Elon Musk may already be overstaying his welcome in Trump's orbit
nbcnews.com
Summary
Elon Musk’s frequent presence at Mar-a-Lago and his involvement in sensitive conversations have raised concerns among Trump’s longstanding advisers, who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting.
Musk’s push for influence, including voicing policy ideas and taking credit for Trump’s win, has raised concerns about his motives and loyalty.
Please let them be too busy fighting amongst themselves these next four years they just are unable to get anything destructive done.
I am 100% in favor of teenage drama derailing their efforts to remove bodily autonomy from women.
That's the plan. But while the government is ineffective, big businesses will have free reign to fuck us over.
True...but big business still needs us to buy their products, so we are of some use to them
At least that wouldn't be some new dystopian nightmare. Just the same old run of the mill dystopian nightmare we've already been living in.
Maybe Elon is playing a 5D chess long game to reduce Trumps harm and help humanity
He a) isn’t that smart and b) would have fucked that plan by handing him all the power with all that money and making the weird incel vote even more guaranteed.
Normally I would find humor in this statement. Not this regime, bro
5D chess to reduce harm done by Trump by.... Getting him elected??
I've actually had similar thoughts but the logic just doesn't add up...
It doesnt add up yet
Maybe my 20yo mini dachshund is planning on producing a flux capacitor, but I'll believe that before i believe your fantasy.
Hopefully it’s only 2 years if dems can win back seats during the midterms
I’m sorry for being harsh, but the only reason the democrats exist is to slow down the fascists ever so slightly and then just peacefully hand over power to the fascists when they gain control again.
We need real change, the kind of change that only comes from a revolution. The democrats do not give a shit about you. They serve only the wealthy.
Stop believing their lies. Go out there and unionise!!
I can't really see 2 egos of that size coexisting. I'm terrified of being wrong about that in this case though
Did you see Don's face when Elon was doing his jumping shit? Don's already sick of him, and only keeping him around because he's worth so much.
Donny always needs about tree fitty.
“So I said, ‘monster, what are you gonna do with tree fitty?’”
"Lord it was scary!"
"Oh Lawd, they'd didn't bring a sacrifice chile."
My coping fantasy plays off of their arrogance. Imagine it. On the day of Trump’s inauguration, he admits that climate change is real and shouts, “good luck, suckers,” as he and Musk board a SpaceX rocket bound for Mars.
A guy can dream. lol
And it explodes on the launchpad?
Is that dream too big?
I mean the King of All Cosmos has a codpiece the size of the moon, so I dunno if he's really a good voice on the subject.
Still smaller than some King Henry VIII when you factor in relative sizes.
I like to imagine them running out of oxygen and food on Mars after weeks of nonstop arguing, expelling their final, hateful words at each other.
Either way, it’s like having a warm cup of tea under a blanket while I wait out the storm that is my mind.
Any trip to Mars is going to involve massive amounts of personal suffering and privation.
Minimum mission duration of 3 years. Living space no larger than a small RV. All the food is freeze dried. Can you imagine the smell that will develop? If anything breaks, it's on you to fix it, and there is no trip down to the hardware store, and no United Rentals to bail you out. Any medical complication? There's no ER, just whatever you've got in the kit.
And that's not even starting on the chronic radiation hazard for which there is no viable option to deploy shielding. And a freak solar flare can cook you with acute radiation that will kill you at any time.
Seriously, we're talking about an adventure that would be way more epic than Shackleton.
Honestly, I am opposed to sending humans to Mars, period. We shouldn't do it. It's unethical, a tremendous lapse of moral judgment just to stroke our collective egos.
There could be life on Mars NOW. There are bacteria that we know of on Earth, that if you transported them to certain locations deep under the Martian surface, would thrive. There are microbes that live in subterranean saline aquifers on Earth, and there are microbes that live in solid rock miles beneath the Earth's surface. There is no reason that these bacteria couldn't thrive equally well on Mars.
We know of Earth bacteria that could thrive under Mars's surface. Which means it is entirely reasonable to speculate that there may already be bacteria there filling that Martian ecological niche. But if we send people there...we risk contaminating it. We struggle to sterilize our rovers, but we do a pretty good job. But forget trying to sterilize a ship full of dozens of people. Our very gut bacteria are a contamination risk.
No, I think we should leave Mars the hell alone. And really, I think we have a very reasonable path forward for still producing very meaningful and important exploration of Mars. Look at how well robotics is advancing. Look at the recent Tesla event where they had all those robots wandering around, each remotely piloted by a human operator. THAT is the real future of Mars exploration.
I think we should simply wait on Mars until we've let remote presence robotic tech advance a few more decades. Then, you build such a robot that is durable enough to survive in an autoclave. You do send human to Mars, but they stay in orbit. The humans stay on a craft in orbit, and they remotely pilot humanoid robots on the surface to do the actual science work. This way, you can have exploration that has all the dexterity and flexibility of humans, as humans are able to pilot the robots in real time from orbit. And as an added bonus, your exploratory vehicles can be a lot simpler as you don't need to bring any crew or samples back from the Martian surface.
I think we could still exploit Mars as well. If we find that there is no surface life, well then setting up mining activities on the surface isn't a problem. If humans want to colonize Mars, we can build big orbital habitats from materials we mine on the surface. If, after a long period of study, we conclusively rule out the existence of Martian life? Well at that point we can start surface colonization by humans. Or, perhaps we discover a Martian deep-rock biosphere and fully catalogue it. Then maybe we discover that pretty much every terrestrial body has such a biosphere if conditions are appropriate. At that point, humans might decide that colonizing the surface with humans is worth the risk.
Anyway, I really do not support sending humans to Mars. We could potentially wipe out an entire biosphere, a biosphere that if it exists, could tell us remarkable things about how life arises and how common it is in the universe. We're only a few decades out from being able to do really good remote presence robotics. Let's just hold off on things until we can send humans that can get the full experience of being on the Mars surface, without actually being on the Mars surface.
Did you watch this video by any chance? https://youtu.be/5GjOuqAlFEk?si=XGnBJThntonV2AHM
But I agree, these arguments won me over. We can just go to the moon or asteroids instead, mars is not that important for a hypothetical human space faring civilization
Yes. I have! Though I have heard the idea before.
You don't understand though, by being visionaries who disregard accepted margins of safety, they lowered the cost per (attempted) launch by almost 3%!
That is an acceptable outcome.
Let em both get eaten by Brontorocs.
They can't get too close, or the masses of their egos will rip spacetime a new blackasshole.
Sounds like "trumps longstanding advisors" are worried they did all this work to get trump in power to use him are seeing musk come in and begin to use trump instead of them.
Pretty much. His advisors have quietly expressed "concern" to the media about a lot of things, and they go nowhere.
Every once in a while, it does. Laura Loomer seems to have been forgotten. That might just be Trump getting bored with sleeping with her, though.
He'll have them sign something saying they were never advisors at all and he was there from the start.
Honestly, once Trump gets sworn in, I assume the people around him who want to implement Project 2025 won't have any more use for him. That's why Vance is there, just look at his track record, he knows how to play ball.
I can only pray that they all tear each other to shreds.
People should be afraid of musk. He’s gone completely mad with power. He doesn’t have to BE the president to be the hand in the puppet. Trump would be difficult to control, but whoever follows trump will be hand-picked.
Let the infighting begin! Trump hires the worst people and creates a toxic "vie for the king's attention" atmosphere.
I wonder how many mooches he'll last.
Now thats a mutually assured destruction scenario I'd be in favor of.
Maybe we can help it along by stomaching a little tactical truth social posting
Donald "I have the record for the most people fired from a cabinet" Trump? He only hires the best people!
Yup! Weirdly Trump's own worst qualities also tend to neuter his ability to deal damage somewhat (only somewhat! Goddamn is the man just a pandimensional wrecking ball). He attracts some of the very worst people, but then he chews through them for whatever purpose he had in mind for them, and then invariably even those people leave his orbit and go "wow everyone, that guy really is a piece of shit". Pretty incredible stuff.
Similarly, his only actual ambition is personal greed, specifically his own wealth and fame. There's no ideology or barely even planning in him I don't think. Pretty sure his life is really best described as just the series of the nastiest, most self-serving moves he could think of at each moment along the way, with zero purpose except his own enrichment, both in dollars and fame/what he probably perceives as "power".
Of course what he seems to see as power or something desirable, everyone not trapped in his S-tier narcissism distortion field sees as just him stating the terms of his own manipulation to whomever wants to take advantage, for mutual benefit. Right in the open. But sure, he's the tough talker we need on the world stage, lol. Amazing. Sorry, just realized I have reached full tangent mode now, I regret nothing but I'll end my rant heh.
This is all very true - I'm just hoping he hasn't learned from last time about how to effect change in government. Unfortunately it seems like those around him are just more sycophantic than last time. One thing he has learned is "who is loyal" which could be a problem...
Yeah, I hear that. I do think his extreme narrow focus is a legitimate and severe neurodivergence, he's not going to like...stop being that way, ever, to any degree. It's how his mind is shaped I think, he doesn't even enjoy music, laughter, actual human warmth, even just alcohol, all things broadly considered to be the most human things. There's no room for anything but his bizarrely narrow drive.
Whether there are people in his orbit who have learned dangerous things is a more troubling question, one we can only really hope is tempered by his unique extreme toxicity (and hopefully in this case the massive inertia of all the many people in branches of govt who've made that their career and have a personal interest in the status quo).
Regardless of how many loyalists he has he'll get in the way of himself along with some Republicans in the senate, Democrats using the filibuster and the right wing media will get him to change his mind. 2 years isn't a lot to make all of these changes before the democrats at least take back the House
There's precedent for it, that's exactly the (thankfully moronic) dumb shit that happened the last time they had majorities like that. This feels different this time, with the Supreme Court and such, but who knows. Lotta self centered people imagining themselves on top...may amount to little. One can hope.
Oh please let Trump's first dictatorial move be to strip Elon of his wealth. We're all going to suffer some shit but let at least one oligarch stuffer too
It can start by denaturalizing him since he lied on his immigration forms and was in the country illegally when he first came here. That's not even dictatorial, it's the letter of the law.
"First they came for the Oligarchs and I did not speak out - because I was not an Oligarch, and really because wage inequality is the core problem facing our society so coming for the Oligarchs seemed like a pretty good idea to me."
And piss off all the all the billionaires? Not going to happen.
You do realize that all the billionaires don't have the same motives. A lot of billionaires would love to get rid of some of their peers.
Would be next to impossible to wound the king billionaire without negatively affecting the others.
Bezos might get a kick out of Elon and SpaceX getting their shirt kicked in a bit so Blue Origin or whatever can swoop in for those tasty government contracts
It's not to piss them off, but to send a message. Just like Putin, he's going to put the screws to somebody wealthy to send the message "I did it to them, I can do it to you."
... that's one way to put it.
Over assertively impregnates employees as a hobby
Offers his sperm for colonizing Mars, aiming to upgrade said hobby
The only redeeming feature of this whole sorry mess will be watching those hyaenas constantly tearing each other apart.
He’s an accelerationist. He knows the death of America is coming and wants to be sitting pretty, real close to the top when it happens; so he can use his money to become king.
Which is several layers of stupid, seriously most of the time when empires collapse the ones in power are either remains of the old bureaucracy or warlords. The rich are usually a non factor unless they already fit into one of the previous two situations. None of the billionaires have enough hard power to pull that off in the long term.
I'm hungry and Elon looks nice and plump.
Fucking gross.
I agree. We shouldn't eat the rich. We should beat the rich. Repeatedly and for great lengths of time. Possibly with spiky objects. I'm sure we can beat the rich out of them if we keep at it long enough. It might take years and years, but if we just keep beating the rich...
Agreed, he probably has enough drugs in him that its ruined his flesh.
He can't pretend to save the world if the world isn't ending.
Dude literally thinks he's Ozymandias from Watchmen. His entire existence is so fucking cringe.
It's funny... I said that when Trump dies it will be total chaos because all these people hate each other and they will all work as hard as possible to tear each other apart since Trump is the only thing that unites them.
Maybe we won't have to wait for Trump to die.
I hope we don't have to wait for the dorito to die. I just hope it happens within the next 4 years.
The billionaire cosplayer feels inadequate next to the actual billionaire
Trump has a habit of burning everyone close to him the second it is either (A) useful to him or (B) they are no longer unswerving loyal to their fuhrer. Musk is a dumbshit nepobaby who can't shut the fuck up and steals credit for everything he's near that he didn't ruin. It's only a matter of time before Trump burns Musk, and all I can ask for is that it completely ruins them both.
It will only ruin Musk. Which would still be ok.
Musk is far richer than Trump could ever dream of being. Trump might be president, but Musk can use his money to get away with anything.
So it will be a fun fight to watch.
Looks like we'll be bringing back Mooches as a measure of political tenure soon.
If it happens fast enough we can have an Elon as a smaller unit.
I'm pretty sure a little over half of the conservatives hate Musk just as much as the left does. He painted himself as a victory factor when in reality he's just a liability. Conservatives don't like the reminder that Trump got less votes this time that in 2020, and I like to say Elon is why.
Elon almost certainly earned votes for Trump by
I begrudgingly have to concede and acknowledge that you are correct. That being said, he still did so indirectly as his name and ugly fucking face weren't attached to those.
One can only hope.
lol trying to fuck with the federal reserve. that didn't take long
That's not a compliment, that's a prerequisite to becoming everything Musk currently is. If "a generation" of people had been afforded even one percent of the privilege he's received, Musk would've been outshined by more competent people long ago.
I suspect Musk's welcome is as long as his chequebook. I think trump sees the $, if his "advisors" are offering him less $ I doubt Trump cars to listen.
The only issue might be if any of it could be proven to be criminal bribery - that seems unlikely though.
Trump is literally and figuratively immune against any prosecution. He raped children, stole and killed millions.
I am no American, but at this point I think he could produce and distribute CP right in the oval office and nothing would happen. And that is the one thing next to murder, he didn't already commit publicly.
Elon Musk = Trump's Rasputin?
They deserve each other.
People don't understand, they both speak the same language. They're both natural grifters... What's more Musk is probably better at it than Trump was. Trump needed lessons from Roy Cohn, who was a ruthless, damaged, low empathy, closet homosexual and self-hater.
Musk didn't need that kind of mentor, he's a natural grifter, and my bet is that Trump is fascinated by him. They do similar things in different ways.
Only in certain scenarios would this blow up, and Musk has already bent the knee to Trump, so those scenarios are unlikely.
Musk is a friendly fellow grifter Trump can use, and has power over, which is what Trump likes.
At best we'll see Musk become a fall guy for Trump's shortcomings. But seeing as Trump may later die in office, Musk might also avoid such a fate. Only time will tell.
Based on the pictures Elon thinks he owns Trump. This is going to be fun.
He's also the only appointee who's sharing his power with someone else. Ramaswamy and Musk will not work well together.
Useful idiot has served his limited purpose.
Oh man, I would love to see Musk be the first purged from his administration. Maybe he will take the hint and stay out of the public eye after Trumpers turn on him.
Do you really believe that? I have a hard time even imagining something like that. He loves himself waaaay too much to do this. Being hated seems to be some kind of achievement for him and he's proud of it.
No, of course not... But if other people on here can dream about a future where the political makeup of Congress matters, or where an actual progressive party can organize and survive, then I can dream too.
Musk is probably more popular inside and outside the administration.
No way trump can handle being in anyone’s shadow.
Trump is not someone who likes to share the stage.