Letters to the Editor: Elon Musk just learned the hard way that you can’t buy an election
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To the editor: Does money buy happiness? In terms of return on investment, Elon Musk’s midterm spending venture delivers a clear answer: No (“Elon Musk spent $445 million to help Republicans. Their losses put his businesses in the crosshairs,” Nov. 5).
For a tech mogul obsessed with efficiency, Musk’s ambition represents a resounding engineering failure — one reminiscent of the Cybertruck. He approached politics as software, believing hundreds of millions of dollars could hard-code the product that he wanted. Instead, his money was a virus — voters used their ballots to create a resilient firewall.
People are not artificial intelligence to be algorithmically manipulated; they are human beings with independent judgment. The results show that even the richest person in the world cannot guarantee electoral outcomes, which also exposes public shareholders to unhedged reputational risk when personal motivations misfire.
Neither everything nor everyone is for sale.
Kris M.K. Labarda, Cerritos
