Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday set a lawyer on fire for suggesting Elon Musk didn't buy himself a spot in the White House.
Hearing oral arguments in the campaign finance law case, Sotomayor warned that if the Supreme Court lifts restrictions on coordinated spending, there will be no “control” over how much one donor can give to a presidential campaign, opening the door to rampant corruption.
“So, with all due respect to your honor, I have no problem with the various statistics you just cited in the absence of any evidence or any suggestion that they were related to quid pro quo corruption,” responded Noel Francisco, a lawyer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
“You want to suggest that the fact that one major donor to the current president—the current president's biggest donor—was given a very lucrative job immediately after being elected by the new administration does not create the appearance of a quid pro quo?” Sotomayor insisted. She was clearly referring to Elon Musk, who was appointed head of Government Efficiency after the donation a whopping $288 million for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
Before mentioning Musk, Sotomayor also mentioned Hillary Clinton's joint victory fund with the Democratic National Committee in 2016, “which allowed one donor to give up to $356,000,” just to show that this isn't just a Trump problem.
Francisco tried to fire Sotomayor, saying Musk's meager salary was not “effective quid pro quo bribery, which may be why no one even remotely suggested it.”
In fact, many people have suggested this and it has nothing to do with his salary as a special government employee. It's no secret that Musk has used his time as DOGE czar working on dismantling the very same agencies that regulate his companies, paving the way for the world's richest man to amass even more money.
Musk also used his proximity to Donald Trump to stimulate his many enterprises in foreign countries. In some cases, the administration even pressure on foreign governments approval of its products. Not to mention that Musk was biggest individual winner when Trump announced a 90-day pause in tariffs, causing Tesla shares to jump 23 percent.
Simply because their plan didn't work perfectly – and Musk ended up losing twice as much as he cut government spending– that doesn't mean he wasn't still corrupt.
