The Wolf of Los Angeles.

Riverview Estate, Washington, D.C.

A celebration party hosted by Hawke and Erica had just ended, and celebrities from Washington's political and business circles were leaving one after another.

These people were smug because the time-limited power they held had been transformed into tangible benefits through their legitimate dealings with Hawke.

Peterson, Hearst, and Elizabeth Carter stayed.

They followed Hawke into the study.

Erica personally delivered the black tea.

Hearst spoke first to Hawke: "Many members of both houses speak highly of you, considering you a generous and kind-hearted entrepreneur."

Hawke, of course, understood the source of this assessment, saying, "Our proposal was able to pass Congress, and they all deserved to be rewarded for their efforts."

Peterson picked up his teacup, took a sip, and replied, "Everyone understands this principle, but many people fail to put it into practice. After each election, there are too many cases of people falling out because of the improper distribution of benefits."

Hawke's generosity was based on the premise that all the resources distributed came from the federal government and were paid for by all Americans.

Elizabeth took out a document and handed it to Hawke: "This is a statistic from the past few months. 759 new business companies have been established during this period that are associated with members of both houses of Congress. Their main business is all related to the projects passed by the Budget Committee in October."

Hawke quickly glanced through the document, nodded slightly, and said to her, "Find out the relationships between the heads of these companies and the members of parliament."

"It's no secret," Elizabeth replied. "It's already being collected."

In the United States, similar things are all legitimate business rules that are out in the open.

Tom Emmer's so-called $6000 billion economic stimulus plan after taking office was in reality a gluttonous feast for large corporations.

Hawke's group, along with four other groups, ranks in the first row.

Similarly, in order to make Tom Emmer's policies look good, West Coast Environmental Technologies, in partnership with SpaceX, is preparing to launch a probe to the moon next year, paving the way for the so-called return to the moon program.

As for when we will return to the moon, that may take twenty or even thirty years when the time is right.

Building on the successive successful launches of Starlink satellites in space exploration, Musk also announced a more detailed plan for Mars exploration and landing.

These were posted directly on Twitter and other social media platforms.

The massive PowerPoint presentation was packed with information and looked incredibly exciting, further solidifying Musk's status as the top tech influencer.

Musk is ahead of the entire tech industry in terms of self-deification.

However, SpaceX is indeed ahead of all civilian rocket companies worldwide.

In early November, after launching the 32nd Starlink communications satellite, SpaceX secured the launch rights for eight satellites from Britain, all manufactured by Hawke's Surrey Satellites.

The once-mighty British Empire has long lost the ability to independently launch rockets into space.

On the business jet back to Los Angeles, Musk specifically talked to Hawke about this: "The British have long lost their confidence, but they still want to maintain their arrogant face. They don't even realize that they broke their backs back in the Falklands."

Hawke casually replied, "What Englishman doesn't miss the glory of the British Empire?"

Musk seemed to have transformed into a Frenchman, beginning his daily racist remarks against Britain: "There are more generals in the navy than warships, more generals in the army than tanks, and in a few years, there will be more officers than soldiers."

Hawke couldn't help but laugh: "You have a deep-seated resentment towards the British."

Musk said, "I'm pursuing a British actress whose father is a traditional British gentleman. You know how British gentlemen are—stubborn, arrogant, and despicable. I've seen firsthand the baseness of the British."

Hawke remembered that he and Jacqueline were dating: "You broke up again?"

“I’m learning from you.” In Musk’s eyes at this stage, Hawke is practically an idol: “Your two lovers are great, they know themselves well, and they’ve never been a problem.”

Hawke smiled without saying a word.

Musk saw it very clearly: "On the other hand, if they weren't like that, you would have kicked them out long ago."

Hawke said, "The point of being with them is to be relaxed and happy, not to add to our troubles."

Musk agreed: "That makes sense. When they become a nuisance, it means it's time to replace them."

He remembered something: "I heard that President Dong wants to introduce you to his tall, busty daughter?"

Mr. Dong had expressed this sentiment to his face, but Hawke knew it was a ticking time bomb: "He is not one of us."

Musk asked, "Did you break up after you've had your fun?"

Hawke was clear-headed and wouldn't let his little head control his big head: "If she joins the feminist movement and gets involved in the Cthulhu thing, coupled with President Dong's resources, it will be very troublesome. There are many beautiful women in this world, there's no need for that."

Musk thought for a moment and asked, "Mr. Dong, are you really interested in the location of the Oval Office?"

No one knows this better than Hawke: "As far as I know, the desire is quite strong, and he is very likely to become Brian's rival within the party."

Nowadays, Musk shares too many common interests with Hawke and Brian.

The chubby man said fiercely, "Shall we take care of President Dong beforehand?"

Hawke asked directly, "What are you planning to do?"

“I’m not good at killing people.” Musk spread his hands helplessly and looked at Hawke across from him: “You’re the most professional in this area. You should devise a plan and I’ll participate in its execution.”

In fact, Hawke had been considering a similar plan for a long time, but given the nature of the US election, even if Dong Zong is no longer in power, someone like Bai Zong will emerge.

In comparison, Mr. Dong's hand is at least out in the open.

After a moment's thought, he said, half-jokingly, "Since switching from the Donald Party to the Elephant Party, Dong Zong has been quite high-profile, seizing every opportunity to appear in the media and in public to demonstrate his presence to the whole of America. He will not let go of any opportunity to increase his fame."

Musk thought back carefully and said, "He's been doing this for over a decade."

Hawke added, "We could launch a space travel program, gather a group of celebrities to participate, and broadcast the entire trip live on television and the internet. We wouldn't actually go into space; we could just take a suborbital flight, cross the Kármán line, and reach the outer atmosphere."

Musk understood and asked, "And then an accident happens during landing?"

Hawke said, "Accidents happen all the time in space."

Musk scratched his head and added, "It would be best to set up a new company, go bankrupt after an accident, and even if it has to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, it doesn't matter, since the federal government will foot the bill anyway."

Hawke finished his rambling and said no more.

Musk, on the contrary, was inspired and had more ideas: "We can make a big fuss about attracting that bastard Zuckerberg, and preferably send him to space with us." The two already had conflicts, and after months of Twitter feuds and fierce online battles, they had become veritable "sworn enemies."

Hawke recalled the fight and asked, "Are you really going to have a fight?"

Musk puffed out his thick chest, his double chin becoming a single chin, and said, "I've been working out and training for over a month now, and I'm going to beat Zuckerberg up unless he backs out!"

Hawke asked, "Is Zuckerberg planning to withdraw?"

"Not yet." Musk's skin wasn't as thick as it would be ten years later. He said, "I chose to fight back. There's no way I'm backing down. And this is a great opportunity to promote Tesla. Since I started my online war with Zuckerberg, Tesla's social media attention has surged by more than 40%, and pre-orders have doubled."

"The publicity effect is quite good." Hawke roughly estimated: "It's worth five hundred million US dollars in publicity costs."

Musk admitted, "Five hundred million dollars might not have had the same publicity effect as it has now, because my fame has increased, and it will bring continuous publicity benefits in the future."

Hawke gave him a thumbs up: "You have tens of millions of die-hard fans all over the world."

Originally, Tesla alone wouldn't have given Musk such a huge influence, but with the successive launches of rockets for space exploration technology, Starlink, a West Coast technology company, was also dragged into his publicity list. Coupled with the return to the moon and the Mars landing plan, which remained on PowerPoint presentations, he established himself as a technology pioneer and the number one person in space technology.

These actions have earned Musk even more die-hard fans, and there's even a group of people who insist on "Musk's endorsement" before they believe any tech news.

But for Hawke, Musk's tech influencer approach can effectively boost Tesla's sales and brand awareness, which will also benefit the company's future IPO.

Both Tesla and SpaceX are going through the process of raising funds and going public.

On the day he returned to Los Angeles, Hawke had just dropped Erica off at the hilltop estate when he received a private message from Musk on Twitter.

Musk announced via Twitter that the duel with Zuckerberg has been officially scheduled for mid-December.

Zuckerberg's team responded, saying they would beat Musk to a pulp.

The two inevitably engaged in another war of words on Twitter, with their respective supporters joining in.

Zuckerberg also has a large number of followers on Twitter.

Because of the unique content of the Sugarbaby website, it can attract a lot of attention, and Zuckerberg has also set new rules that require each Sugarbaby to publish no less than ten pieces of free content.

This has led many netizens to call Zuckerberg a great philanthropist.

After all, you can enjoy some of the benefits of being a sugar daddy without spending any money.

The following day, Edward collected the latest promotional materials and delivered them to Hawke's office.

He handed a copy to Hawke: "The latest promotional poster, a joint production of Tesla and Sugarbao."

Hawke glanced at the cover, which resembled a boxing poster, showing Musk and Zuckerberg standing opposite each other wearing boxing gloves, their eyes staring straight ahead like knives.

This amateur-level competition will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, in a professional octagonal cage.

Edward was also looking at the poster and said, "Boss, if you go, you can definitely beat both of them!"

Hawke put down the poster: "I'm used to using guns."

As the competition poster was released, Musk and Zuckerberg saw a surge in their Twitter followers.

The former's number of followers exceeded 3000 million.

The latter also exceeded 2000 million.

Tesla and Sugar Baby's brand awareness skyrocketed.

The latter, in particular, saw a massive influx of overseas sugar daddies into the website.

Musk came to see Hawke again, personally handing him the tickets to the game and discussing Tesla's plans to open a factory overseas.

"West Coast drones are now the top in North America." Musk has done special research on this: "The reason is simply that they are of high quality and low price, especially the price is low enough to capture more than half of the North American civilian drone market."

Hawke understood what he meant and reminded him, "Tesla's electric cars are now positioned as high-end vehicles."

Musk initially positioned Tesla at a very high level, targeting consumers who were mostly middle- to high-income earners in the tech industry.

But he was very clear about one thing: "If Tesla wants to develop rapidly and truly become one of the mainstream consumer cars on the market, the price will inevitably be reduced by more than half. But where will the profits come from? North America and Western Europe have mature industrial support, but the high labor costs are unacceptable to us."

Hawke said, "You want to set up the factory overseas?"

Musk responded, "This is a necessary plan for the future."

Hawke considered for a moment and said, "I will fully support you on this."

With Hawke's support, Musk has enough influence on Tesla's board of directors to fully implement this plan.

He pointed towards the Pacific Ocean: "Is that a good place?"

Hawke, a major shareholder of Tesla, spoke frankly about his own interests: "Why are West Coast drones the best-selling civilian drones in North America? They not only have a mature industrial system, but also highly educated workers."

Musk hasn't been there many times and doesn't know much about it: "Aren't they very backward?"

Hawke shook his head: "What CNN, BBC and New York Times promote is pretty much the same when viewed in reverse. I can't speak for other aspects, but they definitely have the best workers over there."

Musk asked, "Is their education system better than America's?"

Hawke said, "The public schools over there aren't exactly happy schools."

Apart from the older people, there are very few illiterate people there.

The rapid development there highlights the crucial role of its education system.

Musk wrote it all down and plans to find some professionals to conduct research on the other side of the Pacific.

Hawke added a few more words, because that area is not only suitable for setting up a factory, but will also become the world's largest automobile consumer market in a few years.

Musk suddenly remembered something: "I heard that Zuckerberg found a Chinese girlfriend and is interested in expanding Sugarbaby to that region, given the huge market of over a billion people."

Hawke almost laughed at these words. He slowly said, "Sugarbaby can't enter that market. Not to mention a special industry like Sugarbaby, Twitter can't enter that market either."

Surrey Satellite did have some cooperation with them a few years ago, but contact was quickly severed. (End of Chapter)