I published a piece on Elon Musk on October 7. You may want to refer to it, if you didn’t see it or can’t remember what I said. Or, better, let me remind you. Musk runs Tesla, which will depend a lot on what the government does to restrict foreign vehicles from entering the country. Musk runs X, which gives him the power to decide what types of false information should be allowed to be provided to tens of millions of Americans, and what types should not be allowed, and he hasn’t done a very good sorting this out correctly. Musk runs SpaceX, on which American travel to the International Space Station and perhaps the moon and Mars, as well as putting satellites into orbit, depends, and he runs Starlink which fosters communication between earthlings via his network of satellites (and which he provides gratis to Ukraine).

Musk has firmly come out for Donald Trump, on the theory (one must presume) that Donald Trump will be better for Elon Musk. This, even though it is Joe Biden who has been touting the future of electric vehicles and Donald Trump, who has been championing the gas engine. Is there a method to his madness? Or is there just madness?

Since I published the first article, there have been two more bits of Musk news this week alone. First, that he is paying people to register and vote, and that he is holding a weekly $1 million lottery, open to people who will sign a petition saying they support the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Second, there are reports that he has been having weekly (at least?) telephone calls with none other than Vladimir Putin. Both the first and the second of these pieces of news are, it appears, potentially illegal. Elon Musk does not seem to care.

Now there are several questions raised here. Why doesn’t Musk appear to care if he is breaking the law? Why does Musk support the candidate who is not supportive of electric vehicles? What does Musk talk to Putin about while he is supplying free Starlink services to Ukraine?

Elon Musk’s net worth, it appears, is about $235 billion.

Moving on….

A few days ago, news was released saying that the Los Angeles Times was not going to support a candidate for president this year. This was after the editorial board had drafted an article coming out for Kamala Harris, but the article was blocked by the owner of the newspaper, Patrick Soon-Shiong. Now we don’t know why Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked the editorial endorsement, but there was a statement released today by his daughter, saying (paraphrasing) that endorsing Harris would mean endorsing the Biden-Harris administration which has been supporting Israel in its war against Hamas, and that the Los Angeles Times should not support a candidate who supports a genocide. Whether that is what she really said, or thinks, or whether or not that is why her farther blocked the endorsement we just don’t know.

There has been at least some fallout at the Times. The editor of the editorial page, Mariel Garza, has resigned from the Times as a result of this blockage by Soon-Shiong. Soon-Shiong, by the way, has a net worth of a measly $6.1 billion, it is said, only slightly higher than the $5.5 billion that Forbes thinks Donald Trump has.

And then there is the Washington Post, which announced yesterday that for the first time in about 50 years (since 1976), it was not going to come out for a candidate for the presidency. And, it turns out, that once again the editorial board of the Post had an article ready to go endorsing Kamala Harris and that the publication of the article was vetoed by Jeff Bezos, owner of the Post. Reports are that the Post staff is “reeling” from the decision, but I think it’s a little too early to see what actually will result from this decision, although one editor, Robert Kagan has announced his resignation, and another dozen or so seniorvPost reporters have made their position clear.

Elon Musk, with his $235 billion, is the richest man in the world. Jeff Bezos, with a mere $203 billion, is right behind him.

My daughter Michelle asks the right questions. She says that the Post this year has endorsed Angela Alsobrooks for the Maryland U.S. Senate seat, and local candidates in other races, meaning that it is only the endorsement of a presidential candidate is being blocked. She also asks why, in this election of all elections, is the Post making this decision. And, by the way, Michelle just canceled her subscription to the Post.

It seems obvious that Bezos is concerned that a President Trump would cancel Amazon’s many federal contracts. His motivation is the same as Musks’.

What does this tell us? It tells us that rich people are too rich and have much too much influence over what happens the world in its entirety. And it shows us that promises of editorial independence are not worth the newspaper that they are written in.

This is a consequential election (in case you did not know) and it is hard to see why newspapers, who have been accused by the Republican candidate of spewing fake news, of hiding opinion as fact, of being enemies of the American people, of being totally dishonest with their readers, are not supporting the candidate who is clearly in favor of free speech. Especially this is true when the investigative reports of these newspaper, and their editorial staffs, have been calling out the dangers of electing the Republican candidate for months, probably for years.

Of course, each individual is different. While Bezos and Soon-Shiong apparently want to appear neutral (if that is indeed what they want), Musk has no such goal and wants to appear all out MAGA. If Musk owned a newspaper (you know one day he will), there will be false neutrality displayed.

For years, people have been saying that newspaper endorsements don’t change votes, that they aren’t that important in the manner that they used to be. And perhaps this is true. But that does not mean, in a close election, there might not be anti-MAGA Republicans, or independent voters, who were leaning towards voting for Harris, but now might say: “Gee, if the Post/Times isn’t endorsing her, maybe there is something I don’t know. I think I will just sit it out this year and not vote.” And it may be that you won’t need many who think like this to have a real effect on the outcome.

I drafted this yesterday to send out this morning. It was fresh news then. Now, I am just repeating what everyone is saying.

And, by the way, Democracy Dies in Darkness. You know who really knew that? George Soros.