Tesla

Big nicknames come with big responsibilities. And the owner of one of the mightiest monikers – Big Balls – feels the weight of his own obligations keenly. In a rare interview, Edward Coristine spoke about how his family fled to America from Russia after his grandfather was executed for spying for the US. Valery Martynov was a KGB officer who was recruited by the FBI in the early 1980s. He passed Soviet secrets to his American handlers until he was exposed by Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, two of the most notorious traitors in US history.  Recalled to Moscow under false pretenses, Martynov was arrested and executed in 1987. His widow and children eventually sought refuge in America.

The Elon-Trump bromance may have breathed its last today, with their relationship descending into a social-media flame war – on their respective apps, of course. The source of the discord is Musk's opposition to the "Big, Beautiful Bill" presently being debated in the Senate, which, among other things, does not codify the cuts his Department of Government Efficiency had made since Trump's inauguration. The bill also strips away Biden-era tax credits for consumers who purchase electric vehicles, which had been benefiting Musk's firm Tesla. Musk took his grievances to his over 200 million X followers and, let's face it, everyone else on the app too. On Tuesday Musk wrote, "I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.

Elon Musk’s departure from Washington was celebrated by many in the media. In the space of just a few years they had transformed him from a “Yay Science!” rocket-building Tony Stark stand-in doing awkward cameos on Rick and Morty into a crazed inhuman boogeyman, whose cars must be keyed, firebombed or layered with bumper stickers saying, “I bought this before Elon was a Nazi.” (Before you say that’s an exaggeration, there’s literally a Tesla with that sticker in my neighborhood – you can buy them on Etsy.

Sporting a black eye and a shirt with the words "The DoGE Father" on the chest, Elon Musk joined President Trump in the Oval Office Friday afternoon to announce the formal departure from his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. While Musk will no longer be a special government employee and will direct his workday back to his several companies, the world's richest man will remain a "friend and advisor" to the President when needed. "Today it's about a man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced," Trump said, opening the press conference.

Elon Musk stood silently in the Oval Office, eyeballing the South African President while Donald Trump tore into the ANC leader for permitting “white genocide.” The exiting Department for Government Efficiency (DoGE) chief said nothing as the President dimmed the lights and required an unsuspecting Cyril Ramaphosa to watch a short film about white farmers being targeted and South African politicians chanting “kill the farmer.”As Donald Trump berated Ramaphosa, Trump didn’t call on Musk, standing just a few feet away. He didn’t need to intervene: according to Elon’s father, Errol Musk, his son – an outspoken critic of Ramaphosa's government – had already briefed the President about what he agrees is “white genocide”.

As soon as reports began appearing from last Saturday’s massive “Hands Off” protests in the United States, the usual right-wing canards began to pop up as well: doctored photos, overstated crowds and, most stereotypically, professional paid protesters. Tweet after tweet showed the usual Craigslist ad, offering $200 for anyone who’d be willing to stand around with a placard for a couple of hours. No one would argue that there’s a professional protest infrastructure in the United States, and that if you followed the money trail, you could trace a lot of the funding back to the kinds of NGOs that the government is trying to defund and shut down. The sinister invisible hand of the Soros family is dipping in there somewhere.

The most important man in the palace of King Donald Trump looks set to leave the court. According to several media outlets, the President has told both his inner circle and the wider cabinet that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his role in dismantling major parts of the federal government. There were obvious difficulties and time constraints from the outset when Musk started running the new Department for Government Efficiency. A person can only serve as a “special government employee” for a period of 130 days each year – time that is dwindling fast, as we approach the 100-day mark of Trump’s second term. There are also strict rules around conflicts of interests, of which Musk risks having many given all his business operations.

What with all the Rose Garden theatrics of “Liberation Day” and Donald Trump’s wild decision to tariff most of Planet Earth at once, Politico’s big “Musk will leave” scoop quickly sank down the news agenda. That’s partly because it wasn’t really a scoop at all. Elon Musk has said repeatedly that his role in the White House is only temporary. His status as a “special government employee,” which exempts him from some ethics and conflict-of-interest rules, is only meant to last 130 days and so his contract, such as it is, is likely to expire in late May or early June. Musk confirmed to Fox News last week that he was not in government for the long term while President Trump told reporters on Monday: “I think he’s amazing, but he’s got a big company to run...

So Donald Trump and Sean Hannity are each springing for a Tesla. It shouldn’t prove much of a hit to their respective wallets, seeing as how each has amassed a not insubstantial fortune thanks to the emergence of the MAGA movement, though Hannity is probably something of a piker next to Trump. Trump went all-in: “Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stand for.