Wielding the social media platform he purchased for $44 billion in 2022, Mr. Musk detonated a rhetorical nuclear bomb in the middle of government shutdown negotiations on Capitol Hill.The story I'm quoting, from The New York Times, goes on to say:
In more than 150 separate posts on X, Mr. Musk demanded that Republicans back away from a bipartisan spending deal that was meant to avoid a government shutdown over Christmas. He vowed political retribution against anyone voting for the sprawling bill backed by House Speaker Mike Johnson....
By the end of the day, Mr. Trump issued a statement of his own, calling the bill “a betrayal of our country.”
But left unclear was whether Mr. Musk is a loose cannon pursuing his own agenda or the tool that Mr. Trump envisioned to rein in an out-of-control bureaucracy....Would this have happened without Musk? He seemed to be driving the bus yesterday, until Trump remembered that he's supposed to be the alpha dog, at which point he and J.D. Vance suddenly demanded an increase in the debt ceiling now, on President Biden's watch, so a fight over the debt ceiling doesn't interfere with Trump's plans once he's inaugurated.
Trump has two modes: nasty and glad-handing. When he's in glad-handing mode, he acts as if he wants everyone to be happy. Obviously, "everyone" doesn't mean everyone -- when he was just a blowhard real estate guy, people of color weren't included in "everyone," so he and his father discriminated against black would-be tenants, and Trump later demanded the death penalty for the Central Park Five. Later, once Trump became a Fox News addict, "everyone" began to exclude Democrats and most groups associated with Democrats. Trump was mostly in nasty mode during the campaign, but since the election he's occasionally tried to sound conciliatory -- maybe not to ABC or the Des Moines Register, but to some ordinary citizens who might mistrust him for obvious reasons. Notice two excerpts from Time's recent Trump interview, which were flagged by Noah Berlatsky. First, on abortion:
Then on trans people:
Trump is almost being humane here. Don't worry, I'm not giving him credit for human decency -- he just seems to be shifting into salesman mode. He wants everyone to be happy! He's going to give us the greatest presidency ever and eveyone should love it!
Musk also has happy-huckster mode, especially when he's selling his vaporware -- colonizing Mars, full self-driving, Neuralink. But lately he's tended to be in this mode:
There is a large graveyard filled with my enemies.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2023
I do not wish to add to it, but will if given no choice.
Those who pick fights with me do so at their own peril, but maybe this is their lucky day …
His transformation of Twitter to X, for both workers and normie tweeters, has been an ongoing story of "The beatings will continue until morale improves." And now this:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2024
Right now, I think Trump is dreaming of a glorious inaugural, followed by a presidency that makes "everyone" happy (obviously not including the undocumented or quite a few other groups). Musk, by contrast, wants to start burning everything to the ground. He wants to be feared, not loved -- or he thinks being feared is why he'll be loved.
Trump and Musk both have dual natures. At any given moment, I assume that whichever one is being more of an asshole will dominate.
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