Not only is the corrupt, convicted felon Malignant Fascist busily lining his pockets with foreign bribes and undisclosed deals, but his co-President, oligarch billionaire Elon "Leon" Musk, is wetting his beak as part of America's new foreign policy/ shakedown approach:
In early February, Sharon Cromer, U.S. ambassador to Gambia, went to visit one of the country’s Cabinet ministers at his agency’s headquarters, above a partially abandoned strip mall off a dirt road. It had been two weeks since President Donald Trump took office, and Cromer had pressing business to discuss. She needed the minister to fall in line to help Elon Musk.
Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet company, had spent months trying to secure regulatory approval to sell internet access in the impoverished West African country. As head of Gambia’s communications ministry, Lamin Jabbi oversees the government’s review of Starlink’s license application. Jabbi had been slow to sign off and the company had grown impatient. Now the top U.S. government official in Gambia was in Jabbi’s office to intervene.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency loomed over the conversation. The administration had already begun freezing foreign aid projects, and early in the meeting, Cromer, a Biden appointee [Ed.: shame on her!!] , said something that rattled Gambian officials in the room. She listed the ways that the U.S. was supporting the country, according to two people present and contemporaneous notes, noting that key initiatives — like one that funds a $25 million project to improve the electrical system — were currently under review.
Jabbi’s top deputy, Hassan Jallow, told ProPublica he saw Cromer’s message as a veiled threat: If Starlink doesn’t get its license, the U.S. could cut off the desperately needed funds. “The implication was that they were connected,” Jallow said.
In recent months, senior State Department officials in both Washington and Gambia have coordinated with Starlink executives to coax, lobby and browbeat at least seven Gambian government ministers to help Musk, records and interviews show. One of those Cabinet officials told ProPublica his government is under “maximum pressure” to yield.
In mid-March, Cromer escalated the campaign by writing to Gambia’s president with an “important request.” That day, a contentious D.C. meeting between Musk employees and Jabbi had ended in an impasse. She urged the president to circumvent Jabbi and “facilitate the necessary approvals for Starlink to commence operations,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by ProPublica. Jabbi told confidantes he felt the ambassador was trying to get him fired.
The saga in Gambia is the starkest known example of the Trump administration wielding the U.S. government’s foreign policy apparatus to advance the business interests of Musk, a top Trump adviser and the world’s richest man.
Since Trump’s inauguration, the State Department has intervened on behalf of Starlink in Gambia and at least four other developing nations, previously unreported records and interviews show... (our emphasis)
Fast forward to the MF's recent bribery tour of the autocratic petro-states, and the "Trump / Musk/ oligarch business is America's business" approach:
Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia will authorize the use of his company SpaceX’s Starlink service for aviation and maritime shipping as the kingdom strikes about $600 billion in investment commitments during President Donald Trump’s visit.
The billionaire announced the news at a summit held in Riyadh and attended by dozens of US executives, including other Big Tech leaders including OpenAI Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and Amazon.com Inc. chief Andy Jassy.
Musk also said he displayed his Tesla Inc. Optimus robots doing “the Trump dance,” to the president and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during meetings on Tuesday.
Musk pitched services from across his empire, including robotaxis and The Boring Company tunnels as part of his vision to improve life in Saudi Arabia.
The world’s richest man has been acting as an adviser to the president and has been overseeing his government cost-cutting effort. Starlink is SpaceX’s ever-growing internet-from-space initiative that consists of thousands of satellites in a relatively low orbit around the Earth. Together, the satellites work in tandem to beam broadband internet coverage to the ground below...
Just put the "America is for sale" sign up and be done with it.
Trump, Musk and their retinue of tech bro greed-heads and ethical ciphers have only one mission in life, and it's not to advance freedom, democracy and prosperity across the world. They see government as an extension of their egos, a tool for enriching themselves at little or no personal risk. Afrikaner oligarch Musk, whose SpaceX has been underwritten with $20.7 billion in taxpayer money and whose Tesla has received at least $11.4 billion in regulatory credits from federal and state governments, has been feeding at the public trough ever since he emigrated to the U.S. with some of his family's emerald mine money -- a real rags riches- to- richer story!
That's what the MF and his subservient Republican Congress and Supreme Court has ushered in, unfettered by any real legal constraints or consequences -- it's an "official act" to develop (his and his cronies') business opportunities, so you can't touch him! You can also rest assured that the "gift" of a $400 million luxe plane from Qatar's autocrats wasn't a corrupt bribe of the MF because former Qatari lobbyist and now Attorney General (and insider trader?) Pam Bondi said so! All of which, and much much more, is why what we're witnessing in real time is the coming of the Golden Age of Graft and Corruption in America, of greater magnitude, more pervasive, and more public than at any other time in our history. It's a true swamp that we may never be able to drain.
(Photo: Co-Presidents Musk and Trump in Saudi Arabia)
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