President Musk, he’s our guy. I remember voting for him in the November election, don’t you?

I know you thought it was Donald J. Trump you picked for president, but it sure is looking like the Musk guy is running the show. Funny how that can happen. You thought that the former guy was the all-powerful ruler of the MAGA world, but he seems to have receded into the background behind what appears to be the loudest mouthpiece in the world.

The Musk guy currently owns what’s left of Twitter, now called X, and his account, the largest on the site, commands over 210 million followers. Compare that to Donald’s following on X of only 96 million and to his pathetic 8.4 million followers on his very own social media site, Truth Social. Shocking, but true.

I’m sure you’ve heard and read that President Musk is the richest man on Earth, a billionaire. That word does seem to get thrown around a lot these days, causing it to have lost its true meaning. What is a billionaire anyway? Well, let’s see, a million dollars is $1,000,000. That’s one big pile of dough!

A billion dollars is 1,000 of those millions of dollars, $1,000,000,000! Just imagine what that would feel like if you were the owner of such a fortune. And President Musk has over 400 of those 1,000,000,000 piles of dollars!

Just to put that in perspective, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the median net worth of Americans is $176,500 as of 2023. That’s a far cry from Musky’s $400 billion. And Musk threw a bunch of those dollars into Donald’s 2024 campaign, more than $250 million! But that’s just a mere drop in his huge bucket of bucks.

Let’s just take a minute and process that. Should one single person be allowed to influence the outcome of our elections with their great wealth? That kind of money buys endless advertising on TV, social media, newsprint and boots on the ground in states across the country to organize and knock on doors. It also buys favor with elected officials who want to keep their jobs come the next election cycle.

I’m wondering if our Donald didn’t become best friends forever with the Musk because of that vast wealth that backed him in the election? Such good friends that Musk does seem to be running things and they haven’t even taken office yet!

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President Musk kicked off a perfect example of who is and who will be running things once this administration takes control of our country on the 20th. The Musk tweeted (Xed?) that he favored bringing in lots of highly skilled immigrants on H1-B visas to fill supposedly needed positions in high tech companies like his SpaceX and Tesla.

Donald, who ran and won on his anti-immigrant promises to round up and deport tens of millions of immigrants, illegal and legal, has opposed such visas in the past. But now, in response to Musk’s tweeting, he’s done a complete 180 and suddenly loves Musk’s respect for immigrants — well, for his kind of immigrants. It’s caused quite a stir in the MAGA world of immigrant-hating Donald followers.

Hmm, did I forget to mention Vice President Vivek Ramaswamy, also a billionaire? Wait, wasn’t his name listed as J.D. Vance on the 2024 ballot? You remember him, the childless cat lady guy? Oops, off topic. Ramaswamy joined the discussion in favor of those visas because Americans just aren’t smart or hardworking enough: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” Insulting your MAGA voters doesn’t seem like such a great idea.

But what’s really going on here is that many foreigners working here through H1-B visas are paid lower wages and are more easily controlled than American workers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “A significant number of these workers earn between 17 and 34 percent less than the local median salaries of U.S. employees in similar positions.” So, it’s cheaper to hire immigrants, even educated ones, but we already knew that.

It sure looks like folks who voted for Donald/Musk are in for a lot of disappointment in the next four years. President Musk told us even before the election that his Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts to federal spending are going to cause “temporary hardship” for ordinary Americans — temporary, really? He’s referring to when he starts hacking away at Social Security and Medicare, among many other programs, instead of raising taxes on people like him and his techy bros.

Yes, I know, you paid into those programs with every paycheck you earned, but Musk, with $400,000,000,000 in his pocket, doesn’t give a damn about those ordinary Americans — you and me.

Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.