“Mess with me and my bullyboy over there will push that button and transfer all the money in the US to me.”
The Irish have an acronym for it:
Who knows? Perhaps such a falling-out will be a sort of Gubu Roi
Mini Musk already put a dent in the relationship. Trump will go along with pretty much everything for a few months. Some things will be mistakes, things that would cause immediate disasters. Trump will notice some on his social media and especially any Fox coverage on TV. He then makes a few phone calls. No biggie. Trump is doing absolutely the laziest thing any other dictator did before. He is just spending time in the White House, setting up for “press conferences” a few days a week. A pain in the butt for the corset and adult diaper he has to wear.
It’s too bad that there’s not a real-world James Bond who can deal with a real-world super villain.
Thank you. I now have a new word. Unfortunately the way things are it will now be part of every conversation I have.
It is definitely a matter of WHEN not IF. Trump can’t stand to share the limelight with anybody.
Yeah; when soft power collides with hard power, hard power wins. It’s the great error of the wealthy with it comes to authoritarianism: they are so used to the tremendous soft power wealth gives them that they think of it as invincible, and are often constitutionally incapable of realizing that all the money in the world won’t help against people following orders who simply don’t care about the money. They’ll just stand on the metaphorical big red X on the ground until the hammer falls and reduces them to paste.
from your mouth to God’s ear!
My speculation is that X, Musk’s son, tells Trump one too many times: “My Dad fucking owns you”
yep and smearing a booger on a germophobe’s desk wont help either…
This !
And for this reason, I think it’s incumbent upon all of us to try to popularize the ironic use of the term “President Musk” on every possible occasion.
Let it become common enough and it’s bound to get under Trump’s skin. Let’s drive that wedge between them ! (OK, it’s a faint hope, but I’m clinging to whatever hope I can at this point.)
My prediction is that the current Musk will be replaced by the next Musk.
Somewhere in the group surrounding Trump there must be people who are looking to move up. They want to be Trump’s right hand man. And to do that they need a vacancy in the position.
So there’s a bunch of little piranhas trying to whisper in Trump’s ear that he can’t trust Musk (or any of the other piranhas). And there’s the big shark Musk trying to stomp out these little piranhas as fast as he can catch them. And there’s Trump - who in this metaphor is a fat walrus - enjoying the way everyone is fighting for his favor.
Musk doesn’t need personal kompromat on Trump. He’s spent the last three weeks ransacking the federal government’s info systems with a team of hackers. I’m 100000% sure Musk has used that opportunity to build himself an insurance policy against being thrown under the Trump train.
There really isn’t another Elon Musk in the Trump sphere. He has a lot of people who are brazenly corrupt, openly mendacious, and willing to lie at the drop of a hat, but they’re all in thrall of Trump (or at least the cult of sycophants and conspiranoids he has attracted). Musk, on the other hand, gives zero fucks about Trump or any of his people and clearly considers himself to have bought and paid for Trump’s electoral success. Musk is useful to Trump (or rather his Heritage Foundation backers) because he is doing exactly what they need in terms of disestablishing large swaths of the bureaucratic and regulatory state without any of the messiness of having to legislate them out of existence or have to adjudicate in court (by arbitrarily dismissing large swaths of the workforce and effectively defunding entire agencies, he is ensuring that even a successful legal challenge will render the agency severely diminished in capacity to reconstitute itself. The attack on the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency responsible for both safety, security, and reliability of the US nuclear arsenal and weaponizable nuclear materials as well as non-proliferation efforts abroad, comprising about 15% of that already understaffed workforce, wasn’t the ‘whoopsie’ that the news outlets are portraying; it was a very clear sounding charge to see just how deep they could go without attracting notice or some kind of response from the legislature. While they hired back some of the dismissed employees, the GOP-controlled Congress gave a collective shrug to an action that threatens basic security for the nation, and Musk has basically done his best Britney Spears impression with a “Whoops, I did it again…” tagline.
Musk (and DOGE, which is basically Musk and his flunkies) will be in place as long as they serve the interests of Project 2025 and then will be scapegoated out, perhaps even accused of collusion with “the Democrats” to undermine federal governance. Whomever takes over from there won’t be a Joker-type figure like Musk; it will likely be one of the Heritage Foundation fucks like Russ Vought with their hand up Trump’s ass moving his mouth but not standing out front and center like the perfect target that Musk is making of himself. On the other hand, Musk is clearly aiming to so damage the government that they can’t effectively go after him—perhaps even aspiring for the crypto-corporate post-nation that the über-libertarian SiVal billionaires envision where they are each kings of independent city-states because what civilization really needs right now is a return to the European Dark Ages—and thinks he can just use the Trump Monkey to achieve it. Regardless of how all of that plays out, barring the Congress suddenly nutting up, impeaching/convicting/removing Trump and referring Musk’s open corruption to a revamped Justice Department, we’re going to be left with something far short of a functioning democracy.
Stranger
Sadly, I think you are 100% correct on this.
Here’s a pretty good article on Salon on the topic:
Basically, Donald Trump is lazy and is content to turn over a lot of the work to someone like Musk.
Clearly, it bothers Trump a little bit: he’s addressed the President Musk thing several times in the media. But another reason that the Salon story doesn’t touch on is this: Trump is dumb and assumes that any reasoning that flies with himself flies with the public at large. He knows he is worshiped by his cult, and he knows that, legally, he is president. Add those two things together, and that’s good enough for him.
But will they fall out? I think a key question to ask before that is: Will this whole thing fall apart? While I agree with the general tenor of the posts in this thread, I think that the partnership will not fall apart until it starts causing trouble for Trump via external forces. If that happens (and I think that will, but that’s a different topic), then Trump will throw anyone and everyone under the bus to save himself.
OTOH, I think that until such external pressure is present, they will get along well enough. Pace one poster above, I don’t think they will argue over something petty and break up. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Trump has ever gotten rid of a sycophant for this reason. In his first term, it seems he got rid of people only when he was getting significant pushback from him (in certain cases I’m not sure; he may have fired people for genuine incompetence as well).
Okay, but why will they not clash? Here are my perceptions:
- They are both billionaires (Musk for real, Trump for pretend) and respect each other’s “success.” Note that Trump has no one else in his political sphere that meets this qualification, and money is one of the things, probably the No. 1 thing, that he respects the most.
- They are two very big egos, yet complementary. They don’t really step on each other’s toes when it comes to what they think they are experts in, proud of, etc.
- Musk is naturally subservient to Trump (i.e., he isn’t faking it). This is clear from body language, etc. Basic primate stuff, nothing intellectual. Further, there is an age difference, and I speculate it may feel good to Musk to have someone he can look up to (in his own twisted mind) and think of as a father figure.
So while I don’t think the partnership will last, owing to outside forces, I do not think internal conflict will doom it.
Just to make sure I understand, you don’t think Trump and Musk will actually ever dislike each other (internal), but that something could/will happen that will cause Trump to abandon Musk (external)? If I’m misunderstanding, can you define internal/external?
Basically. I think Trump is easily annoyed with people, so Musk will probably get on his nerves, and vice versa may apply here, but I don’t think mere annoyance is enough to get Trump to drop people. As long as he perceives people as being worth the cost of annoyance, he keeps them. I think they will continue to get along at least well enough.
Yeah. Trump’s algorithm for throwing people under the bus is, “When significant shit hits the fan, throw everyone under the bus until I (Trump) am safe.” I personally think that what Trump and Musk are doing is so crazy and incompetent, shit will hit the fan. But if it doesn’t, Trump will keep Musk around indefinitely.
I think Trump brought on so many people he eventually fell out with in his first term because 1) he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing in terms of appointments, and therefore 2) he trusted others’ judgment more than he usually would. Now, in contrast, he has more experience in knowing with whom he will get along in the political sphere, and others close to him do as well (i.e., are “better” at suggesting “good” people for Trump to appoint). I don’t think there will be as many Milleys, Tillersons, Pences, etc., this time.
I disagree. As somebody pointed out in another thread, Musk is basically just the new Steve Bannon. And he’s just as disposable.
At this point Bannon is the only person on the right that is publicly against Musk. And he’s very against.
I don’t see how Musk and Bannon are comparable at all. Bannon is like a nazi wonk, a theorist and planner. Both Trump and Musk have no use for theory, and based on their first few weeks together, almost as little use for planning.
Bannon was not invited to join the Trump regime this time. It’s unclear what his and Trump’s relationship is at this point.