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Mother Jones illustration; Manuel Balce Ceneta\/AP; Matt Rourke\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Last fall,<\/span> members of the California Coastal Commission criticized<\/a> Elon Musk\u2019s political rhetoric during a meeting in which they voted against allowing SpaceX\u2014Musk\u2019s rocket company\u2014to conduct more launches. Musk, one commissioner complained, had been \u201chopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIncredibly inappropriate,\u201d Musk tweeted in response<\/a>. \u201cWhat I post on this platform has nothing to do with a \u2018coastal commission\u2019 in California!\u201d<\/p>\n The commissioners\u2019 behavior amounted to \u201cnaked political discrimination\u2026in violation of the rights of free speech and due process,\u201d SpaceX has charged<\/a> in its ongoing lawsuit against the agency. \u201cRarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the personal political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO.\u201d<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t help thinking of that incident yesterday, as Donald Trump\u2014the man Musk once promised would protect free speech<\/a> and \u201cpreserve the Constitution\u201d\u2014weaponized his government power against a political enemy in a way that Golden State bureaucrats could hardly dream of. And that political enemy was none other than Musk himself.<\/p>\n Importantly, yesterday\u2019s meltdown seems to have grown largely out of policy and personnel disputes<\/a>. In particular, Musk has enraged the White House by calling on lawmakers to sink Trump\u2019s signature budget bill\u2014supposedly<\/a> because it would add too much to the deficit. (It would also eliminate electric vehicle incentives that benefit Tesla<\/a>, though Musk insists<\/a> that isn\u2019t why he\u2019s trying to kill the legislation.)<\/p>\n But as the two billionaires traded insults and allegations, it was the president who took the fight to a lawless new level. He seemingly threatened to retaliate against his former ally by cancelling the government contracts held by Musk\u2019s companies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon\u2019s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social<\/a>. \u201cI was always surprised that Biden didn\u2019t do it!\u201d<\/p>\n Some Trump allies went even further. Steve Bannon called on Trump<\/a> to \u201csign an executive order\u201d seizing control of SpaceX, suspend Musk\u2019s security clearances, and possibly have him deported<\/a> from the country. \u201cHe crossed the Rubicon,\u201d Bannon told NPR<\/a>. \u201cYou can\u2019t sit there and\u2026try to destroy the bill. You can\u2019t come out and say kill the president\u2019s most important legislative occurrence.\u201d Bannon also slammed Musk for calling for<\/a> Trump\u2019s impeachment and for attempting to link the president<\/a> to Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n Musk, of course, is not a sympathetic figure. If he got his way, Trump\u2019s budget bill would hurt even more people than it already does. Nor is Musk anything close to a reliable defender of free speech<\/a>. He\u2019s done nothing to stop Trump from using presidential power against other political enemies<\/a>. But in a democracy, politicians simply cannot be allowed to punish dissent by threatening to destroy the businesses of people who cross them\u2014whether those businesses are media companies<\/a>, law firms, or a defense contractor run by the world\u2019s richest man.<\/p>\n After his felony conviction in New York last year, Trump claimed to be the victim of political persecution. \u201cIf they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,\u201d he said<\/a>. That\u2019s worth remembering. If Trump can do this to Elon Musk, he can do it to you.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n