If you thought Donald J Trump is the big kahuna, you obviously have been paying scant attention to his former geeky sidekick. Elon Musk, the cantankerous brainiac, MAGA benefactor, and once-celebrated other half of Washington’s most famous bromance has – since the much-publicised first visit with his son to the Oval Office – left the jury out on whether he was cowboy enough to truly Make America Great Again.
Zero street swagger, yet more than 200 million (the only person on Earth to reach that threshold) X users hang on his every word. His tweets are known to add or wipe off billions of stock overnight. He tells journalists off, sometimes with a cynical profanity. That is to say, he’s torn off pages from the Potus 2.0 handbook and is a younger, more unhinged version of The Donald who clearly wants to make his presence felt.
From the get-go as a glorified deployee in Trump’s unofficial department of government efficiency (Doge), Musk took to brutally doing the president’s bidding; cutting spending and jobs within the federal government. He never missed an opportunity to praise the president’s cleaning up of house, didn’t clutch at his pearls at the severing of Pepfar, nor shy away from trying to use his proximity to recommend friends to high-end institutions like NASA.
He’d pumped nearly $300 million into Trump’s election soiree, so perhaps it was high time they thanked him for it. For him it seemed more a matter of sound bottom-line economics than politics. The two are years apart: When he took over Twitter, he immediately went on to fire 80% (more than 6000) employees but when he tried doing that to federal employees, he quickly learnt that here illusions of exceptionalism don’t quite get you much except lots of litigation.
And, perhaps he was moving too fast and fast moves on issues of bread and butter or looking like you’re getting too big for your boots often invite the scorn of the underclass who often don’t have much to lose when they rise up and storm the Capitol Building. Or for that matter when they turn full arsonist on anything that looks like a Tesla. And that’s what they did, subjected the company’s showrooms and vehicles to violent action.
So perhaps it’s out of mutual frustration that the two have been airing their dirty line in public. Out of the blue Musk had no hang ups about calling Trump’s ‘beautiful’ tax bill ‘insane,’ adding it would punch trillions of debt into the US treasury. Or taking broadsides at the president for his connection to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even posting images of the two of them together. Trump was never going to let any of it slide as he took to threatening to ‘look into’ deporting Musk as well as setting Doge on him. ‘Doge’ warned the president, ‘is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible?’ Savage stuff, innit?
Now, a little closer to home.
At his White House visit, our own president Cyril Ramaphosa wasn’t given due credit. Here is the man who had to grin in the face of these sulking bullies. Trump calling for the presentation on genocide on one hand and also the stack of corroborating newspaper clippings. Elon shooting Ramaphosa a prolonged, icy stare on the other. This after Musk had openly ranted about a supposed white genocide leading up to the visit.
Then, as if to show that Ramaphosa was small fry, he openly rejected any offer to operate Starlink in SA if it came with having to surrender some 30% of his business to a BEE partner.
It’s safe to assume that Musk would’ve touched on these ‘racist’ laws with Trump, who has found similar DEI efforts in his own country unpalatable. And so in outlandish Trump fashion we woke to news of 30% tarrifs being imposed on SA goods to the States. That’s what he’s been saying since April but the deal will – according to a series of letters to various governments posted – dig this! – on Trump’s Truth Social account – only come into effect on 1 August. Not even Ramaphosa’s pro-Trump envoy earlier this year was enough to twist the president’s arm from the deep-seated beef he maintains towards the country.
The Minister of communications on the other hand has been at it, crafting what is seen as a custom-made bill clearly aimed at appeasing Musk and, naturally, the MAGAs. There’s no shortage of those who think the special treatment could spell bad news for the nation’s claims to sovereignty. Trade Unions and the Black Business Council have come out to say it will mean dire consequences for the local digital economy. ‘Empowerment without ownership is meaningless’ has been the rallying cry of the dissenting voice with online petitions doing the rounds and legal expects are concerned about the slippery precedent this might set.
On the other hand, investors and the money guys are gleefully rubbing hands in anticipation. Already, they are imagining the Karoo as the desert-like setting of SpaceX (which Starlink falls under) rockets launching off. The Northern Cape economy being given a much-needed boost.
Reportedly, Starlink have since offered to invest over R2 billion in the country’s economy in a bid to ‘working around’ BEE policies. Equity equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs), which have been recently gazetted by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, might be the ‘backdoor exemption’ they’ve been hoping for.
On the face of it, according to communications Minister Solly Malatsi, the EEIPs would ‘attract investment’ as well as counter the fact that the 30% BEE ownership requirement for foreign investors ‘did not allow companies to contribute to transformation goals in ways other than traditional ownership.’
According to the department, these alternative investments would be instrumental in creating infrastructure support, job creation, research and innovation, amongst others. One must wonder whether these EEIPs will not disadvantage local telecommunications companies who must still adhere to strict equity policies. Vodacom have been among the first to come out strongly in the hope of thwarting the seeming double standards.
All this said, one wonders whether these are really the sort of tappers SA should be booiging down with. A very scathing piece by our friend R. W. Johnson at Toverview takes a wary view of SA’s empowerment policies and is utterly cynical of the figures who benefit from them. Given how these leg-up bestowed on often unqualified individuals have mostly meant that they contribute zilch to the progress and profitability of these entities, it’s hard to fault Bill. In less articulate language we’ve often reached similar conclusions.
If we’re working from a premise of redress, could we at least agree that empowerment is a necessary evil to mending previous injustice? Perhaps a rethinking of the current, intrasparent methods of fostering said employment? Perhaps instead of elite individuals, why not empower thousands of previously-marginalised individuals? Mbeki’s idea of a concentrated black middle class has reserved true empowerment for a connected handful.
I’d say maybe the duty of our times is to reconsider the current laws, reject those that exacerbate the creation of an ultra-classist society. Here at home, people from differing political persuasion may get it, but I’m not sure our tech-expat and his orange-haired buddy would. And, given how they once did their admired ally Volodymyr Zelenskyy, I’m even more pessimistic about thinking these are the sort of people really care about anything except fawning reviews. Clearly the genocide accusation was a distraction from Trump’s core issues with us: BRICS and Israel. And now he’s trying to make us choose. Indeed, may we remember those friends who’ve been there when many weren’t and choose very carefully.
Image sourve: censor.net