Far from learning any lessons from the intense backlash he sparked for promoting a Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory, Elon Musk pushed radical new allegations this week about the fall of crypto exchange FTX, money laundering, and the Democrats.
In this week’s episode of political podcast Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill discuss how just two weeks on from the Pelosi controversy, the Twitter CEO jumped on a vague and unverified theory that is being used to explain why the “red wave” failed to materialize on Election Day.
As right-wing pundits began digging into the life of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is also one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party, unverified claims began percolating alleging the FTX exchange laundered money for the Dems.
Responding to a tweet linking family members and friends to the World Economic Forum, Musk replied, “a question worth asking,” suggesting the unverified claims are sufficient evidence to warrant investigation.
Sommer described the theory as “even dumber” than another conspiracy theory about FTX laundering money for the Democrats through Ukraine.
“For me, this makes ‘Pizzagate’ look like string theory, right? There’s truly nothing here.”
Weill agrees, explaining that “this is one of these cool corkboard conspiracy theories where they find anybody who attended the same college within five generations of each other and really tie them all together in a bulletproof conspiracy plot.”
In the podcast’s “Fresh Hell” segment, the hosts talk Kari Lake’s Arizona election loss and their surprise that she is among the first to make vague references of fraud during this election cycle, noting her Nov. 15 tweet: “Arizonans know BS when they see it.”
Sommer says: “I think this is the one that will keep going, I think they’re really deep in on her. She’s probably the most charismatic person who lost among the high-profile races. I can’t see Republicans just being like, we have to rehabilitate Dr. Oz’s reputation.’”
Listen, and subscribe, to Fever Dreams on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.