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Elon Musk Flexes His Political Strength as Government Shutdown Looms
The New York Times ^ | Dec. 19, 2024Updated 12:14 p.m. ET | Michael D. Shear and Ryan Mac

Posted on 12/19/2024 2:52:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

The world’s richest man led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by promoting false and misleading claims about it.

When President-elect Donald J. Trump picked “the Great Elon Musk,” the world’s richest man, to slash government spending and waste, he mused that the effort might be “the Manhattan Project of our time.”

On Wednesday, that prediction looked spot on. Wielding the social media platform he purchased for $44 billion in 2022, Mr. Musk detonated a rhetorical nuclear bomb in the middle of government shutdown negotiations on Capitol Hill.

In more than 150 separate posts on X, Mr. Musk demanded that Republicans back away from a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over Christmas. He vowed political retribution against anyone voting for the sprawling bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Mr. Musk reposted Republican lawmakers’ complaints about the spending measure, celebrating each as a win. He also shared misinformation about the bill, including false claims that it contained new aid for Ukraine or $3 billion in funds for a new stadium in Washington.

By the end of the day, Mr. Trump issued a statement of his own, calling the bill “a betrayal of our country.”

It was a remarkable day for Mr. Musk, who has never been elected to public office but now appears to be the largest megaphone for the man about to retake the Oval Office. Larger, in fact, than Mr. Trump himself, whose own vaunted social media presence is dwarfed by that of Mr. Musk.

The president-elect counts 96.2 million followers on X, while Mr. Musk has 207.9 million. (Mr. Musk is also far richer than Mr. Trump. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is worth $442 billion, while the president-elect is worth...)

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Humor
KEYWORDS: fraudulentpulitzer; thedurantytimes; theslimes; walterduranty
No mention of The Slimes' years of anonymously sourced false and misleading claims about "Russia Collusion."
1 posted on 12/19/2024 2:52:08 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
It was a remarkable day for Mr. Musk, who has never been elected to public office

Huh NYT, neither was the person that pulls your strings, George Soros.

2 posted on 12/19/2024 2:56:13 PM PST by DallasBiff (Apology not accepted.la is not the sharpest knife in the drawer)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The NYT actually accuses someone of “false claims”?
No one believes you clown journalists any more.
Go away, and let a man whose IQ, when divided by the sum IQ of your entire staff, still produces an almost uncountably large number.

Go away, NYT, and get a real education...something NOT even remotely associated with journalism, DET, undertwater lesbian dancing, or unicorn fart studies.


3 posted on 12/19/2024 2:57:45 PM PST by Da Coyote (H)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I don’t think he’s eligible, but I wouldn’t mind Musk as president #48.


4 posted on 12/19/2024 2:59:14 PM PST by Lazamataz (The BEST birthday present I ever got WAS DONALD TRUMP WINNING IN 2024!!!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The Slimes had no problem with unelected, second-rate actor George Clooney publishing an opinion piece that completely scrambled the leftard party.


5 posted on 12/19/2024 2:59:44 PM PST by Magic Fingers (Political correctness mutates in order to remain virulent.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
The NY SLIMES sounds like a JEALOUS BITCH!


6 posted on 12/19/2024 3:05:55 PM PST by VideoDoctor
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Has the NY Times apologized to Donald Trump for the false claims they made on his Inauguration Day 2017 about the made up lie manufactured by the Clinton campaign about “Russia Collusion”?


7 posted on 12/19/2024 3:06:28 PM PST by MNJohnnie (Don't blame me, my congressman is MTG!)
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To: All

He exercised his constitutional right to free speech.


8 posted on 12/19/2024 3:11:19 PM PST by mmichaels1970 ( )
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To: Lazamataz

Find musk’s exact birthplace and put an embassy there. Then he will have been born on US soil. Then listen to the Dems bitch about birthright citizenship.


9 posted on 12/19/2024 3:13:45 PM PST by P-Marlowe (Do the math. L+G+B+T+Q = 666)
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To: MNJohnnie

I asked Grok2...

Has the new york times ever apologized for disseminating the russia collusion hoax?

The New York Times has not issued a direct, explicit apology for its coverage of the Russia collusion narrative related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. However, there have been instances where the paper acknowledged shortcomings or errors in its reporting process:

In August 2019, New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet was quoted in a transcript discussing how the paper was “a little tiny bit flat-footed” when the Mueller investigation did not confirm the collusion narrative, indicating a recognition that their expectations and coverage might have been misaligned with outcomes. This is not an apology but an acknowledgment of a misstep in their reporting approach.

Various opinion pieces and articles have critiqued the Times’ coverage, with some suggesting that an apology might be warranted, but there’s no formal statement from the Times itself apologizing for the coverage. For instance, a New York Post article from 2019 argued that the Times should apologize for misleading America, highlighting the narrative that has since been discredited.

Public sentiment on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) has reflected frustration over the lack of an apology, with posts indicating that what was offered by the Times was more of an explanation or defense of their journalistic process rather than an apology.

In summary, while there has been acknowledgment of errors in the reporting process and how the narrative was handled, there has not been an explicit, formal apology from The New York Times regarding the Russia collusion coverage.


10 posted on 12/19/2024 3:18:42 PM PST by deks (Deo duce, ferro comitante · God for guide, sword for companion)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

re: “while the president-elect is worth...”

It is estimated that President Trump’s current net worth is 6.61 billion dollars.


11 posted on 12/19/2024 3:25:16 PM PST by deks (Deo duce, ferro comitante · God for guide, sword for companion)
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To: Da Coyote

You misspelled undertwatter.


12 posted on 12/19/2024 4:01:16 PM PST by webheart (S)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

by promoting false and misleading claims about it.

Accusing Musk of using their methods of deceit.


13 posted on 12/19/2024 4:50:33 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (We used to be a Republic, we are now a Fascist Klepto-Thugocracy. until Jan 20, 2025)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I hope that this spending bill consisting of about 1547 pages which most likely will never be read and is loaded with pork will go down in flames and if Musk helped in some ways to defeat it, he certainly deserves a gold star.


14 posted on 12/19/2024 5:25:27 PM PST by Saintgermain ( )
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To: deks

“In summary, while there has been acknowledgment of errors in the reporting process and how the narrative was handled, there has not been an explicit, formal apology from The New York Times regarding the Russia collusion coverage.”

Beyond that, did the NY Times ever identify who their ‘unnamed sources’ were regarding Russiagate? After all, my understanding is that when one lies to a media outfit, then any promises of anonymity are null and void and one can argue that it is the DUTY of media outfits to identify fake sources, so as to discourage the practice in the future.

...of course that assumes that the media WANTS to provide accurate reporting.


15 posted on 12/19/2024 5:59:36 PM PST by BobL
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