Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left podcast.

There's big money in politics, and then there's 2024.

The role and influence of billionaires has taken on new shapes and patterns,

as the threat of fascism has made itself undeniably known.

From the candidate and the campaigners to those acquiescing to the

mere threat of power, billionaires are everywhere you look in this election season. For those

looking for a quick overview, the sources providing our top takes in about 55 minutes today

includes Reveal, 5-4, the Majority Report, the Muckrick Political Podcast,

the Bradcast, and Today Explained.

Then in the additional deeper dives half of the show, there will be more in four sections.

Section A, Democracy Dying in Daylight, Section B, actual election interference,

section C, Elon Musk, the billionaire,, Section C, Elon Musk the billionaire, and Section

D, Trump, the Fascist.

Anna, how would you define Musk's politics?

So, this is a really interesting question because like a lot of very

wealthy people who own businesses, he's complained bitterly about federal regulation, right?

You know, he's gotten in fights with the FCC. He's just seemed really sort of a critical

of government as a concept. But at the same time, two of his companies have billions of dollars in federal contracts. That would be SpaceX, his rocket company, and then Tesla, his car company. They have incredibly lucrative and really consequential contracts with the federal government. So he's in

this interesting position where he's both very critical of government and pretty involved in it.

Like no matter who wins, he will still be pretty involved in it through his companies.

Yeah, I think it's safe to say that even though his companies will still do work with the government, regardless of who wins.

He's probably seeing a larger windfall if Donald Trump wins.

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