Summary
Elon Musk’s $288M donation to Trump’s campaign has secured him influence, including a leadership role in DOGE, which aggressively cuts federal programs.
While their alliance is built on shared disruption and anti-“woke” policies, tensions could rise as Musk’s unchecked power draws criticism.
Musk serves as a useful foil, deflecting attention from Trump, but could become a political liability, fueling concerns over who wields real power.
Pressure from Republicans and critics like Steve Bannon may force a reckoning before the midterms.
Trump doesn’t want to be President and actually govern. He just wants to use the position to enrich himself and stay out of jail while exacting his revenge.
He seems perfectly happy to let Elon do all the hard work while taking the credit and getting all the attention.
Here are some steps to take that I think will be both interesting and entertaining.
- Every time Trump says he wants to do something, ask him if Musk approved of this plan.
- When Trump makes an appearance, ask him(before any other questions) will Musk be coming as well?
- Any time Trump says “I know what I’m doing” or “Believe me”, we should ask, “Does Musk believe you are correct here.”
- at least 3 times during a press briefing ask, “Can we talk to Musk for more specifics on this…”
This will really drive Trump nuts, and hopefully end this weirdo man-love relationship of hate and political power.
I’ve been publicly referring to “President Musk” and “First Man Trump” and hoping it catches on. The more we can make Trump feel like there’s a perception that he’s not in charge, the more it will piss him off, and hopefully cause him to clash with Musk.
I don’t even necessarily want him to fire Musk. I want them to try to do conflicting things, give in to their nature to be contrarian, but with each other.
First Buddy feels appropriately diminutive.
I wonder if, back in Germany 1940’s, there were articles like “How long will hitler and goerings relationship last?”
Probably before the year is out.
Two man-children who want attention more than oxygen both occupying the same space is a recipe for fallout.
They’ll break up soon. And we’ll find out how much we all have to suffer for it.
I think referring to President Musk constantly will speed things along.
I think they’ve collided already and Trump lost.
I’m not sure if he lost or won. I remember even before the first term started he was shopping around for a VP that would actually do all the presidential work while he just took credit. This seems a lot like that. If things are unpopular, scapegoat Musk or some lackey. He burns all his subordinates.
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No they won’t. Even as self interested pricks, their interests overlap far too much for them to ever have a real fight. The richest man in the world paired with the (ostensibly) most powerful? They both want to weaken the power of average people, keep us uneducated, keep us too tired and sick and busy to question the status quo, and deregulate our economy. Their pairing is the most bald-faced bribery possible between corporate and political America, and they will never stop benefitting each other as long as people as self-absorbed as MAGA are in power.
Better if both are destroyed and only JD Vance remains who, having no influence or money, is ignored in the 2028 elections.
I was under the impression that JD Vance enjoys the financial support of Peter Thiel et al.?
How Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley funded the sudden rise of JD Vance
vance is the proxy of the oligarchs. He was added to the ballot specifically to give them and project 2025 a direct voice.
musk IS an oligarch and has a long history of actively screwing over other oligarchs. His interests partially align with project 2025 but he is mostly there because he used twitter to win the election for trump.
In a world without trump? it becomes a question of whether vance is more afraid of everyone but musk or musk himself. And they are fully dependent on musk, zuck, and fox news to control public opinion because people actually don’t want the majority of project 2025.
In a world without trump AND without musk? vance is worthless. He has no charisma and most of the stranglehold on social media is gone. The moment he does anything that impacts a red state his approval is down in the toilet.
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In the next season of “Who Wants to Be a Trillionaire”.
It seems to me like Trump can’t reign him in any more. Whether that’s because Elon has dirt, because Elon has effectively stolen the bully pulpit, or because Elon has the Joe Roegan crown, it’s at least clear that Trump is biding his time hoping the Elon chaos will present an opportunity to covertly regain power, but as it is there’s nothing in sight. He’s opened the government to more corruption in the first week than Grant’s entire presidency.
Trump doesn’t have a reason to reign in Musk, yet. Musk is the tip of the spear to making changes per Project 2025 and gives Trump plausible deniability when Musk breaks things.
Because any further dirt on Trump would matter at this point…
I was thinking something along the lines of it being obvious that without his support he wouldn’t have won. Trump usually just says stuff but that one might ring hollow if Elon had more of a voice to refute it. Trump tends to only pick fights he can win with his audience, he learned his lesson about the vaccines that there are at least a few things they won’t follow him into.
I think that it will last as long as Musk wants it to. Trump spent years spewing his idiocy across Twitter for years. You can bet he was spewing the most damning stuff in DMs. Musk, having bought Twitter, now has every DM that Trump ever sent on that platform. Trump is not smart. He certainly sent things he shouldn’t have in those DMs. I would be completely shocked if he hadn’t sent DMs that included evidence of criminal activities by him or others. I’d be shocked if he hadn’t sent classified information to other via Twitter DMs. Musk now has all of that dirt on Trump and the resources to use it if he chooses to.
I find it hard to believe that Musk spent between a quarter and a half a billion dollars to get Trump in office just because he loves Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man.” I think he knew he had leverage on Trump and would be able to use it to do absolutely anything he wants. Now Trump is stuck with Musk because if he tries to dump him, Musk can suddenly find some of those DMs and drop a few tens of millions to make sure Trump gets roasted over it in the media and even in Congress.
Donald Trump cannot be shamed.
That’s not entirely true. I am not a psychiatrist but it has been claimed many times, and it seems clear to me, that Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. That combined with hordes of followers that appear to consider him a living god makes him very, very hard to shame. On the other hand, if someone like Musk were to throw a few 10s of millions or even hundreds of millions into a campaign to turn right wing media against Trump, that horde could be turned against Trump too. If the crowds withered and he were vilified in the media, Trump would quickly crumble.
The grandiose/oblivious subtype was characterized by exaggerated self-importance, lack of remorse, interpersonal manipulativeness, seething anger, pursuit of interpersonal power, and pursuit of privilege.
This description of the grandiose/oblivious subtype of narcissism could not be more accurate in describing trump. He also could be in the vulnerable/hypervigilant subtype as that describes him well too.
Persons in the vulnerable/hypervigilant subtype were characterized by an exquisite sensitivity to what others are saying, a tuning in to every comment that might be critical, a shyness to the point where NPD could be confused with Avoidant PD, a proneness to shame and hurt feelings and a masochistic conviction that they have suffered more than anyone.
The linked article further states that suicide is not uncommon in people with NPD when they feel shamed or vilified.
Shame is often at the core of narcissistic individuals, who struggle with an acute sense of having failed in many aspects of their lives. They feel certain that others are thinking badly about them. When “caught” by someone watching them, a sense of painful humiliation may emerge. Seeing and being seen are central to narcissistic patients. They may feel that their secret sense of being “phony” or “fake” is now exposed. Suicide may feel like the only way out, especially after a devastating humiliation.
Being mocked in the media that he thrives on combined with vanishing MAGA crowds could very well be enough to push Trump over the edge and Musk is perhaps the one person in the world that could make it happen.
We already know that Trump has done all of those things. There is no possible information that could be revealed about Trump that would make his cult turn on him. That much is certain.
No, you and I know he has done many things. The MAGA cultists only know what their right wing media sources are telling them. Everything from a left or middle news source is all “fake news.” Musk has the financial resources to poison the well they are drinking from by getting Fox, et al to run endless stories about Trump’s corruption and incompetence.
It’s an interesting posit that’s for sure. On the one hand, he could " stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not lose any voters. On the other hand, Musk is one of the only people with the access and resources to really mount a propaganda campaign against him. It’s a bit of a stand off, we don’t know what conversations have been had with Putin either.
edit: a word
the lack of trump blowing musk memes is disappointing
Yeah, I’m okay not seeing that. Though the time cover, with a tuft of his hair, and shoes sticking out from the side of the desk might be tame enough for my eyes
