A former GOP strategist was spooked by who he saw calling out Elon Musk's midterm spending, saying it's a telling sign.
During an episode of The Bulwark Daily, Tim Miller and The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel talked about the political influence of wealthy tech figures, and at one point, focused in on Musk's reportedly dumping more than $100 million across midterm states like Maine to benefit Republicans. However, Miller was especially worried after seeing that former GOP Sen. Mitt Romney sounded the alarm on Musk.
Miller mentioned that he saw a clip where Romney called out Musk during an interview with McKay Coppins, a staff writer with The Atlantic who wrote a 2023 Romney biography.
"He's looking at McKay Coppins. He's like, 'The Elon thing's a little too far,'" Miller explained. "He's like, 'This guy who has all these government contracts, and he has this unimaginable wealth, and it's like no sweat off his back at all to spend a couple billion to influence these races, and then he gets better deals.'"
Although Miller shared Romney's concerns about Musk's spending, he said, "If Mitt is concerned about this, like, I feel like that should be a five-alarm fire to everybody about the scale of what we're talking about here." Miller explained that Romney's warning was especially revealing because of the former GOP presidential nominee's reputation.
"Mitt Romney is the guy that was on the Iowa soapbox, being like, 'Corporations are people, my friends,'" Miller said. "After Citizens United, that is Mitt Romney, rich private equity guy that wanted unlimited spending."
Warzel agreed with Miller, saying, "It's crazy! When you've lost Mitt Romney," and similarly cautioned that Musk has "always kind of operated as if he's above the law, but it is a type of power and influence that we actually don't have a historical parallel to, so we don't know how to constrain it, deal with it, what is even possible."