Elon Musk wrote a check for $276 million to Republican groups. That's the largest known donation to a midterm cycle. He did this while running Tesla and SpaceX, both of which have federal contracts and regulatory entanglements that would make a compliance officer weep into their keyboard.
The CEO who tweets through earnings calls just became the biggest political donor in midterm history. He's rebuilding his relationship with Trump. He has business ties to the federal government. These facts are placed next to each other in the article like they're unrelated observations about cloud formations.
Quarter of a billion dollars. That's 276 million ones. You could stack them and build a tower to space, which would be cheaper than whatever SpaceX charges NASA. But Musk decided the better investment was politics. The same politics that determines which companies get subsidies, which rockets get contracts, and which CEOs get to pretend they're not lobbying when they're clearly lobbying.
Retail traders will read this headline and think it means Tesla calls are free money. They'll check the chart. They'll see a line going up or down. They'll convince themselves the $276 million is bullish because it shows Musk has cash to spare, as if political spending and stock price have ever correlated outside of a fever dream.
The technical analysis writes itself. Support at "massive regulatory exposure." Resistance at "the federal government noticing." The 200-day moving average is "how much money it takes to make people stop asking questions."
Musk spent more on midterms than most companies spend on R&D, and he did it while his businesses depend on the government he's trying to influence. That's not a political statement. That's just what happened. The chart doesn't care. Your calls expire worthless anyway.
Photo by Brecht Corbeel on Unsplash
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