Elon Musk has the cost of living crisis under Joe Biden could get so bad the U.S. could turn into Venezuela and compared the President to ...
Elon Musk has the cost of living crisis under Joe Biden could get so bad the U.S. could turn into Venezuela and compared the President to Anchorman's Ron Burgundy for relying heavily on a teleprompter.
The Tesla CEO, who is in the midst of a $44billion takeover bid for Twitter, said he has previously voted 'overwhelmingly for Democrats', but savaged the current administration, saying Donald Trump's presidency was more effective at getting things done.
He told The All-In Podcast: 'The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter. The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.'
The world's richest man then made reference to Will Ferrell's Anchorman character Ron Burgundy who read verbatim what was written on his teleprompter, causing him to lose his job.
'I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it's going to be like Anchorman.
Elon Musk has slammed Joe Biden for the cost of living crisis, warning that inflation will get worse to the point that the US starts to resemble Venezuela
The Tesla CEO said he has previously voted 'overwhelmingly for Democrats', but savaged the current administration
The world's richest man then made reference to Will Ferrell's Anchorman character Ron Burgundy who read verbatim what was written on his teleprompter, causing him to lose his job.
'I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it's going to be like Anchorman.
'This administration doesn't seem to get a lot done. The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done.'
Musk added that the Democrats are 'overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class action lawyers', while Republicans are influenced by 'corporate evil and religious zealotry'.
He told The All-In Podcast that the Democrats are 'overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class action lawyers'
He continued: 'In the case of Biden, he is simply too much captured by the unions, which was not the case with Obama.'
His comments echo those of the world's second richest man, Jeff Bezos, who accused Biden of using distraction tactics after officials said he opposed its economic agenda because it would mean he paid more tax.
The Amazon founder said: 'The administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only Manchin saved them from themselves.
'Inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country.'
A White House spokesman said it was not surprising that one of the world's richest individuals might object to an economic plan that raised taxes on the super wealthy.
The result was another Twitter attack from Bezos, as he repeated his criticism of Biden's huge Build Back Better spending plans.
'Look, a squirrel! This is the White House's statement about my recent tweets,' said Bezos, above a posting of a spokesman's comments.
'They understandably want to muddy the topic. They know inflation hurts the neediest the most.
'But unions aren't causing inflation and neither are wealthy people. Remember the administration tried their best to add another $3.5 TRILLION to federal spending.
'They failed, but if they had succeeded, inflation would be even higher than it is today, and inflation today is at a 40-year high.'
Musk offered his own view on the current inflation crisis in the podcast yesterday.
He said: 'I mean, the obvious reason for inflation is that the government printed a zillion amount of more money than it had, obviously.
'So it's like the government can't just, you know, issue checks far in excess of revenue without there being inflation, you know, velocity of money held constant.
'If the federal government writes checks, they never bounce. So that is effectively creation of more dollars. And if there are more dollars created, then the increase in the goods and services across the economy, then you have inflation, again, velocity of money held constant.
'If the government could just issue massive amounts of money and deficits didn't matter, then, well, why don't we just make the deficit 100 times bigger? The answer is, you can't because it will basically turn the dollar into something that is worthless,' he noted.
'Various countries have tried this experiment multiple times. Have you seen Venezuela? Like the poor, poor people of Venezuela are, you know, have been just run roughshod by their government.'
Venezuela is still battling hyper-inflation that reached astronomical heights of more than a million per cent in 2018.
In the US, the Labor Department's report last week said that the consumer price index increased 0.3 percent in April from the month before, for a 8.3 percent gain from a year ago, compared to March's 8.5 percent increase.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said the president's claim were just misdirection and called on DHS's new Disinformation Board to review Biden's tweet
Inflation began to soar in April 2021, meaning that annual increases are now starting from a higher base level
Inflation is as high as it's been in 40 years as Biden has appeared to lay the blame on corporate taxes and on Russia's invasion of Ukraine
The food index increased 9.4 percent from last year, the largest 12-month increase since 1981, and the energy index soared 30.3 percent from a year ago.
Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called 'core' inflation hit 6.3 percent in the 12 months ending in April, down slightly from March's annual rate of 6.5 percent.
However, in a troubling sign inflation is becoming more entrenched, core prices jumped 0.6 percent from March to April - twice the 0.3 percent rise from February to March.
Those increases were fueled by spiking prices for airline tickets, hotel rooms and new cars. Rental costs also rose sharply.