Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, Indra Nooyi to Join Presidential Advisory Council

So many of the comments here have to do with &quot;his position keeps changing&quot;<p>I&#x27;m not defending Trump personally - but as a concept, lets dig into this a bit.<p>So someone gets into a position of gaining a vast amount of knowledge over a short period of time from experts and consultants...<p>Do you expect that their perspective hasn&#x27;t shifted, or that they will stick to their guns no matter what?<p>Because that&#x27;s politics as usual - ignoring new evidence an voting&#x2F;acting in a manner to support your original stance... never changing (especially drastically)<p>But isn&#x27;t the way it should be just this - that new information should inform your decision and, if you&#x27;re open minded, you should consider changing your stance if the new information supports it?<p>I&#x27;d take someone who changes their mind with new information over someone who sticks their fingers in their ear when information that opposes their viewpoint comes to their attention. Even if their decisions are in disagreement with me, their ability to change their stance says that they are at least making those decisions as opposed to having those decisions decided by what party label they strap on their chest...

(from the press release)<p><pre><code> &gt; Members of the [President&#x27;s Strategic and Policy Forum] will be charged with &gt; providing their individual views to the President — informed by their unique &gt; vantage points in the private sector — on how government policy impacts &gt; economic growth, job creation and productivity. The Forum is designed to &gt; provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in &gt; the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic and non-partisan manner. </code></pre> There are an initial 16 members on this council, all current or former business leaders.<p>I wonder if having both Musk and Kalanick on this council signals anything about Trump&#x27;s position on driverless car regulation, or will otherwise influence it going forward.

SpaceX depends on government contracts and Elon&#x27;s companies all seem to be intertwined somewhat financially,so it makes sense he would want to be close to the President.<p>Uber also heavily depends on gov policy with the contractor&#x2F;employee debate. Uber is also heavily lobbying governments to privatize public transit which would benefit it.<p>I also wouldn&#x27;t be surprised if they pushed for that new in-between employee&#x2F;contractor designation that they&#x27;ve been claiming is necessary for the new economy.

All these comments about Trump changing his mind or being swayed miss the obvious indicators that he&#x27;s just following the Putin&#x2F;Surkov strategy for creating a managed democracy. You destabilize the narrative coherency with opposing, even random, signals (meet with Al Gore, then appoint Rex Tillerson, add Kanye for good measure). As your opponents scramble for some logical imperative along the lines of received political&#x2F;economic narratives, you dismantle the institutions that oppose you(both literal and civilly constructed), so you can rob and rule however you see fit.

The more non-sycophants advising Trump the better, I suppose. Maybe Elon can move Trump a bit on global warming?

I remember Elon tweeting &quot;Anything but Trump&quot; when someone asked about his thoughts on twitter. Seems that tweet is deleted.

Can Elon, Travis influence Trump&#x27;s policies in any meaningful way by being part of the PAC?<p>A lot of Trumps plans such as opening up fossil fuel reserves, not believing in climate change (though Trump said he would keep an open mind in a recent interview), going hard on immigration go directly against what Silicon Valley stands for. Will it be possible to influence Trump&#x27;s plans on these issues? I remain skeptical.

Didn&#x27;t see that one coming.

Just sent this note to Tesla Sales:<p>Please tell your CEO that he needs to focus on one thing at a time. Delivering the Tesla Model 3 as promised should be his ONLY priority. Activities such as serving on a Trump economic advisory panel or thinking about solar shingles are a distraction and a waste of his valuable time.<p>Thanks, Craig<p>(Model 3 reservation number xxxxxxxx)

Hrm ok. I thought Elon was a smart man

Please no more politics!<p>I thought we were on a one week long hiatus. If you have the ability, please down vote this article.

now if he tapped up Elon musk to make the next air force one a reusable rocket that would be cool.

Elon Musk explicitly said it would be disaster if Trump wins and now he is Trump advisor. Hypocrisy and love for money obviously Tr(i)umphed again.

Space travel is an almost certain reality in the near future. If anything Trump wants to be first in line to open an elite casino and Trump Tower on Mars for the ultra wealthy. Elon can make it happen.

I wonder if Mr. Trump will attend, he seems not terribly interested in briefings. Perhaps he will since they are business related instead of intelligence.

Despite how cool Elon&#x27;s companies are, don&#x27;t forget for a moment that Elon Musk is just another crony capitalist who likes government money.