BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — One is a mercurial billionaire entrepreneur and self-described free speech absolutist, prone to profane rants against “wokeness” and calling humanity a multi-planetary species. I'm obsessed with doing it.
The other is an iconoclastic Latin American leader who calls himself an anarcho-capitalist, prone to cloning dead dogs and obsessed with destroying state control.
Technology executive Elon Musk and Argentine President Javier Millay finally sealed their budding bromance at the Tesla electric car factory in Texas on Friday. It was their first meeting after months of mutual admiration on social media.
It was a match made in flea market heaven.
The two flaunted their real-life friendship in a social media post that excited right-wing fans.
“To an exciting and inspiring future!” Musk wrote on X (which was known as Twitter before it was purchased in 2022), with Musk and Miley flashing big smiles and giving the camera a thumbs up. He included a photo of him holding his arms up twice (a trademark of the liberal president). gesture.
“Long live freedom, damn it!” Mailei wrote in his It included selfies of people.
The meeting was closed to the press, and statements from Millais' office made little news, but free-market enthusiasts raised predictable issues (eliminating red tape and promoting entrepreneurship). He said they discussed issues ranging from (methods) to random issues (the existential dangers posed by corporations). decline in birth rates).
Milley's office said the president was involved in a conflict between social media company He said he offered to help.
The two sides agreed to soon host a “major event to promote the idea of freedom” in Argentina, the Argentine president's office said, without providing further details.
But behind the smiling photo shoots and videos of Millay enjoying a ride in a futuristic Cybertruck pickup, there was much at stake for Argentina.
Aid from the United States, particularly from the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes more than $42 billion, will boost investor confidence in the South American country as Mr. Milley seeks to rebuild a shattered economy with market-oriented policies. It is essential to increase the
Experts say Argentina is now poised to emerge as a key strategic partner for Washington, with socialist regimes returning across Latin America from Chile to Brazil.
“Argentina could fill this void and eventually become a strategic partner of the United States,” said Sergio Berenstein, who runs a political consulting firm in Buenos Aires. “Mr. Musk could play a role in accelerating the process of Argentina becoming part of (the United States') new network of friends.”
Last month, Musk's company offered Starlink satellite internet service to Argentina, a move welcomed by farmers struggling to maintain high-tech agriculture in remote parts of the country.
Gerardo Welteyn, the Argentine ambassador to the United States, attended Friday's meeting and told La Nacion newspaper that Millay and Musk had made clear Argentina's vast strategic mineral reserves, including lithium, an essential ingredient in electric car batteries. He said they discussed the quantity.
“He expressed a desire to help Argentina and had a very good view of what we have, mainly lithium,” Weltein said of Musk.
Mr. Milley's love of free markets and close alignment with U.S. policy (a major shift after years of left-wing governments that adopted interventionist policies and strained relations with Washington) has led to lithium and other U.S. hopes are growing that desperately needed metals can be mined closer to home. Breaking China's dominance in the battery supply chain.
Analysts say a successful energy transition in the United States will require far more lithium and other essentials than the country currently plans to produce.
“We want to be able to localize our supply chain as much as possible so we're not shipping materials around the world,” said Ben Steinberg, a former senior adviser at the Department of Energy and current executive vice president at Government Affairs. I think so.” ben strategy. “The United States has great interest in cooperating domestically and with South American countries such as Argentina.”
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