5) spending on USA infrastructure + big no on anything anti-freedom of speech.
Now Dig a Bit Deeper
That’s pretty high-level but from there you can drill down further. If you were a high up politician would you pass laws that directly hurt you? Or would you pass laws that benefit you or are at minimum neutral to you? Be honest. We all know the answer.
The USA is practically built on the idea of “getting yours and getting out”. A heavily transactional vibe. If you think long and hard you’ll even notice it in micro cultures. If you’re playing a sport and are not good, ignored. If you are not particularly funny in high school or entertaining - ignored. So on and so forth.
The USA is basically built on “get mine, get out” and everyone wants to be associated with said winners. So much so that people wear another man’s last name on their back for sports culture! Despite the person not caring one bit about them compared to their dad/mom.
Do Politicians Really Care That Much About The Middle?
No not really. Their goal is to get votes to gain power and influence. Once power and influence is gained, the goal it to protect/preserve power and influence.
Here are some schemes they have available:
Buy, Borrow, Die: We’ve covered this many times here (source). In laymans terms a loan is not taxable. If you owned say $10M in real estate (cough tons of politicians cough) then you could borrow $500,000 and use that money to live. As the property values go up 5%+ over the long-term you’re basically getting money without being taxed. Think that’ll be cut? Nah.
Inheritance/Trust Set Ups: As you get into higher wealth tiers, you’ll learn about a ton of these. Unless you purposely want to pay taxes, towards the end of your life you will move to a state (if in the USA) with no state inheritance taxes. Then you’ll find out the federal tax exemption is $13.99M (as of 2025)
Anchoring of Primary Residence: Then at the lower level, the chances of mass property tax increase from *primary* residence is basically blasphemy. No politican wants to run on a policy that says “if you pay off your house and leave it to your son and daughter, we collect 50% in taxes”
From this you can make an educated assumption about what set ups are safe vs. unsafe. Someone with $10M in a specific stock might be in trouble. They create taxes that say some industry now pays more taxes. The above though (assuming diversified assets)… yeah unlikely. People will try to spook you as it relates to this stuff. In reality? Stuff will get passed constantly to make sure anyone in the upper middle of government is safe. For fun we’d cut it off at around $5-10M as no tax hand downs to Alice/Bob.
Crypto and Self Custody Light Bulb Yet
At this point, we’re hopeful that the light bulb has gone off. You have an extremely high probability chance that they will print money into infinity and beyond.
Simulation winks as it’s a quote from an Astronaut
This means money stored in the new financial system will constantly receive money into it. You don’t need to have billions pouring in at once (during bull markets) think of it over a long-period of time. If the Crypto Market cap is around $3T today and we know global M2 money supply is $93.9T that represents 3% of the supply.
We had Circle go public raising billions. We’ve had ETFs slowly but surely buying it (despite retail interest being down). And. We even have public companies playing this game as well now (SBET, MSTR, GME etc.)
If we assume that money is printed (long-term) to $200T (a mere doubling), and crypto market cap is just 5% of that… It’s already $10Trillion
$200 Trillion Sound Crazy?
Check the above chart. It isn’t particularly crazy.
Outside of a doomsday global financial system collapse (which still means people would move to crypto ironically), then you’re looking at a 100% growth rate every 10 years or so. That would mean in 2035 (give or take) the global M2 Money supply would be $180-200T.
These are enormous numbers so don’t expect a magic wand to pin point it!
Still Sound Crazy?
Look around your neighborhood. Go look up the price of a house when you were born. Compare it to today. Use the exact same growth rate…
Yep. Crazy.
On that note, enjoy your weekend anon! No one is coming to reverse this train.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce.
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