I love this title of New York Magazine : “Elon Musk stops torturing Republicans while singing the praises of German extremists.” The tech troublemaker, who became Donald Trump's omnipotent sidekick, found a way to tweet that “only the AfD can save Germany”. The boss of Scholz, recognizing that “freedom of expression also applies to multi-billionaires”, even when they get involved in anything and everything.
Elon Musk, this December 20, was especially busy sowing memorable chaos in Congress, the first manifestation of his staggering political power. His gift of more than $200 million to the campaigns of Trump and dozens of members of the House of Representatives landed him a job as a volunteer adviser to the next president on cutting the state's lifestyle. In this capacity, he worked hard to torpedo an agreement concluded between Republicans and Democrats for the renewal of government credits, at the risk of paralyzing the entire public service of the country.
Politico describes the offensive, a salvo of 150 false or misleading tweets in a few hours, denouncing a finance law “criminal”, accusing elected officials of granting themselves a 40% salary increase (it's actually ten times less) or of financing “biological weapons laboratories” – in reality public health equipment necessary to respond to a possible pandemic. In doubt, without initially knowing whether the offensive came from King Donald Iis in person or from Elon, his favorite oligarch, Republican elected officials scuttled a law that they themselves had written. A second, almost identical text was adopted in the evening at the last minute, to avoid a government shutdown, but this sterile mess already says a lot about the new Trump era (which will officially start in January).
Jeff Bozo and the enemy of the people
It's not attractive, but this spectacle, worthy of a medieval court, will one day appear in American history books, or in management manuals. Where we see Mark Zuckerberg, boss of Meta, aka Facebook – whom Donald Trump has described for eight years as the“enemy of the people” –request a one-on-one dinner with his torturer at his rococo Mar-a-Lago golf club, and contribute $1 million to the festivities for the transfer of power on January 20. Trump, as recently as September, promised to put Zuck in jail, accusing him not only of censoring conservatives on his sites, but also of having contributed to Joe Biden's victory in 2020, by promoting voter turnout during the pandemic through 400 million dollars in donations from his philanthropic foundation.
Bloomberg adds that Jeff Bezos, nicknamed “Jeff Bozo” by candidate Donald Trump, was also in Florida last week, to sign a check for the same amount and clear up painful misunderstandings. The founder of Amazon, because he personally owns the daily newspaper Washington Post, unfriendly towards Trump, had lost, in retaliation, a $10 billion state contract from its Cloud subsidiary AWS during the first Trump presidency.
Bezos, this time, has multiplied the friendly gestures, for example by prohibiting, for example in his newspaper, the publication of an editorial supporting Kamala Harris two weeks before the election. He also recently judged the president-elect “calmer and more composed” and showed his interest in the deregulation policy of the next government. Bloomberg detects in these genuflections a “mixture of fear and opportunism”. Either. But the public reaction? Their image? They don't care. Given their dominant position in their markets, this rapprochement with Trump is not likely to cause them to lose customers.
Medical error
Speaking of Amazon… The Washington Post reminds us that the online commerce giant is concerned about the health of Americans, to the point of providing medical consultations to more than 800,000 employees of corporate clients of its subsidiary One Medical. This network of general practitioners and telemedicine practices was bought for $3.9 billion in 2023. Already established in online pharmacy, the group intended to offer advantageous prices in a health system known for its exorbitant bills and insurance .
But One Medical has just suffered its first trial for negligence and medical error after the death of a 45-year-old diabetic patient suffering from flu-like symptoms in December 2023. The newspaper details the complaint from the patient's relatives, ensuring that to reduce the costs the firm referred at-risk patients to online consultations instead of providing in-person visits to its medical centers, which may have contributed to the misdiagnosis. Public reactions following the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of insurer UnitedHealthcare, prove the extent to which healthcare providers are reviled in the United States. Amazon, invested in this same big business, risks big during the next trial.
