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.

  • @snekerpimp
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    2158 days ago

    Please let them be too busy fighting amongst themselves these next four years they just are unable to get anything destructive done.

    • @[email protected]
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      978 days ago

      I am 100% in favor of teenage drama derailing their efforts to remove bodily autonomy from women.

    • @[email protected]
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      268 days ago

      That’s the plan. But while the government is ineffective, big businesses will have free reign to fuck us over.

      • @RedditReject
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        128 days ago

        True…but big business still needs us to buy their products, so we are of some use to them

      • Laurel Raven
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        67 days ago

        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.

      • @Soup
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        168 days ago

        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.

      • @snekerpimp
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        108 days ago

        Normally I would find humor in this statement. Not this regime, bro

      • @[email protected]
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        8 days ago

        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…

      • @ChronosTriggerWarning
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        -17 days ago

        Maybe my 20yo mini dachshund is planning on producing a flux capacitor, but I’ll believe that before i believe your fantasy.

    • @theedqueen
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      27 days ago

      Hopefully it’s only 2 years if dems can win back seats during the midterms

      • @[email protected]
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        7 days ago

        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!!

  • @BradleyUffner
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    1458 days ago

    I can’t really see 2 egos of that size coexisting. I’m terrified of being wrong about that in this case though

    • @AngryCommieKender
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      928 days ago

      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.

      • @thesohoriots
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        368 days ago

        Donny always needs about tree fitty.

    • @disguy_ovahea
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      318 days ago

      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

          • Snot Flickerman
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            108 days ago

            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.

        • @disguy_ovahea
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          138 days ago

          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.

          • @mkwt
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            48 days ago

            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.

            • @WoodScientist
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              58 days ago

              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.

        • GreatAlbatross
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          78 days ago

          You don’t understand though, by being visionaries who disregard accepted margins of safety, they lowered the cost per (attempted) launch by almost 3%!

    • @beansbeansbeans
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      17 days ago

      They can’t get too close, or the masses of their egos will rip spacetime a new blackasshole.

  • partial_accumen
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    1298 days ago

    Trump’s longstanding advisers, who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting.

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      8 days ago

      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.

    • @londos
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      198 days ago

      He’ll have them sign something saying they were never advisors at all and he was there from the start.

    • @[email protected]
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      178 days ago

      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.

    • @Aeri
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      107 days ago

      I can only pray that they all tear each other to shreds.

    • @[email protected]
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      88 days ago

      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.

  • @[email protected]
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    928 days ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      328 days ago

      Trump hires the worst people and creates a toxic “vie for the king’s attention” atmosphere.

      Now thats a mutually assured destruction scenario I’d be in favor of.

      • JaggedRobotPubes
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        38 days ago

        Maybe we can help it along by stomaching a little tactical truth social posting

    • @[email protected]
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      138 days ago

      Donald “I have the record for the most people fired from a cabinet” Trump? He only hires the best people!

    • @Benjaben
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      108 days ago

      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.

      • @scripthook
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        27 days ago

        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

        • @Benjaben
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          17 days ago

          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.

      • @[email protected]
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        28 days ago

        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…

        • @Benjaben
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          58 days ago

          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).

  • @[email protected]
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    588 days ago

    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

    • @dhork
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      8 days ago

      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.

      • partial_accumen
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        328 days ago

        “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.”

    • @someguy3
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      58 days ago

      And piss off all the all the billionaires? Not going to happen.

      • @[email protected]
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        198 days ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 days ago

          Would be next to impossible to wound the king billionaire without negatively affecting the others.

          • @[email protected]
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            17 days ago

            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

      • @[email protected]
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        128 days ago

        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.”

  • @gedaliyahM
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    438 days ago

    who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting

    … that’s one way to put it.

    • @tourist
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      278 days ago

      Over assertively impregnates employees as a hobby

      • kamenLady.
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        28 days ago

        Offers his sperm for colonizing Mars, aiming to upgrade said hobby

  • Diplomjodler
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    408 days ago

    The only redeeming feature of this whole sorry mess will be watching those hyaenas constantly tearing each other apart.

  • @[email protected]
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    308 days ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      127 days ago

      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.

          • Flying Squid
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            27 days ago

            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…

    • @[email protected]
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      27 days ago

      Dude literally thinks he’s Ozymandias from Watchmen. His entire existence is so fucking cringe.

  • Flying Squid
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    207 days ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      57 days ago

      I hope we don’t have to wait for the dorito to die. I just hope it happens within the next 4 years.

  • @Red_October
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    197 days ago

    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.

      • Flying Squid
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        67 days ago

        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.

  • @Shadywack
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    188 days ago

    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.

    • Pennomi
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      298 days ago

      Elon almost certainly earned votes for Trump by

      1. Funding a shit ton of election ads
      2. Using Twitter to push propaganda
      • @Shadywack
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        168 days ago

        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.

  • @ArtVandelay
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    188 days ago

    Looks like we’ll be bringing back Mooches as a measure of political tenure soon.

    • @Maggoty
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      37 days ago

      If it happens fast enough we can have an Elon as a smaller unit.

  • @Whats_your_reasoning
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    7 days ago

    Elon Musk is a once in a generation business leader

    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.