Biden warned of oligarchs. Some officials worry he may have helped create one.
By Kayla Tausche, CNN
Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden’s warnings Wednesday night about social media misinformation, the tech-industrial complex and the concentration of wealth and power struck many as a not-so-subtle shot across the bow at Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who’s also become President-elect Donald Trump’s closest consigliere.
But within the White House, many officials are grappling with a missed opportunity to cultivate Musk as an ally, whose interests as an electric vehicle manufacturer often aligned with the administration, a staunch supporter of clean energy initiatives.
Worse, some have wondered whether their actions to exclude Musk may have emboldened the entrepreneur to back Trump and pour a quarter-billion dollars into efforts to reelect him. Musk, a former Democrat, had not backed either candidate until Trump survived a mid-July assassination attempt.
One incident in particular stands out. In 2021, Biden held an event celebrating electric vehicle manufacturers. Tesla was not included, despite being the largest EV manufacturer in the world. At the event, Biden praised the work of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis – despite EVs being a small fraction of their overall business.
Musk, according to people involved in the planning, was left off the invitation list because Tesla workers were not unionized.
One White House official equated the move to former President Barack Obama’s roasting of Trump – then a private citizen – at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner, a singular event that has since been said to catalyze Trump to run for president years later.
At the time of Biden’s White House event, Musk called out the snub – and has not since forgotten it, raising the issue again at a Pennsylvania campaign town hall in 2024. His mom, Maye Musk, said in a live conversation on X that Biden’s decision to exclude Musk – and claiming GM was “leading the way” in electrifying automobiles – was the “worst thing that happened” between her son and the White House.
Marty Walsh, Biden’s former labor secretary, visited Musk at one of his factories outside Austin, Texas, in 2022 – a meeting that spanned more than an hour and touched policy, politics and Musk’s varied businesses. Musk invited Walsh – the only administration official to engage closely with Musk – to California, but that visit never materialized.
As Musk’s criticism throughout the term grew louder, the White House clapped back instead of trying to quiet it.
“There were people excluded from conversations that they shouldn’t have done that to,” said one senior official of the decision to isolate Biden from people with opposing views. “They made a mistake. I think they miscalculated.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
During his farewell address on Wednesday, Biden warned of a developing “oligarchy” in America as he stressed the importance of holding the ultra-wealthy to the same expectations as the working- and middle-class citizens.
“I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous concern. And that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people,” Biden said.
He added, “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.”
He did not name the subjects of his warning, but his targets seemed clear: Trump and Musk.
The president made reference to the concentration of power over a century ago in the hands of “robber barons,” which was broken through antitrust practices, an issue Biden has made a priority during his administration over a century later.
“They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had to. Workers wanted rights to earn their fair share,” Biden said. “They were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on a path to building the largest middle class and the most prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.”
Taken together, the warnings amounted to a challenge to the incoming president and his team to live up to the populist promises of the campaign trail – ones Biden and many Democrats view as empty.
The-CNN-Wire
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