What noble of Elon Musk admit that he makes mistakes.
On Tuesday, the man whom President Trump has apparently ceded the presidency in exchange for $ 250 million in political contributions, held a strange press conference from the Oval office where he admitted, more or less, that it is fallible.
Musk faced the reporters when Trump sat almost mute behind his desk, marginalized after some opening comments.
Opinion columnist
Robin Abcarian
Musk was accompanied by X, the 4 -year -old son who shares with the musician Grimes. As children often do, the child stole the show. But this was not a lovely John-John Kennedy style screen. It was completely unpleasant.
X sat on Musk's shoulders, put his fingers in his dad's ears, lifted his nose, cleaned his finger on the resolved desk and told the president to “leave.”
A journalist asked Musk to explain why he allowed the Trump administration to erroneously accuse the United States agency for the international development of sending $ 50 million to Gaza for condoms.
“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,” said the unleashed bureaucrat who likes to criticize the unleashed bureaucrats. “Then, nobody is going to hit a thousand. I mean … you know, we will make mistakes, but we will act quickly to correct any error. “
His indifferent response immediately brought to the mind the iconic scene in “Dr. Strangelove”, where General “Buck” Turgidson of the War, played by George C. Scott, suggests dropping a nuclear bomb in Russia.
“You are talking about mass murder, general, not war!” President Merkin Muffley exclaims, played by Peter's great vendors.
“Lord. President,” says Turgidson, “I am not saying that we would not give our hair.”
How did the atrocious lie strengthen about sending condoms to Gaza?
On January 28, during its first official information session, the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced to journalists that “there were $ 50 million from taxpayers who went out for the door to finance condoms in Gaza” Before the efficiency department of the Trump and Musk government intervened to avoid “an absurd waste of taxpayers' money.”
A week later, Trump inflated the amount at $ 100 million and said that the condoms went to Hamas, an indefensible perversion of an already indefensible lie.
According to government reports, Daniel Dale de CNN reported that in fiscal year 2023, the “condoms” of USAID totaled around $ 8 million worldwide. According to the agency, Dale discovered, Mozambique, who has a province called Gaza, received “approximately $ 5.4 million in non -condomy contraceptives.” Despite the extremely high HIV infection rate of Mozambique, it occupies the eighth place in the world, the report did not include a mention of an assignment for condoms.
You can call the accusation an error, or it could call it more precision a lie designed to generate outrage and distrust of the many foreign aid programs that save lives administered by Usaid.
This is the Dux approach: shoot first, point later, if it does.
Take the lie that musk spread on X on federal emergency funds that are used to house migrants in luxury hotels in New York City.
“The @Doge team has just discovered that FEMA sent $ 59 million last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” Musk published in X. “Send this money violated the law and is in Gross insubordination to the president's executive order.
And yet, the Dux team had not discovered any of that.
Factcheck.org, The New York Times and AP reviewed the luxury-hotel claim for migrants and discovered, surprise, surprise, that it was a falsehood.
There is no money for the relief of badly assigned disasters, no money was left for elegant hotels. Federal funds administered by FEMA, not disaster dollars, were sent to New York City, which spent an average of $ 156 per night in hotels for migrants, just a luxury rate. However, FEMA unilaterally raised $ 80 million used to accommodate migrants in New York City and fired four federal employees for doing their job.
Why let the facts stand in the path of a history that can cause the anger of the government and support the dubious gobill of Musk?
Musk's greatest lie is that he and his “nerd army” of Young Tech Bros operate with transparency.
“I hope to be examined and obtain, you know, a daily proctology exam, basically,” said the second -year billionaire who embodies my belief that great fortunes can infantize their owners. “It's not as if I think I can get yours.”
His stab by humility could be reassuring if something in the real record supports him.
Bluesky: @further.bsky.social. Rags: @rabcar
