MY UNPOPULAR OPINION: ELON MUSK ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE SOON

In The New York Times yesterday, David Nasaw confidently told us that Elon Musk's fifteen minutes as Donald Trump's bestie were almost over:

So sorry, Elon Musk, but the bromance is not going to last. I know the president-elect put you on the phone with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine the night after the election. And I know that in Donald Trump’s victory speech ... he celebrated your super-genius as only he could, in a disjointed, discombobulated, wildly overextended paean and declaration of love. “Oh, let me tell you, we have a new star,” he said. “A star is born, Elon.”

Yet therein lies your problem, Mr. Musk. There’s room for only one star, one genius in the Trump White House.... He is not going to share his victory and center stage with anyone.

We know this will happen, Nasaw told us, because it's happened in the past when rich men have tried to cozy up to presidents. For instance, William Randolph Hearst tried to become an FDR insider, but that didn't work:

Hearst’s contributions to Franklin Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential campaign were ... extensive and varied. In addition to huge financial assistance, Hearst used his media empire to conduct virulent and near-daily assaults on the incumbent, Herbert Hoover.

The day after the election, Hearst’s wife, Millicent, sent a telegram to say that she “had seen Roosevelt last night. He said he was going to telephone you. You are getting all the credit for this victory from everybody I meet.” Hearst responded by forwarding his recommendations for cabinet appointments and an 11-point recovery plan, only to be ghosted by the president-elect: no letters, no telegrams, no phone calls. Almost two months later, Roosevelt finally issued an invitation to Hearst to visit him for private talks. The publisher declined....

But Trump isn't snubbing Musk that way. Just the opposite:

Multiple sources have told CNN that amid the post-victory buzz around Mar-a-Lago, the Tesla CEO has been at Donald Trump’s Florida resort almost every single day over the past week, with Instagram posts under the location tag showing him dining with the president-elect and his wife on Sunday, as well as spending time on the grounds with his son over the weekend.

“Dining with him on the patio at times, today they were seen on the golf course together,” network anchor Katilan Collins said in a broadcast on Sunday. “Musk has been in the room when world leaders have called, and tonight we have learned he’s also weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles even.”

Trump's granddaughter Kai tweeted this from Mar-a-Lago:

Elon achieving uncle status 😂 pic.twitter.com/vufSffziZN

— Kai Trump (@KaiTrump) November 10, 2024

Tech commentator Kara Swisher has the conventional wisdom:

“He definitely inserts himself all the time, that’s his style,” tech journalist Kara Swisher told CNN on Monday morning. “I’ve heard from Trump people, calling me saying, ‘Oh, wow. This is odd’. And it is.”

Swisher goes further to speculate that Trump and Musk’s bromance likely won’t survive the pressure of two planetary-sized egos vying for space in the halls of power.

“They’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country, and that’s Donald Trump,” Swisher said. “Trump goes through people like tissues, essentially. And even if it’s Musk, they’re going to clash at some point.”

But for whatever reason, Musk isn't acting like a narcissist around Trump. He's acting like Wayne and Garth in the presence of Alice Cooper.



He's not leaking anything that suggests a belief that he could do Trump's job better than Trump is doing it, unlike other Trump courtiers, past and present.

Per source RFK Jr. did not want Rubio for SoS - we’re seeing a potential bucking of his preference by Trump early on

— Hanna Trudo (@HCTrudo) November 12, 2024

As I said in a post last month, in that famous rally photo, Musk was clearly acting deferential to Trump. He was the hype man supporting Trump as lead vocalist (or maybe he was the head cheerleader and Trump was the football hero):

And it's hard to imagine William Randolph Hearst (or Nasaw's other examples, Andrew Carnegie and Joseph Kennedy) publicly acknowledging their sense of vulnerability and need for a president who'll protect them:



Swisher says that "Trump goes through people like tissues," but there are quite a few people he hasn't discarded -- Lindsey Graham (who's always a deferential admirer), Stephen Miller, Roger Stone, Susie Wiles (aides who never try to steal the spotlight from him), and a wide range of tycoons, many of them based in the New York area, whom he's known for years, and whose advice he solicits on issues they know nothing about. To some extent, Trump probably sees Musk as a Robert Kraft or Steve Wynn, a guy with a business empire, and therefore, in Trump's view, a smart person to consult. (Trump also likes using Musk's money, obviously.) Beyond that, Musk seems to be acting more like Lindsey Graham than like a fellow egomaniac who wants Trump's throne.

I'm not sure why. It could all be an act -- but I think it's noteworthy that Trump is the same age as Musk's father. If Musk is an alpha male, he's a weirdly wounded one -- before he went full Nazi on X, he seemed to be using it to get love, in a quest to become the world's most famous shitposter. Now Trump seems to be giving him the love he needs.

Trump might dump him, but I'm not sure why. I don't think their interests are likely to conflict. If the bromance ends, I think it's more likely to end because other Trump insiders plant stories about him, accurate or not, that make Trump mad. For now, I assume Musk is taking great pains not to offend Trump, cynically or genuinely.