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Report: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, other tech execs attended secret meeting to discuss how to stop Donald Trump

Update: Elon Musk said in a tweet today that the American Enterprise Institute meeting was not secretive and that he was not there to talk about Trump.

According to a report from the Huffington Post, Elon Musk was among a handful of tech CEOs and Republican establishment members who recently met at the American Enterprise Institute’s World Forum to discuss how to best stop Donald Trump.

According to the report, the meeting took place off the coast of Georgia at a private island resort and included Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Sean Parker, and Elon Musk. Other establishment attendees included Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Tom Cotton, Cory Gardner, Tim Scott, Rob Portman, and Ben Sasse.

The event was closed to the press, so exact details aren’t entirely clear, but the report says that the “main topic” was stopping Donald Trump from getting the Republican nomination. How Trump even ended up as the front-runner was also a topic of discussion, the report claims.

Karl Rove gave a presentation at the event during which he discussed the weaknesses of Trump, the primary of which, he claimed, is that voters “have a very hard time envisioning him as presidential.”

Elon Musk has said in the past that he’s not the biggest fan of Donald Trump. Speaking at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit last October, Musk explained that while he tries to stay out of politics, he hopes Trump doesn’t get the nomination (via Mashable). It was also revealed that Musk donated to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Despite saying he gets involved in politics “as little as possible,” Musk did say he really doesn’t want Trump to get the Republican nomination. “I don’t really have strong feelings except that hopefully Trump doesn’t get the nomination of the Republican party.”

Trump has been critical of environmental issues in the past, as well. Part of his campaign is that he will cut the Environmental Protection Agency in order to give tax breaks, despite the fact that the agency’s budget is relatively small and shrinking . At one point, Trump also said that President Obama’s electric car sales goals are a waste of Americans money.

He also said once that global warming was created by the Chinese government:

 

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Comments

  1. Nathanael - 8 years ago

    Trump is, unfortunately, not the most dangerous Republican candidate. The most dangerous candidate is Ted Cruz. He is a Seven Mountains Dominionist who wants to create a Christian theocracy in the US — you know, like ISIS or Saudi Arabia, only Christian. His father, Rafael Cruz, taught Ted Cruz that Ted was anointed by God to be a “king” over the political realm. His *doctrine* says that it’s OK to lie in order to gain power (for Christ, of course) and he certainly has lied a great deal.

    On top of that, every single person who Cruz has ever met considers Cruz to be an incredibly massive jerk. Including his own wife and kids, as far as we can tell, since they seem to be cowering in fear whenever he’s around.

    I would much, much, much rather have the blowhard Trump as President than Ted Cruz. Cruz is the most likely of all the candidates to start World War III.

    I wish they were having meetings on how to stop Ted Cruz.

    • MorinMoss - 8 years ago

      Trump has done a great job of making the rest of rightwingnuts look somewhat sane – but they aren’t. Rubio isn’t much better than Cruz except for having much less of a Backpfeifengesicht (German for “face in need of a fist”)

  2. Tom - 8 years ago

    This kinda p*sses me off. I know everyone should have their say in politics, but I really despise this kind of “I’m going to set out to chang the outcome using my wealth, money and/or influence” mindset. Wealth is a privilege, not a power, that you have benefited from society. Go out and debate, spread your view, use strong arguments…secret meetings though, with the other powerful and rich people? The idea with a democracy is everyone gets one vote. If the American people want him, then Trump should get the candidacy and it’s not anyone’s place to try and subvert that.

    I do hope Hilary doesn’t win though. I know the liberals are probably riding off the high of electing the first black President and I’m sure they’ll want to make a follow-up statement. She just seems so underwhelming…a total Establishment, silver spoon technocrat, who will bend over backwards for big business and less scrupulous corporations, if it lets her “win”.

  3. Anton - 8 years ago

    It seems that Musk is working out of pure business motives : he knows that Trump will cut down his government subsidy plans.

    I am a rational thinking person, and I have close friends in the US. we can all agree that the most pressing issues is NOT the lack of electric cars. rather, the lack of higher paid, qualified middle class jobs, qualified home grown scientists and engineers, crumbling infrastructure and more.

    These 100 Billion could be used in a much better way, then in supporting a product, which is simply just not ready yet to be economically mass produced. Technology has an organic growth, and it should be left as it is. Sure, there is some place for regulation, but in the way of a regulating framework, and not a (un natural)growth accelerator.

    Mr Musk showed that he is not cut from a different cloth : he is taking care of his own interests first, and the hell with everyone else.

    As for Trump, he seems to be the most rational choice out of the current candidates. at least he is not saying that ” I am chosen by god”. that mindset is a bit outdated for 2016.

    • Illuminati - 8 years ago

      Subsidies are offered to buyers, not to Tesla.
      And they are available to all competitors.

      The Government gives no money to the buyers. It offers tax credits. What is not the same thing.

  4. freedomev - 8 years ago

    Either Trump or Cruz would be a disaster for the US. Think Bush got it wrong and he did killing our and the world economy in just 8 yrs from a $250B surplus to a $1.1T deficit and from a paid off national debt by now following Clinton economics vs the $19T debt we have now.
    These guy will make him look good. Not that the other repub are any good. A sorry lot and why all the decent people left or run out of the party a while ago and you see what they are stuck with.
    Even Bernie beats them in the 1 on 1 polls!!!!!!!
    Ryan needs to start a new center right party as repubs as one said had gone bats— crazy.

    • Nathanael - 8 years ago

      Unfortunately Paul Ryan’s just as bad as the rest of them: he’s a fraud who claims to have done math but just makes up numbers, as has been sadly well documented. If you like massive budget deficits being advertised as “surpluses”, you’ll love Paul Ryan…

      Meanwhile, we have a center-right party. It’s called the Democrats. Hillary Clinton is the candidate of the center-right party. 😛 What we’re missing is a center-left party. 😛