What Do Donald Trump and Elon Musk Have In Common?

Jack R. Noel
September 13, 2023

Twenty-two years ago, we all had something very different on our minds, didn’t we? Twenty-two years ago, no one had heard of Elon Musk who was still a year away from owning PayPal. Twenty-two years ago, Donald Trump was not running for President of the United States. Twenty-two years ago the very idea would have brought gales of laughter.

But here’s where the two stand today.
Musk first- from Wikipedia: “Musk has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure. He has been criticized for making unscientific and misleading statements, including that of spreading COVID-19 misinformation and promoting conspiracy theories. His Twitter ownership has been similarly controversial, including laying off a large number of employees, an increase in hate speech on the platform and changes to Twitter Blue verification were criticized. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him for falsely tweeting that he had secured funding for a private takeover of Tesla. To settle the case, Musk stepped down as the chairman of Tesla and paid a $20 million fine.”
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Trump next (also from Wikipedia): “Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1968. He became president of his father’s real-estate business in 1971 and renamed it the Trump Organization. He expanded its operations to building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses and later started side ventures, mostly by licensing his name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiffs or defendants in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.
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These two extraordinary men have several things in common, one of them is that none of us know anyone like them.

But the other thing should give us all pause because it’s their penchant for breaking the law and causing enough harm to justify suing them.

The third thing is that they both have enough money to make what should be catastrophic losses look inconsequential (and they are inconsequential to both).

In other words, both Donald Trump and Elon Musk are prone to capricious thoughts and prone to act on those…