Elon Musk is about to wrap things up in Washington, DC. He told people on an earnings call that he planned to spend more time at Tesla, whose sales and net income have cratered since Musk became the Trump administration’s hatchet man in its war against the federal bureaucracy. Oh wait, that actually happened a month ago.
Musk wore two caps, which was some sort of a joke apparently, during his final cabinet meeting. Musk “wants to get back home to his cars,” President Trump told attendees. Sorry, sorry, apparently that happened at the end of April.
That’s understandable, because Tesla’s board, apparently alarmed by the financial bloodbath Musk visited upon the company, reportedly began to search for a new CEO. Gosh, my bad, it appears those machinations took place in early April, and we learned about them at the dawn of May. Early April is when we found out Musk was on the verge of getting out of here.
Musk polls poorly among most Americans, one of the reasons he’ll likely leave town soon. I do apologize, that’s from April 28. Republicans in Congress have begun to insert some distance between themselves and the billionaire…we learned in February. In Trump years, February might as well have occurred concurrently with the Battle of Hastings.
Musk said yesterday that he planned to cut back on his political spending and spend more time with his companies. He did say, the New York Times reports, “that he planned to be in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday — including for a dinner with Mr. Trump.”
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
