Update (1952ET):

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein released what appears to be Luigi Mangione’s manifesto.

Klippenstein wrote on his website:

“I’ve obtained a copy of suspected killer Luigi Mangione’s manifesto — the real one, not the forgery circulating online. Major media outlets are also in possession of the document but have refused to publish it and not even articulated a reason why. My queries to The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and NBC to explain their rationale for withholding the manifesto, while gladly quoting from it selectively, have not been answered.”

Here’s the full manifesto shared by the journalist:

“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

NBC News’ Ben Goggin commented on the manifesto published by Klippenstein: “Seeing many fake manifestos being published — the one published by Ken matches what NBC has reported here as real.” 

Seeing many fake manifestos being published — the one published by Ken matches what NBC has reported here https://t.co/bG08GErbn2 https://t.co/Udg4zAsSrM pic.twitter.com/1tJxPXfMNk

— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) December 10, 2024

Klippenstein noted. 

media independently confirms the authenticity of my article with their own law enforcement sources🎯 pic.twitter.com/1zMGc9glrP

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 10, 2024

Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, told NBC’s “TODAY” that murder suspect Mangione fits the profile of an ‘activist killer’… 

*   *   *

The 26-year-old Ivy League school graduate, Luigi Mangione, charged in the murder of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, will fight extradition to New York City.

“My client will not waive extradition today,” Manginone’s lawyer said, quoted by Fox News.  

Mangione was denied bail on Monday and will remain at the State Correctional Institution—Huntingdon, Pennsylvania—until proper paperwork is filed.

Mangione’s extradition challenge has kicked off the process requiring a warrant issued by the New York governor’s office to allow him to be transported to the state, where he would then be arraigned at the criminal courthouse in lower Manhattan. 

Ahead of the extradition proceeding at the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, Mangione yelled to reporters: “It is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people.” 

🚨 #BREAKING: Luigi Mangione just SCREAMED at reporters and struggled with police as he was escorted into court

Holy CRAP 😳

“It is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people!”

What the hell is going on??pic.twitter.com/VAvSYzBfA1

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 10, 2024

“The New York Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is seeking the Defendant’s extradition pursuant to this Warrant of Arrest,” an extradition filing obtained by Fox News said. 

The criminal complaint against Mangione in New York has yet to be made public. In New York, criminal complaints remain closed until a defendant is arraigned. 

NYC prosecutors charged Mangione with murder late Monday night, according to court records. He was slapped with criminal possession of a weapon, possession of a forged instrument, and criminal possession of a firearm suppressor in the horrific killing of Thompson nearly one week ago outside a Midtown Manhattan Hilton hotel. 

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told Fox News: “The complaint itself remains sealed.” 

“Thompson’s killing captivated the public, with some corners of the internet deeming Mangione a quasi-folk hero for striking a blow against the insurance industry,” the Wall Street Journal noted. 

Mangione was arrested on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Investigators are still piecing together Mangione’s connection to UnitedHealth. 

Former schoolmates at the private Gilman School in Baltimore told The New York Times that Mangione’s family had reached out to them this year, saying they had been trying to contact their son for several months following his back surgery.

The banner photo on Mangione’s X account features an X-ray image of what appears to be a person’s back following a spinal fusion procedure.

The Daily Mail reported, “Mangione had suffered after a back condition called spondylolisthesis was worsened by a surfing accident,” adding that he was “believed to have had back surgery sometime in 2023 but is feared to have suffered continued complications afterward.” 

The San Francisco Standard reported that Mangione’s mother reported him missing to the San Francisco Police Department on November 18. 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – who had a Biden DOJ plant in his legal case against former President Donald Trump – is trying to ensure his hush money case doesn’t vanish into thin air as Trump prepares for his return to the White House.

According to court filings revealed Tuesday, Bragg’s office is fiercely opposed to dismissing the case outright but is open to pausing proceedings while Trump serves his second term as president.

The 82-page legal brief, prosecutors’ most detailed argument yet, stops short of recommending an explicit course of action but outlines several ways to keep the case alive. Among them: delaying sentencing until after Trump leaves office in 2029 or freezing the case while leaving the jury’s guilty verdict intact, The Hill reports.

“The extreme remedy of dismissing the indictment and vacating the jury verdict is not warranted in light of multiple alternative accommodations that would fully address the concerns raised by presidential immunity,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy.

The filing comes as Trump, now president-elect, wages a legal battle to quash the 34 felony charges stemming from hush money payments to an adult film star. Trump’s lawyers claim his status as president-elect grants him immunity and demands immediate dismissal.

Prosecutors, however, aren’t buying it. They argue that immunity doesn’t apply until Trump is inaugurated, meaning the case could theoretically proceed to sentencing before January 20, 2025 — a prospect Trump has vowed to fight tooth and nail.

Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, will now decide the case’s fate, with a ruling expected any day.

A Legal Tightrope

The DA’s office acknowledged the complications of prosecuting a sitting president but stopped short of saying the case should be completely shelved.

Trump was convicted by a Manhattan Jury ‘of his peers’ on 34 counts of falsifying business records, however his reelection to the highest office in the land has put a damper on prosecutors’ plans.

Sentencing was initially scheduled for last month, only to be postponed indefinitely by Judge Merchan, making it increasingly unlikely Trump will face punishment anytime soon.

That would leave open the possibility that Trump could still proceed to sentencing in 2029, after he leaves office.

Alternatively, state prosecutors said the judge could terminate the case without tossing Trump’s conviction, noting a jury verdict removed the presumption of innocence, he was never sentenced and his conviction was “neither affirmed nor reversed” on appeal because of presidential immunity. -The Hill

Trump’s legal team is crying foul, claiming the prosecution disrupts his transition efforts and his ability to govern effectively. “Wrongly continuing proceedings in this failed lawfare case disrupts President Trump’s transition efforts and his preparations to wield the full Article II executive power authorized by the Constitution pursuant to the overwhelming national mandate granted to him by the American people on November 5, 2024,” Trump’s attorneys fumed in a recent filing.

Prosecutors hit back, accusing Trump of using delay tactics to muddy the waters. “Having filed those motions to dismiss and then sought repeated adjournments of sentencing to permit their determination by this Court, it is particularly brazen for defendant to argue that the Supremacy Clause bars the Court from taking any action on the motions defendant himself filed,” Conroy wrote.

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Nestled in the mountains of Yancey County in western North Carolina, Burnsville looks like a town that might feature in a Norman Rockwell painting or a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Even before Thanksgiving, the town square was decorated for Christmas. Antique shops, cafes, and coffee houses dot Main Street, bustling with activity. On the surface, it appears to be a typical holiday season, but all is not as it seems. Two months after Hurricane Helene struck the region, Burnsville and Yancey County are still on a long path to recovery.

Crystal Capps, a real estate agent whose family has lived in Yancey County for several generations, said immediate and long-term assistance is essential for ensuring locals’ safety and enabling them to remain in the region.

“There is a sense of urgency. Winter weather is here. People are tough in these mountains, but it’s cold— too cold for people to be sleeping in tents and in their cars,” Capps told The Epoch Times. “I saw houses floating down the river when Helene hit. I’ll never forget that. For those who survived but are displaced, they need help.”

Capps is one of several Burnsville natives, including many friends from Mountain Heritage High School, who serve on the board of the Appalachian Disaster Coalition.

“We have a lot of work to do, but we have hope, and we are doing all we can to give hope to people who are struggling,” she said.

Bradley Honeycutt was born and raised in Yancey County. His parents live on a 48-acre mountainside property and have cattle and horses.

Honeycutt helped start the Appalachian Disaster Coalition just days after the storm. He was born and raised here and graduated in 2006 from Mountain Heritage High School.

Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane. It left a swath of destruction throughout the Southeast extending to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.

Raging floodwaters and landslides from Hurricane Helene reached western North Carolina on Sept. 27, devastating urban and rural communities and severely damaging roads, homes, and power sources.

Just before Helene hit, storms drenched Asheville and surrounding western North Carolina towns when a weather front stalled over the Appalachian Mountains. Some areas received more than a foot of rain, saturating the land before Helene arrived.

Hundreds of roads were blocked or completely washed away, requiring rescue crews to reach victims by mule, horseback, and on foot. Search and rescue efforts, and delivery of supplies, were challenging because many residents who live on a mountainside only have one way in and one way out.

Honeycutt heard about what was happening in western North Carolina on the news. He tried to reach his parents all day on Sept. 27.

Finally, a cousin connected a Starlink terminal to a generator, enabling internet access, and contacted him through Facebook Messenger, he told The Epoch Times.

“It’s really bad,” he was told. “We don’t know what the rest of the county looks like, and we have not heard from your mom and dad,” his cousin said.

Honeycutt booked a flight to Charlotte and arrived at his parents’ property on Sept. 28.

“They weren’t there when I got to the house. I knew they were safe because the generators were running and the lights were on. When they pulled into the driveway, we hugged and talked for around an hour. Then I said, ‘I gotta go and see what I can do.’” he said.

Honeycutt contacted friends who had experience with search and rescue after disasters. They traveled to Yancey County to help.

Friends in Dallas, where he is finishing a degree in architecture and design with the intent to return to Burnsville and open a business, established social media accounts under the name “Bradley Loves Burnsville.”

The accounts gained followers, and Honeycutt outlined the area’s immediate needs to them.

“We needed propane. We needed gas. Before we knew it, a tanker with 11,000 gallons of gas arrived. Necessities and other items like generators started coming in. It was chaos,” Honeycutt said. “There was no outside communication since cell phones didn’t work. No water. No power. It was dark, and we were on our own.”

Recognizing immediate and long-term needs for temporary and permanent housing, and trauma therapy, Honeycutt established an incorporated nonprofit called Appalachian Disaster Coalition.

The current priority is getting displaced residents into campers and temporary homes, Honeycutt said. The group has partnered with other nonprofits to expand their capabilities. Eventually, they plan to build 30 three-bedroom, two-bath, single-family homes for locals in Yancey County.

Appalachian Disaster Coalition and other independent groups are important in ensuring the town isn’t forgotten, Honeycutt said.

Read the rest here…

General Motors is winding down its Cruise robotaxi division, according to a new report from Bloomberg. 

GM’s exit from the market leaves Google’s Waymo and Tesla as the two main names in autonomous driving. The division “proved costly and full of reputational pitfalls” for General Motors, the report said.

GM and Cruise will merge technical teams to focus on autonomous tech for future GM vehicles, halting robotaxi development due to high costs and stiff competition, the company announced Tuesday.

This marks a significant shift after Cruise weathered industry challenges and resumed operations following a high-profile incident last year.

The Bloomberg report said that GM’s retreat from the robotaxi business reshapes its ambitions. CEO Mary Barra’s vision of transforming GM into a tech-driven company with $50 billion from Cruise now seems distant. The move aligns GM with its core car-making focus, abandoning mobility-as-a-service goals.

This shift comes as Waymo expands and Tesla targets a 2026 robotaxi launch. Cruise had resumed operations with safety drivers in Dallas and Houston and planned California testing before the pivot.

The DOJ and SEC were among multiple agencies probing GM Cruise after a collision with a pedestrian last October. 

Following the incident, California revoked Cruise’s permits, citing the company’s lack of transparency. A review by law firm Quinn Emanuel cleared Cruise executives of intentional deception but criticized their leadership and confrontational attitude towards regulators. The victim survived the accident.

Recall back in December 2023 we noted that Cruise was slashing 24% of its workforce as part of a restructuring. The autonomous driving unit at the time said it would lay off 900 of its 3,800 employees, most of whom were in the commercial operations and related corporate functions.

Exemplifying the difficulties of autonomy, the news came on the same day it was reported that Tesla was sued by the family of a deceased driver who lost his life during an accident where a car was purportedly operating on ‘Autopilot’. 

The 26-year-old Ivy League school graduate, Luigi Mangione, charged in the murder of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, will fight extradition to New York City.

“My client will not waive extradition today,” Manginone’s lawyer said, quoted by Fox News.  

Mangione was denied bail on Monday and will remain at the State Correctional Institution—Huntingdon, Pennsylvania—until proper paperwork is filed.

Mangione’s extradition challenge has kicked off the process requiring a warrant issued by the New York governor’s office to allow him to be transported to the state, where he would then be arraigned at the criminal courthouse in lower Manhattan. 

Ahead of the extradition proceeding at the Blair County Courthouse in Pennsylvania, Mangione yelled to reporters: “It is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people.” 

🚨 #BREAKING: Luigi Mangione just SCREAMED at reporters and struggled with police as he was escorted into court

Holy CRAP 😳

“It is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people!”

What the hell is going on??pic.twitter.com/VAvSYzBfA1

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 10, 2024

“The New York Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is seeking the Defendant’s extradition pursuant to this Warrant of Arrest,” an extradition filing obtained by Fox News said. 

The criminal complaint against Mangione in New York has yet to be made public. In New York, criminal complaints remain closed until a defendant is arraigned. 

NYC prosecutors charged Mangione with murder late Monday night, according to court records. He was slapped with criminal possession of a weapon, possession of a forged instrument, and criminal possession of a firearm suppressor in the horrific killing of Thompson nearly one week ago outside a Midtown Manhattan Hilton hotel. 

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told Fox News: “The complaint itself remains sealed.” 

“Thompson’s killing captivated the public, with some corners of the internet deeming Mangione a quasi-folk hero for striking a blow against the insurance industry,” the Wall Street Journal noted. 

Mangione was arrested on Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Investigators are still piecing together Mangione’s connection to UnitedHealth. 

Former schoolmates at the private Gilman School in Baltimore told The New York Times that Mangione’s family had reached out to them this year, saying they had been trying to contact their son for several months following his back surgery.

The banner photo on Mangione’s X account features an X-ray image of what appears to be a person’s back following a spinal fusion procedure.

The Daily Mail reported, “Mangione had suffered after a back condition called spondylolisthesis was worsened by a surfing accident,” adding that he was “believed to have had back surgery sometime in 2023 but is feared to have suffered continued complications afterward.” 

The San Francisco Standard reported that Mangione’s mother reported him missing to the San Francisco Police Department on November 18. 

The Biden administration, desperate to make an impact somewhere, anywhere, in its final, dying days, has struck again.

Just around the time we learned that Biden was set to finally kill the Nippon Steel of US steel, we learned that a federal judge had also blocked supermarket giant Kroger from acquiring Albertsons, siding with that anti-M&A puppet of various outgoing socialist interests, Lina Khan, who said the $20 billion supermarket merger would erode competition and raise prices for consumers, when in reality it will only lead to more supermarket failures, fewer jobs and even higher prices for consumers.

U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson agreed with the Federal Trade Commission’s argument that Kroger would become the dominant player in traditional supermarkets if allowed to add nearly 2,000 stores by taking over Albertsons, its smaller rival. Nelson rejected the companies’ counterargument that selling 579 stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers would replace the lost competition.

“Evidence shows that defendants engage in substantial head-to-head competition and the proposed merger would remove that competition,” Nelson wrote in the ruling, clearly unaware that grocers have a less than 1% profit margin, or that a similar ruling blocked the Jetblue-Spirit merger less than a year ago, culminating with Spirit’s bankruptcy, mass layoffs and even higher prices for those carriers who remained.

The decision is a significant milestone for the FTC under the Biden administration, whose chair Lina Khan has waged legal battles to stop megadeals rather than accept companies’ proposed fixes to address competition concerns.

For the companies, the decision is a major blow to a deal that executives have said is critical for competing against bigger retail powers like Walmart and Amazon. Attorneys for Kroger and Albertsons have previously said they would likely abandon the deal if the judge sided with the FTC.

An FTC spokesman said the ruling “protects competition in the grocery market, which will prevent prices from rising even more.”

As the WSJ reports, Kroger and Albertsons had both spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lawyers, bankers and other advisers since they announced the deal in October 2022, according to securities filings. If the deal is called off, Kroger has to pay Albertsons a $600 million breakup fee.

Kroger is the biggest traditional U.S. supermarket operator by sales, representing about 9% of the grocery market, while Albertsons is the second-largest supermarket with 5% of American grocery sales. Both companies have been surpassed by megaretailer Walmart, which for decades has been the country’s biggest seller of groceries, and Costco’s grocery sales have nearly caught up to Kroger’s.

The deal with Albertsons would have nearly doubled Kroger’s total store count, exceeding the scale of Walmart’s 3,500 supercenters. Rodney McMullen, Kroger’s longtime chief executive, had pledged to eventually invest $1 billion annually in lowering prices at the acquired Albertsons stores, where he said prices typically run 10% to 12% above a Kroger store.

But FTC attorneys argued the deal would only give Kroger a reason to increase prices by removing a competitor. The FTC said the merger would result in excessive concentration of supermarket ownership in over 1,900 local markets across the country, far more than what the companies acknowledged.

Kroger and Albertsons compete head to head for consumers in many markets, especially on the West Coast and in states such as Colorado and the city of Chicago.

Nelson’s order granting the FTC a preliminary injunction doesn’t immediately kill the deal. The FTC and the parties could continue to litigate a separate case testing the legality of the merger in the agency’s in-house court. A trial before an FTC administrative law judge is scheduled for no sooner than Dec. 18.

Kroger shares closed 5.1% higher, while Albertsons stock dropped 2.7%.

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio expressed concerns about a potential “pending debt money problem” in global finance and urged a shift toward hard assets like Bitcoin and gold.

Dalio, the founder of one the world’s largest hedge funds, Bridgewater Associates, said he would invest in “hard money” like gold and Bitcoin while avoiding debt assets, the South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 10.

The veteran investor referred to “unprecedented levels” of indebtedness seen in all major countries, including the United States and China, stressing that its current levels will not be sustainable.

“It is impossible for these countries to be able to not have a debt crisis in the years ahead that will lead to a great decline of money value,” Dalio said in a speech at a financial conference in Abu Dhabi.

“Steer away from debt assets like bonds and debt”

“I believe that there would likely be a pending debt money problem,” Dalio said, referring to debt as one of five big forces driving the global economy alongside money, economy, internal political order and external geopolitical order.

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio. Source: SCMP

“Don’t get too caught up on the twists and turns of the day-to-day headlines, and instead, think more about the big forces,” he said, adding:

“I want to steer away from debt assets like bonds and debt and have some hard money like gold and Bitcoin.”

Dalio previously believed cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin would not succeed in the way people hoped they would, but he has emerged as a major BTC supporter in recent years.

In 2022, Dalio said it’s reasonable to allocate up to 2% of an investment portfolio in Bitcoin in addition to gold to hedge against inflation. Previously, the billionaire investor said he would still choose gold over Bitcoin, highlighting the importance of diversification.

Gold bug Peter Schiff urges Biden to dump Bitcoin

Dalio’s acknowledgment of Bitcoin as a hard asset comes as US President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office in January, with many expecting the launch of a US Bitcoin national reserve in 2025.

However, some financial observers, including gold advocate Peter Schiff, have urged that the implications of a Bitcoin reserve in the US could be “harmful.”

Peter Schiff urged Biden’s administration to ditch Bitcoin holdings before Donald Trump takes office in 2025. Source: Peter Schiff

Schiff took to X on Dec. 9 to suggest that President Joe Biden’s administration could do “one good thing” before leaving office by selling all the Bitcoin that is currently held by the US government.

“Not only would the money raised reduce the 2024 budget deficit, but it would put an end to all the nonsense about creating a harmful ‘“Strategic’ Bitcoin Reserve,” Schiff stated.

The year may be drawing to a close but the US needs to feed the government debt monster – which just hit a record $36.17 trillion – with more and more debt come rain, shine, Chritmas, New Years, etc, etc, and this week happens to have three coupon auctions on deck, the first of which just concluded.

At 1pm, the US Treasury sold $58BN in 3Y paper, at a yield of 4.117%, down from last month’s 4.152% but tailing the When Issued 4.116% by 10.1bps, and the third tail in a row.

The bid to cover dipped to 2.577 from 2.603 last month, but was just above the 2.56 six-auction average. As shown in the chart below, the BTC on the 3Y has been pretty much fixed for the past 6 years in the 2.4-2.8 range.

The internals were ok. Indirects dropped to 64.2%, from 70.6% in November, and below the recent average of 66.4%. And with Directs surging to 20.7% from 9.6% in November, and above the 17.1% average, Dealers were left with just 15.1%, the lowest since September.

Overall, this was a solid if not stellar auction, and good enough to prevent more selling in the secondary market: the yield on the 10Y was flat after the auction and has since dipped 1bp to 4.22% after earlier rising as high as 4.24%, a one week high.

The rivalry between two of America’s top billionaires, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, continued on Tuesday morning when Musk jokingly suggested on X that Gates’ alleged short position on Tesla might lead to his financial demise. 

“If Tesla does become the world’s most valuable company by far, that short position will bankrupt even Bill Gates,” Musk wrote on X, referring to a multi-billion dollar equity short Gates put on Tesla a couple of years ago. 

If Tesla does become the world’s most valuable company by far, that short position will bankrupt even Bill Gates

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2024

According to Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography of Musk, Gates held an undisclosed short position in Tesla, allegedly worth billions. 

In late 2023, Musk wrote on X: “Gates placed a massive bet on Tesla dying when our company was at one of its weakest moments several years ago. Such a big short position also drives the stock down for everyday investors,” adding, “To the best of my knowledge, Gates *still* has that massive bet against Tesla on the table. Someone should ask him if he does.” 

Musk noted, “The lack of self-awareness and hypocrisy of Gates who had the nerve to ask me to donate to his mostly window-dressing environmental causes, while simultaneously aiming to make $500M from Tesla’s demise, boggles the mind …” 

Just so that the public understands:

Taking out a short position against Tesla, as Gates did, results in the highest return only if a company goes bankrupt!

Gates placed a massive bet on Tesla dying when our company was at one of its weakest moments several years ago. Such a…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2023

Gates was confronted about the bearish Tesla short in a 2021 CNBC interview… 

I have cross-examined many witnesses.@BillGates has definitely shorted $TSLA at some point in the past and could still be a short.@elonmusk called it. pic.twitter.com/z4kaKHx6t3

— Warren Redlich – Chasing Dreams 🇺🇸 (@WR4NYGov) February 18, 2021

There is still no word on whether Gates has doubled or tripled down – or possibly cut his Tesla short bet.

Tesla shares have surged 62.5% this year, primarily due to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and Musk’s increasing relationship with the incoming administration. 

In terms of wealth, Bloomberg data shows Musk is number one on the Billionaire Index at $376.2 billion, while Gates is number six at $165.9 billion. 

Regarding Tesla, the company’s market capitalization is nearing $1.3 trillion, and it ranks eighth on the list of the world’s most valuable companies.

Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas wrote in a June note that Tesla is much more than an EV company, with tailwinds in the powering up America theme in the era of AI data centers. 

Naomi Seibt, a German teen who denounces the woke agenda, wrote on X, “Can’t imagine a greater form of retribution than bankrupting the vaccine vegan.” 

Can’t imagine a greater form of retribution than bankrupting the vaccine vegan

— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) December 10, 2024

Another X user asked: “Why would someone who constantly talks about protecting the environment short the stock of one of the most environmentally friendly companies on the planet?” 

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas this week revived an emergency application to block the Washington Medical Commission from investigating licensed physicians in the state over their criticism of COVID-19 policies.

The Washington state commission deems the doctors’ dissenting views on the disease as potentially dangerous misinformation that should be suppressed. The physicians counter that just because they have medical licenses they don’t forfeit their free speech rights under the First Amendment.

The Dec. 4 order by Thomas regarding the application in Stockton v. Ferguson was unusual in that Justice Elena Kagan rejected the same application on Nov. 20. The applicants renewed their request in a court filing directed to Thomas on Nov. 22.

Supreme Court rules allow an application that has been denied by one justice to be presented to another justice. Neither Thomas nor Kagan explained their respective decisions.

The application is now scheduled to be considered by all nine justices at the court’s private judicial conference on Jan. 10, 2025. The justices could grant an injunction against the commission, deny the injunction, or schedule the case for oral argument.

As of Dec. 6, the Supreme Court had not requested a reply from the commission.

The application was brought by former professional basketball player John Stockton along with Drs. Richard Eggleston, Thomas Siler, and Daniel Moynihan and another 50 unidentified medical doctors, as well as Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2025, has nominated Kennedy to be secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, an attorney, is also listed as co-counsel on the application.

The applicants filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, which denied the injunction on May 22. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the injunction on Sept. 3. An appeal remains pending in the Ninth Circuit.

The application states that it concerns the state’s program that targets “Washington-licensed physicians for expressing public views on COVID-19 that diverge from prevailing orthodoxy.”

The state calls the doctors’ viewpoint “misinformation” and claims that it may “regulate this speech,” which is something the Supreme Court ruled in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018) that it cannot do, according to the application.

“The Court should speak clearly and decisively to state actors, professional organizations, other non-state actors, and the national media: Public speech does not lose its constitutional protection from government action simply because it is uttered by a healthcare professional, even if it is at odds with medical orthodoxy,” the application stated.

In September 2021, based on its authority under Washington state’s Uniform Disciplinary Act, the Washington Medical Commission began enforcing a policy against doctors “for public speech critical of COVID-19 policies,” which has resulted in “disciplinary actions against at least ten healthcare practitioners,” it stated.

Around the time the enforcement actions began, Washington Secretary of Health Dr. Umair A. Shah said, “It has never been more vital for trusted healthcare professionals to band together against the threat of misinformation.”

“As we battle COVID-19, with so many tools at our disposal to protect ourselves and others, it is viral misinformation, rooted in unfounded scientific claims, that often stands in our way.”

The commission is prosecuting Eggleston and Siler for opinion articles that they wrote in The Lewiston Tribune and American Thinker, respectively, that criticized COVID-19 policies.

The applicant Children’s Health Defense, which has a Washington state medical doctor as a member, joined the application because “[the nonprofit group] is actively involved in advocacy and protecting freedom of speech and Covid vaccine related issues and educates the public on these issues,” the application stated.

The applicants’ attorney, Richard Jaffe of Sacramento, California, told The Epoch Times that he is “hopeful” about the application.

“It’s a disfavored practice to go to a second Supreme Court justice after the first one has turned down the request, so it was a long shot,” he said.

But Thomas “seems to think it’s an important issue” that needs to be heard, Jaffe said.

There are many articles in the mainstream media “talking about how they’re not sanctioning enough doctors for speaking out in public against vaccination or repeated boostering,” he said.

“The country needs some guidance from the Supreme Court as to what the First Amendment means in terms of a physician’s free speech,” Jaffe said.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the respondent, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. No reply was received by publication time.