Critics decry Musk’s influence with Trump, ignore billionaires’ in Biden WH
The Biden administration worked closely with billionaires like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, but Democrats and the media warn Elon Musk’s cooperation with Trump is unprecedented despite the fact that Trump announced Musk’s involvement long before the election.
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While the administration’s opponents express outrage over the work of Elon Musk and his team, billionaire influence in an administration is nothing new, and certainly was not foreign to the Biden administration.
Since the election, the media has warned about Musk’s role and influence on President Trump. “Elon Musk Is Inaugurating a New Era of Billionaire Rule,” a headline from the left-wing Jacobin Magazine reads. “Elon Musk puts unprecedented outsize influence on display in government funding fight,” another from ABC News reads.
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a speech on the Senate floor this week gave a sensational warning about the growing influence of “oligarchs” like Elon Musk in the Trump administration.
The “surprise” and “shock” many leftists now express makes little sense, given that long before the election voters were told that Musk would be given this assignment, and Musk made robust campaign appearances on behalf of Trump.
“We are living in an extremely dangerous time. Future generations will look back at this moment – what we do right now – and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism,” Sanders said. “For Mr. Musk and his fellow oligarchs, the needs, the concerns, the ideas, the dreams of ordinary people are simply an impediment to what they, the oligarchs, are entitled to.”
Records obtained by the independent watchdog organization Protect the Public’s Trust during the Biden administration show that billionaires have for years rubbed elbows with senior officials that oversaw areas of interest to them and their companies, indicating that this pattern is not something new.
Billionaire George Soros donated $1 million to an Obama Super PAC in 2012, according to the Times of Israel, but that pales in comparison to the hands-on involvement that billionaires had with the function of the Biden administration.
Granholm and Gates
For example, PPT previously released documents it had obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests that showed Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm met with Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, just hours after being sworn in.
“What a difference a change in administration makes. Billionaires having access to government was no big deal in the Biden years. Now, it’s a ‘constitutional crisis.’ The double standard is glaring,” Michael Chamberlain, Director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told Just the News.
Gates’ TerraPower subsequently entered into a partnership with the department to build a nuclear reactor in Wyoming as part of the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. Records show that Secretary Granholm attended a virtual announcement for the project in June 2021, just four months after her meeting with Gates.
TerraPower, which was founded by Bill Gates in 2006, aimed to develop and build the country’s first Natrium nuclear reactor, which the company says harnesses new technology that makes the plant fit well with “renewable penetration grids where variable power output is a concern.”
According to TerraPower, the company’s participation in the Energy Department’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program authorizes “50/50 cost share” and “up to $2 billion” for the project.
PPT uncovered further meetings between Secretary Granholm and Gates in close proximity to the announcement of another project between one of the Microsoft founder’s companies and the Energy Department.
According to the secretary’s calendar, Gates and Granholm met twice in August 2021 just ahead of a joint announcement that the Department of Energy would partner with Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Catalyst program, which they said could mobilize $15 billion in investments with the passage of the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act.
Breakthrough Energy Catalyst invests in “project companies utilizing emerging climate technologies that reduce emissions” in order to “accelerate the adoption of these technologies worldwide.” The pair billed the assistance from the Energy Department as part of the Biden administration’s effort to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The announcement of the partnership was made just days after two scheduled meetings with Gates on Granholm’s calendar. According to the records, the energy secretary was scheduled to meet with Gates on August 2, 2021 and August 11, 2021.
You can read both of those calendar entries below:
At the time, Gates said the partnership with the Biden administration represented a “new model” for public-private collaboration on green energy projects.
“Avoiding a climate disaster will require a new industrial revolution. We need to make the technologies and products that don’t cause emissions as cheap as those that do, reducing what I call Green Premiums, so the whole world can afford them and reach our climate goals,” Gates said.
He continued, “Breakthrough Energy Catalyst is a new model of public/private partnership that can reduce Green Premiums and speed the deployment of these technologies, while building the American industrial foundation for generations to come.”
Bezos and Climate Policy
Records previously obtained by PPT show Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was personally involved in the administration’s green energy efforts. Documents obtained by the watchdog group show Bezos hosted Treasury Department officials in his private Washington, D.C. residence for a climate action meeting that gathered international bureaucrats, a liberal foundation, and the senior officials, Just the News reported last year.
The Spring 2022 event—recorded in Treasury Department ethics filings reviewed by Just the News last year—was held to coincide with the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, D.C. and facilitate the Treasury’s relationship with those groups.
The dinner was called “Catalyze Finance for Climate Action and Economic Development,” according to the document. The records show two senior Treasury officials, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Markets Alexia Latortue attended the dinner discussion which was held on April 22, 2022.
Other attendees included “Ambassadors, Finance Ministers, NGOs including the IMF/WB, and Government officials,” according to Adeyemo’s filing. In other words, the attendees were the most powerful individuals in global finance.
Sponsoring the event alongside Bezos—who organized it through his Bezos Earth Fund—were the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 26 and The Rockefeller Foundation. The Earth Fund and Rockefeller previously formed the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) with the IKEA Foundation to further efforts to harness private capital for the climate change transition according to U.N. goals.
The Treasury Department had applauded as congruent with its own Principles for Net-Zero Financing & Investment Bezos Earth Fund’s efforts to help private financial institutions develop net-zero commitments. The press release for the department commended the Earth Fund along with other partners for investing $340 million in helping financial institutions implement net-zero commitments that aligned with the Treasury’s principles.
This press release came in September 2023, a little more than one year after the two senior treasury officials attended the dinner at Bezos’ mansion and discussed catalyzing finance for taking action on climate change.
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(TLB) published this report with permission of John Solomon at Just the News. Click Here to read about the staff at Just the News
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