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Elon Musk blew up a near-complete bipartisan budget deal with an avalanche of tweets contending that it was too costly, luring Donald Trump into demanding that Republicans kill it. But Musk’s real reason—a story that David Dayen broke in the Prospect—was that the agreement included painstakingly negotiated limits on American tech investment in China. Had that provision passed, it would have been costly to Musk’s extensive Chinese Tesla operations and future AI plans.
Between Tuesday and Thursday, the budget deal collapsed. Trump, following Musk’s lead, threw in a new demand that the deal tackle the debt ceiling, always a politically tricky vote. But neither Democrats nor Republican fiscal hawks would give Trump that.
In the end, legislators of both parties wanted to get home for Christmas, and both houses overwhelmingly passed a simple “continuing resolution” keeping the government funded at roughly present levels through March, plus disaster relief and farm aid. Musk succeeded in stripping out the China provision.
Collateral damage included the loss of a bipartisan measure constraining abuses by pharmacy benefit managers, another limiting hotel and ticketing junk fees, and about 100 other bipartisan agreements. (Late night, the Senate did manage to pass two bills that were jettisoned from the deal but had already passed the House: one of several provisions funding pediatric cancer research, and another transferring ownership of the derelict RFK Stadium to Washington, D.C.)
The mainstream media focused on the tick-tock of whether the government would shut down, on Musk’s surprising influence, and the issue of the debt ceiling—but totally missed the China investment provision that was the real driver of the dispute. Even the exemplary Heather Cox Richardson missed it.
Did Trump miss it? Let’s recall that Trump is a ferocious China hawk. Stopping U.S. investment in sensitive technologies that could help China has been a key element of the agenda for serious China experts in both parties. On that issue, Musk won and Trump was rolled.
Read here the full article by The American Prospect
