Elon Musk, the Austin-based father of (at least) 12 children who creepily offered to impregnate Taylor Swift earlier this week, secretly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in an unsuccessful attempt to remove Travis County District Attorney José Garza from office, according to a blockbuster Wall Street Journal exclusive.
Musk — who runs Tesla, SpaceX, and the social media site formerly known as Twitter — is worth more than $240 billion. And he’s been using that money to support Donald Trump in his bid to reoccupy the Oval Office. At the same time, he’s been more involved in politics than was publicly known, apparently acting as the primary funding behind a group that disseminated fliers and spent more than $650,000 on television ads attacking Garza. The Journal’s report cites corroborating sources in addition to corporate documents and Federal Communications Commission filings.
The fliers the Musk-backed group disseminated included a photo of Garza and a blood-stained teddy bear with the words: “José Garza is filling Austin’s streets with pedophiles & killers. The next victim could be your loved one.” The money, per the Journal, flowed from a tax-exempt organization, which doesn’t have to reveal donors, unlike Musk’s Trump-supporting PAC.
Garza won anyway, with 67% of the vote. He’s expected to win the general election in November.
And because (it’s Friday the 13th and) we weren’t yet thoroughly spooked, The New York Times has also published an in-depth look at what it called Musk’s “mushrooming security apparatus,” which details how the billionaire creator of the world’s ugliest vehicle has “barricaded himself behind a growing phalanx of armed bodyguards as he has become more wealthy, more famous and more outspoken — and as the threats against him have evolved.”
Read more at The Wall Street Journal.