Bitcoin ‘s surge this week to more than $100,000 is symbolic of the kind of froth being created in financial markets by the political shift coming to Washington, Jim Cramer said Friday. Elon Musk is “controlling the agenda here” as President-elect Donald Trump ‘s policy proposals and administration picks start to take shape, Jim said. The influence of the world’s richest man in Trump’s orbit cannot be overstated. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, spent $250 million on efforts to send Trump back to the White House, according to election filings . It’s a huge number, but less than 0.1% of Musk’s net worth of $346 billion, according to the Forbes billionaire list, as of Friday. That’s like someone making $100,000 per year cutting a check for less than $100. Along the way, Trump sought Musk’s counsel during the presidential race, and after winning chose Musk to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE by its acronym, which is the name of a cryptocurrency. DOGE, the agency not the digital coin, has been charged with figuring out ways to make the government work better. Trump tapped former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead the project. Trump also came out strongly in support of crypto in the campaign, a position Musk has long advocated. The president-elect picked venture capital investor and podcaster David Sacks as an AI and crypto czar. Sacks was formerly chief operating officer of PayPal , which was co-founded by Musk. Since winning the election, crypto supporters pressing Trump to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve and the president-elect’s own pro-crypto stance added rocket fuel to the 2024 rally already underway in bitcoin. After some back and forth, bitcoin on Friday continued to trade at more than $100,000 per coin. “There is an alternative market of unreality” in bitcoin and stocks tied to crypto, that cannot be ignored, Jim said on CNBC’s ” Squawk on the Street .” “This is what people want to hear about. There’s nothing wrong with talking about it because it’s nothing short of insane.” “There’s an alternate universe. I am trying to grasp the idea of bitcoin, that crypto, has increased at a level that I value … unfathomable,” Jim said. He added he’s also trying to come to grips with the flood of billionaires picked by Trump for his new administration coming to Washington and looking to change the way America thinks. Jim said their ideas belong to neither the Republican nor Democratic parties but, for all intents and purposes, are libertarian, and the U.S. has never had a libertarian government. These billionaires say that government is the problem and removing regulations and other points of federal friction would lead to lower inflation with much higher economic growth. Musk, however, is a problematic messenger. For example, the tech billionaire told reporters Thursday that all tax credits should end. But that didn’t sit well with Jim because Musk built his empire on tax credits for electric vehicles, which allowed Tesla to survive and thrive and become the juggernaut that it is today. “Maybe it is cowboy libertarianism. Maybe it’s unfettered libertarianism where you can win with money from the government. And then say no [more].” Jim said he didn’t know how all this was going to shake out when Trump is back in the Oval Office. But he said, “If we were at college and we were taking courses about this era, it would be like, ‘What happened to the Republican party and the Democratic party?’ They disappeared. Both of them. They became irrelevant.” (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Elon Musk speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Via Reuters
Bitcoin‘s surge this week to more than $100,000 is symbolic of the kind of froth being created in financial markets by the political shift coming to Washington, Jim Cramer said Friday.
Elon Musk is “controlling the agenda here” as President-elect Donald Trump‘s policy proposals and administration picks start to take shape, Jim said.
The influence of the world’s richest man in Trump’s orbit cannot be overstated.
