Trump watches DOMINOES FALL!!!

The dominoes are falling already and. Donald Trump is watching his house of. cards crumble. All of the Trump. oligarchs are running scared. It may. have seemed nice to be in the Oval. Office and give Donald Trump golden bars. and divert your shareholder money to. build golden ballrooms in these. disgusting quid proquos. But now karma. is striking. A new group of Democratic. Congress members joined by some of the.

most fierce Democratic Congress members. and senators in judiciary and oversight. are saying we are coming for that Trump. oligarchy. Take a look at what. Democratic Congress member elect Richard. Ojetta had to say when uh there was a. post from the Americans for tax fairness. says breaking Apple dodges $2.7 billion. in taxes by booking profits in. Singapore. It dodged another $2.6. billion by booking profits in Ireland.

That's billions that won't go back to. the country that made Apple successful. in the first place. And our tax code. lets them do it. Congressman elect Jada. says, "Not for long." Or here's how. state regime media Fox is reporting. about subpoena season. Senator Ed Marky. in Massachusetts fires a warning shot at. big tech hours after Democrats captured. both chambers of commerce. Congress. responding to a social media post asking.

when there would be live televised. trials of big tech executives. Senator. Marky responded, "They are going to need. to plant new forests for all of these. subpoenas will be printing." Markquy, the ranking member of the Senate. Committee on Small Business and. Entrepreneurship, is poised to become. chairman when newly elected Senate. Democrats are sworn in come January. He. has positioned himself as one of the. most aggressive progressive critics of.

the tech industry, releasing an AI. accountability agenda in July and. comparing tech companies to oil. corporation. He's not alone. Senator Ron. Widen posted the single word subpoenas. on X Tuesday night and Representative. Robert Garcia also posted a warning on. ex lawyer up. Then you have Donald. Trump's buddy Jensen Wong. Jensen Wong, the CEO of Nvidia, was apparently. involved in an affair with a Chinese.

spy, Alice Wong, and then did business. deals with a uh Alice Wang Chinese. subsidiary company uh called Mega Speed. and Speed Matrix in Singapore and. Malaysia respectively. I've done a lot. of deep dive reporting on this. Donald. Trump was asked during a press. conference. So when were you made aware. that this was taking place because this. had compromised our national security. We know that Donald Trump knew actually. in 2025 when the H200 was one of the. more advanced ships then. Since then you.

have the Blackwell. You have a lot of. other chips that are more advanced. Um. Donald Trump says uh I don't know. It. could have been mentioned just not sure. Trump lies about everything here. Play. this clip. >> No no not you. Not you. Go ahead. I. wanted you to put a finer point on when. exactly you were made aware of the. intelligence around Jensen Wang. >> Oh, I have to check. But this has been. going on put an intelligence memo out. last year. Did you read that? >> Well, I I'd certainly check with the. intelligence people. They could have.

been mentioned. Certainly, it didn't. make much of an impact on me. Yeah. Then state regime media Fox reporting, Democrats are setting their sights on a. congressional investigation into Doge. and Elon Musk's role leading it. But one. prominent Democrat is drawing a line on. how far the probe should go. Rascin. tells Fox Digital he's pretty certain at. least one committee will investigate. Doge, calling it a catastrophe for. America and saying Americans private. information was completely compromised.

by it. Governor JB Pritsker agrees, saying that Doge deserves scrutiny, calling it pretty freaking awful. And. then you have Elon Musk. Of course, Elon. Musk contributed more money to this. election than anybody by far. Hundreds. and hundreds of millions of dollars. His. company, Starlink, Star Shield, all of. this relies on a lot of government. subsidies and government contracts. And. so he was a big loser in this election.

as well, especially at the state level. too where he basically had Governor. Governor Abbott of Texas and the Texas. state legislature as his stooges to. basically do whatever the hell he wanted. in Texas. Now Democrats control the. House, the governorship, and every state. office. The American people, the people. of Texas saw what he was doing and said, "Not here. Not in America." Now, I want. to share with you Justin Wolfers. He's a. mightest touch chief economist. He did a. very deep dive. You're going to want to.

watch this whole thing about big. corporate money and politics. He begins. by talking about Elon Musk's money and. politics, but then he broadens out this. conversation to money and politics in. general. Justin Wolfers is the chief. economist at the Midas Touch Network. He. also is the founder of Platypus. Economics. Here's what Justin W this. whole thing. It is an incredible uh. piece by Justin Wolfers. Let's bring it. in. >> Elon Musk just lost the most expensive.

bet in the history of American. elections. He spent $474. million. on these midterms. More than any donor. has ever spent in a single election. cycle ever. And his side lost. They lost. big. Now you've probably heard two. reactions to that. The first is huh. maybe with a fingerpoint. The second is few maybe it turns out.

that all that money can't buy votes. Maybe our democracy is safe. But both of. those reactions they missed the real. story. I crunched some numbers this. morning and made some charts. And when I. counted the zeros, that $474. million suddenly became the small. uninteresting part of Elon Musk's day. I'm Justin Morphus and I'm a professor. of economics and this is the Midas Touch. Network. Let's get into it. Elon Musk is.

the world's richest man. He runs Tesla, SpaceX, and a slew of others. These are. companies that depend heavily on. government contracts, government. regulation, and government decisions. NASA and the Pentagon are major SpaceX. customers. Tesla's driverless car plans. live or die by what safety regulators. decide. And a 100% tariff on Chinese. electric vehicles helps keep much. cheaper imported electric vehicles from.

showing up next to a Tesla on an. American lot. So in this election, Musk's side lost. and by the end of the next day, the. market value of his Tesla and SpaceX. stakes had fallen by more than $50. billion. billion with a B. Compared with what the. market said those shares would normally. have done, the loss might have been. closer to $70 billion.

Now, here's a different question. Instead of asking what happened on. Tuesday, ask the bigger one. How much. richer would Musk be if Democrats had. fallen short of a sweep and Republicans. had held the Congress? The answer, in. fact, may be hundreds of billions of. dollars. Of course, my job is to explain. and make sense of that number. So, the. stakes for Musk on Tuesday weren't $474.

million with NEM. They were hundreds of. times higher, which raises a question. that honestly sounds a little crazy. Why. didn't he spend more? And if that holds for Musk, that. probably holds for other people who are. ultra wealthy. America has no shortage. of billionaires. Which leads to the. absurd sounding question, why isn't. there more money in American politics? That's provocative and it points to a.

much bigger question. That question, what does this say about the future of. our democracy? This is going to be a. story in five chapters. First, what the. market says Musk lost on Tuesday. Seconds, the much bigger question. What. did he really have riding on the whole. outcome? Third, we're going to ask why. How's it possible that one man could. stand to win or lose that much money. from just one election? Spoiler, it's.

because government matters so much to. his businesses. Fourth, we're going to. ask whether his money actually helped. And fifth, well, I want to get to why. the next political bet that a. billionaire makes may be much, much. bigger and what that means for our. democracy. Okay, let's begin. My first. question, it's simple. How much did. Tuesday's election cost Elon Musk? Let's.

run through some pretty simple numbers. From 400 p.m. on election day to the end. of trading the next day, Tesla's stock. fell about 4%, SpaceX fell about 5%. And. these moves happened right at the point. that the election results were coming in. and a Democratic sweep came into view. That timing matters. It gives us a. strong clue about what investors were. reacting to. Well, Krikey, we know that. the only thing were reacting to on. Tuesday was the election results.

Now, a 4% decline in a company that's as. valuable as Tesla means that about $60. billion worth of value just evaporated. SpaceX was valued by markets as being. worth $90 billion less. Now, Musk. doesn't own all of either of those. companies. He owns about a fifth of. Tesla and maybe two- fifths or nearly a. half of SpaceX. So his personal share of. those losses might have been about $10.

billion from Tesla and $40 billion from. SpaceX. Let's add them up and call it. around $50 billion. Hey, notice something. That's more than. 100 times what he spent on this record. busting election cycle. More than a. hundred times. So, if you thought the. big number in this money and politics. story was $474 million, fair enough. Look, $474 million is a ridiculous.

amount of money. It buys a lot of TV. ads. It buys all sorts of field stuff. You can send a whole lot of mailers that. are going to go straight from the. mailbox to the recycling bin. But. compared with what Musk lost as a result. of this election, $474 million is pocket. change. Now, you might want to ask me. for a more careful calculation. You. know, stocks move for all sorts of. reasons. You don't want to see a share. price fall after an election and just. declare, "Aha, that was an election cuz.

maybe those shares would have risen or. fallen anyway." So, we need a. comparison. In fact, the comparison group is the. broader stock market and it rose that. day. The S&P 500 was up nearly a couple. of percent. So, the market was having a. pretty good day. Musk's companies had a. very bad one and it had them right at. the moment that we were learning that. Democrats had won the House and Senate. So, a simple comparison then says Mus.

shares fell about 6 percentage points. below the broader market. That now gets. you to a loss of about $70 billion. But Tesla and SpaceX are more volatile. than the average tech company. When tech. stocks rise, they usually rise by more. So, I did the fancier finance. calculation, too. In finance, the usual. sensitivity of a company's value to. what's going on in the rest of the. world's called a beta. Uh, and it just. basically says how much does this stock.

normally bounce around when the market. bounces around. Given the broader rise. in the market, you would actually have. expected Tesla and SpaceX to have risen. a bit more sharply. Instead, they fell. Now, let me try and be careful and tell. you what that means. What we're doing. here is we're trying to construct a. counterfactual what each company's. shares would normally have done given. what was happening in the broader. market. Then we want to compare that to. what actually happened. The gap between. those two is the value that investors.

took away because of news specifically. to Musk and this election. For Tesla, that gap was about 5 percentage points. For SpaceX, about six. Put those. together and the arithmetic says Musk. lost roughly $70 billion compared to. what would have happened if Tesla and. SpaceX had followed their usual. patterns. Now, I want to show a little. and maybe even a lot of modesty here. The Tesla result, it really is pretty. solid. That fall, it was sharp. It was. exactly the right time. It's pretty.

unusual and it's much larger than the. usual sorts of wiggles you see from a. stock like Tesla. What's going on with SpaceX? It's a. little harder to see because SpaceX has. only traded publicly since June and its. stock tends to bounce around a lot. It's. a big part of Musk's total here, but. because it bounces around a lot, it's a. little harder to be certain that we know. which bounces due to the election and. what are the other wiggles that just. seem to happen to this crazy stock. So, my honest number is 70 roughly $70.

billion. It could be that Musk lost 60. It could be 80. The market adjusted. estimate, it's a little higher. The. estimate at noon was a little lower. After hours trading is thin. Do what you. want with this. I don't want to try and. make the case for any kind of faux. precision for all for you to see the. point. The point's much simpler. The. broader market went up. Musk's companies. went down. And that difference is tens. of billions of dollars. And that's. probably enough precision for us right. now. There was something about Musk and.

something about this electoral moment. that caused investors to trade as if. Musk's stocks were worth, if you were. impressed by 474 million, be impressed. This is tens of billions less. All told, Elon Musk had a terrible, no good, very. bad day. Not because he'd spent $500. million backing his favorite tomb and. lost, but because that lost co loss cost. him more than 100 times.

larger than what he spent. Actually, I. think I might have understated things a. bit. So, what I want to do is note that. the $70 billion figure we've been coming. up with tells us what the market did. when the election results arrived. So, it tells us about the value of the. surprise, what we learned, what happened. on election night. But what we really. want to know is this. How much did Musk. have writing on the overall difference. between Republican control of Congress. and a Democratic sweep? How much richer.

would he be in the world where the blue. tsunami never happened? That's a. different counterfactual and it's a much. bigger number. You see, that's because. markets are forward-looking and they. understood that this blue wave was going. to happen. At 400 p.m. on election day, before any of the votes were counted, prediction markets already thought that. a Democratic sweep was pretty likely. Koshi put the chance at around 3 and 4. And a lot of that was already priced in. to stocks like Tesla and SpaceX. So, what happened on election night wasn't.

that markets went from believing. Republicans will definitely hold. Congress to Democrats will sweep. Actually, most of that journey, threearters of that journey had already. happened. The news on election night was. the last quarter of that trip. Markets. went from roughly a three in4 chance of. a Democratic sweep to a certainty. And. that gives us a way to scale the market. reaction. If the final 25 percentage points of. surprise cost Musk around $70 billion, then the full 100 point difference. between a sure Republican outcome and a.

sure Democratic outcome must be worth. about four times as much. Look, all of. this is just rough and ready rounding. math, but I'm trying to get to the. orders of magnitude. And what that tells. us, all of this arithmetic is the cost. to mask a Democrats hold in the House. and Senate is roughly 2 to300 billions. Notice now we're measuring differences. in Mus wealth in hundreds of billions of. dollars. Look, that's a rough estimate, plus or minus quite a lot, but it's.

huge. That's the market's estimate of. the difference in one man's wealth. between two worlds. One where. Republicans held Congress and one where. Democrats swept it. All of the. uncertainty that I've tried to be honest. about so far, that uncertainty also gets. scaled up as well. So again, I don't. want to get precious about any. particular number. Let's just call it. hundred billion if you want. It was. still a no good, very bad day for Elon. Musk. And that hundred billion is. completely enormously larger than the.

$474 million campaign spend that folks. have been so focused on. Okay, the. numbers so far, I'll admit it, they are. staggering and I've had to check my. numbers a few times and they raise the. natural question, why would control of. Congress matter that much to Musk's. companies? Turns out the government matters a lot. Let's start with SpaceX. SpaceX is a.

remarkable company. It launches. satellites. It runs Starlink. It carries. astronauts and cargo for NASA. It sells. launch and communication services to the. Pentagon and national security. apparatus. It's a a huge share of its. business depends on winning contracts. from the federal government, getting. approvals from the federal government, and keeping the confidence of the. federal government. Then there's Star. Shield. That's the military version of. Starlink. There's already been very. serious questions about how it's being.

used in Ukraine and whether one private. billionaire should get to decide when a. communications network works in the. middle of a war. I'll tell you straight. up. This the part of the story that. keeps me up at night and I don't. normally say that about satellites. A Democratic Congress isn't going to. come in and wave a wand and cancel any. SpaceX contract. But it does get. committee chairs. It gets hearings. It. gets subena power. It gets the ability. to ask awkward questions about contracts. and conflicts of interest and whether. taxpayers are getting what they paid.

for. That changes the political. environment that SpaceX operates in. Tesla's also exposed, but in a different. way. Tesla's future depends heavily on. autonomous driving. Its robo taxi and. cyber cab ambitions depend on what the. National Highway Traffic Safety. Administration permits. How aggressively. safety rules get enforced and how. quickly approvals move. Tesla also. benefits from trade policy. The US. currently has a 100% tariff on Chinese.

electric vehicles and that helps protect. Tesla from American car buyers asking. themselves a very simple question. And. why buy this Tesla if a cheaper Chinese. electric vehicle will get the same job. done at a lower price? Then there's the. proposed Tesla SpaceX merger. Cong. Congress can't veto a merger, but. congressional scrutiny can create. delays, documents, headlines, and risk. Investors hate delays. They hate. uncertainty and they especially hate.

delays and and uncertain when a. company's value rests on bets about AI. and autonomous vehicles, space, defense, and government contracts. That's a whole. lot of uncertainty in one basket. And. yeah, I think Elon Musk probably is an. extreme case. But I do want you to. notice the broader lesson here. Government rules help decide who wins. and who loses throughout our economy. That's just the reality of a big. complicated economy. Tariffs change.

which products compete. Safety rules. affect which technologies can be sold. Contracts decide who gets paid. Tax. rules change what investments are worth. doing. Small changes in these rules, they can move billions of dollars. If. you want a rough sense of scale, $100. billion reduction in the company's value. is roughly like investors expecting $5. billion less in annual profits. you know. the value of the company at 20 times. annual earnings that's a big number 5. billion but contracts approvals tariffs.

and regulation can easily matter that. much for businesses as large as we see. in our modern economy. okay that explains why Musk had so much. at stake. now turn to the obvious slightly more. political question coming out of Tuesday. did Musk's money fail. Okay, let's step back. I want to point. out the obvious. Money does help. politicians get elected. Of course, it.

helps. Campaigns need staff. They need. organizers. They need olers, lawyers, researchers, TV ads, digital ads, y. signs, buses, officers, computers, and. people willing to knock on doors in the. rain. And all of that costs money. A. candidate with no money has a very hard. time running a serious campaign. Politicians spend an astonishing amount. of their lives fundraising because they. know this. So given all of that, you got to guess. that Musk's spending may well have.

narrowed races that Republicans. otherwise would have lost by even more. Fair enough. But buying an election, an. entire Senate, that is a much harder. proposition. Look, take Texas. There was more than. $200 million of Muskbacked money going. into the effort to elect Ken Paxton. There were some late polls that. suggested it was a close race, but then. James Telerico won by about 12 points by. over a million votes. Now, notice something about Texas. It's.

an unusually large state. Nearly 10. million people voted just for that one. Senate seat. So, in Texas, you need to. reach an enormous number of people. before you move the statewide needle. For the sake of argument, let's do a. silly, but maybe useful exercise. Suppose a campaign can persuade one. voter by spending $1,000. $1,000 on. trying to persuade them. That's not a. market price. It's a simplifying.

assumption, and it's meant to sound a. bit preposterous. Um, I'm not telling. you exactly what it is that a campaign. consultant's going to charge here. So, if it's $1,000 to change one person's. mind, then $200 million in Texas would. have changed 200,000 minds because each. person switching sides changes the. margin by two votes. That would have. been enough to change the Texas margin. by 400,000 votes or roughly four. percentage points. On the one hand, that's a big effect. On the other, it's.

quite a lot smaller than the 12point. loss. So, even on our very generous set. of assumptions, Musk's money maybe did. help Ken Paxton a lot, but Ken Paxton. was such a bad candidate, and let's face. it, is really terrible. And so, it still. left him losing Texas by a mile. So, $200 million doesn't buy you a Senate. seat in Texas. Fair enough. But Texas is. a terrible place to spend your money if.

your only goal is to buy a Senate seat. Texas is huge. With hindsight, we could. look at the close races and ask what it. would have taken for Republicans to have. held Alaska, Mississippi, Maine, Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina, and therefore the. Senate. on our $1,000 per voter. assumption. The answer is it would have. cost about $130 million, which is actually yeah less than Musk. spent just in Texas. So look, this isn't. exactly a campaign plan. It's just.

sketching out orders of magnitude before. election day. You didn't know which. states would be cheap. You didn't know. where the close margins would land. And. the other side was spending money, too. So there's shortcomings to my approach, but it still tells us something. important. It tells us that donations of. hundreds of millions of dollars really. can matter enormously, even if they. don't, when you're dumb enough to put. them all behind a bad candidate in. Texas. The question is whether that. money can be targeted well enough, early.

enough, and whether there's enough. persuadable voters left to move. And. that brings us to the final chapter. And. this is the part that worries me most. Back in 1972, the economist Gordon. Tullik asking asked a question that's. become known as Tullk's puzzle. Here it. is. If government decisions are worth so. much money to businesses and to wealthy. people like Elon Musk, why isn't there. even more money in politics? Why is. there so little money in American.

politics? So most people look at Musk. spending $474 million on one election. cycle and they say there's far too much. money in politics and I agree with him. But Tullik looks at the value of the. government decisions and says and it's a. good question. Why is there so little? It's a good question and it's a. provocative question and it matters for. our democracy. The point isn't that we. should want more money in politics. Quite the opposite. Instead, it tells us.

how fragile our current defenses may be. about a future incursion of more money. into politics. Look, let's take the. earlier numbers we did before and say. that Senate control controlling the. Senate, having Republicans control the. Senate was worth, say, $100 billion. just to Elon Musk. Now, suppose a. political spender doesn't know which. state's going to decide to spend the the. Senate. So, they're going to spread. their money across a dozen competitive.

races. Instead of spending $474 million, you might think it makes sense to spend. a few billion. You don't want to end up. like Elon Musk on the wrong side of your. bed. Well, by my math, that's probably. enough to buy yourself a Senate. And. even if it cost you $10,000 to change. people's mind, then maybe buying an election cost you. tens of billions of dollars. But. remember, the financial return just to. one man might be measured in hundreds of.

billions. Do the math and suddenly you. realize that if you're rich and. interconnected and connected to the. government, then spending billions of. dollars getting your guy elected starts. to sound like a profitable investment. And I just said billions. That's the key comparison. And so saying. something like $10,000 to change one. mind, that sounds expensive. It is. expensive. It's a lot of money. But even. for for these folks with this much. money, this connected to government.

business, that can still be cheap, a. good deal compared with the financial. implications of your side winning the. next election. Now, I get it. A. billionaire can't just walk into an. election and buy a 100,000 votes. Elections don't work like that. Voters. are people. They have opinions. They. have values. They have parties. and they. can see through a bad ad, even a really. expensive one with focus group fonts and. a sincere looking bloke slowly walking. through a field of wheat. Big spending.

can provoke a backlash. Contribution. laws can make it hard for these big. money donors to get their money through. Social norms matter and might stop some. rich folks from trying to just buy. elections. And a lot of political giving. that we see probably isn't an investment. calculation at all. It's more about. ideology and participation and tribal. loyalty and getting to feel close to. power. And so all of those things might. right now be restraining the amount of. money in politics, but none of them is a.

permanent law of nature. Think of it this way. Back in 1972. when Tullik first asked why was there so. little money in American politics, it. would have sounded absurd to say one man. would spend nearly half a billion. dollars on a single midterm cycle. Yet here we are and the logic that got. us here could take campaign spending up. to the next level where we start to. think hundreds of millions isn't much.

And we're talking in billions or tens of. billions. So, let's pull the threads of all this. together because I think this really. matters. Did Musk's money buy votes? Well, it bought a lot of things that are. related to votes, staff, and advertising. and organization and allowed a megaphone. and the ability to contest races that. otherwise might have been out of reach. This time, this time it didn't buy the. result he wanted. But if $474 million. from one man shocked you, look out.

Because this is the basic logic of. extreme wealth combined with a. government that plays a central role in. determining who wins and who loses. It. says that math, that logic, it says that. bets like Musks are exactly what we. should expect. In fact, it says the next. billionaire might spend more and the one. after that might spend 10 times more. This is bigger than Elon Musk. Government rules are central to every. modern economy. The question is whether.

our democratic institutions are built to. withstand a world in which one person. can have not hundreds of millions but. hundreds of billions of dollars riding. on a single election. For most of. American history, millions of small. donations could add up to a war chest. that was bigger and more powerful than. many of the mega rich could assemble by. themselves. That's what kept our. politics responded to you and me. But we. shouldn't assume that that's going to.

remain true in the future. Look, maybe. we can be optimistic and suggest that. the forces that have held back money. from politics will hold old. I hope so. It's our democracy. for now. But it's also up to us to. defend it. And the simple economics and. math that we've just worked out together. says we really need to do something. soon. That's it for today. I'm Justin. Morphus. You can find me at Platypus. Economics. Check out the YouTube.

channel, look for the Substack, and. download the podcast wherever you get. your shows. >> WTF America is officially out now. My. brothers and I wrote it, but this book. is also about you, the millions who. refused to back down when it mattered. most. Scan the QR code, click the link. in the description, or find it anywhere. books are sold and order your copy. today.