by Alex Berenson, Unreported Truths:
Fair to say no one expected this.
In July, when Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump for president, almost everyone assumed his support would be mostly financial, maybe a couple of hundred million dollars – a rounding error for Musk.
In November, when Trump announced Musk would run a new “Department of Government Efficiency” after winning, the plan sounded like a joke. That was especially true considering DOGE is the name of a favorite crypto “memecoin” of Musk’s — a pretend currency that’s essentially a legal Ponzi scheme.
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In December, as a fight over visas for skilled tech workers escalated, Steve Bannon, an architect of the Make America Great Again movement and fierce Trump loyalist, took aim at Musk, calling Musk a “toddler.” Bannon later promised to ensure Musk didn’t have free rein in the White House. Musk “should go back to South Africa,” he said.
Meanwhile, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter normally well-sourced in the White House, reported that Trump was complaining “how Musk is around a lot.”
Bad read, Maggie.
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At least for the moment, Musk has pushed aside Bannon and everyone else who stood in his way. Not only does he have free rein in the White House, he and his son X had an Oval Office press conference with Trump on Wednesday.
The left fervently hopes Trump will grow tired of the publicity Musk is receiving – and refers to “President Musk” to annoy Trump. It’s not working. Trump and Musk, who barely knew each other not long ago, are now each other’s biggest fans.
Don’t take it from me.
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(Okay then.)
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The left is not wrong. Both Trump and Musk are extreme alphas, used to giving orders, not taking them. So what’s going on here? And can it go on? Can the world’s most powerful person and its most powerful private citizen continue this alliance?
I suspect part of the reason Trump and Musk get along is simple cultural affinity. Musk is vehemently anti-trans. The issue is personal for him. His son Xavier Alexander Musk legally changed his name to Vivian Jenna Wilson and his gender to female in 2022 and has spoken out against Elon. Trump’s executive orders restricting trans military service and child surgeries, which explicitly called the trans movement out for the madness it has become, must have resonated with Musk.
But the alliance is more than cultural.
Trump and Musk have very different strengths, and they fit together better than may first be apparent.
Trump has proven over the last decade that he has the rare gift of being able both to reflect and drive public opinion even when the media stand in his way. He understood the anger at illegal immigration and the failure of the Iraq war before any other national figure. Populist politicians cannot be successful if they are not popular. Trump grabs attention unlike any other leader in generations.
Further, his policy instincts can be weirdly prescient. He was right about Covid, even though the medical establishment cowed him into agreeing to lockdowns, right that Europe needed and still needs to take a greater stake in its own defense, right to stand up for Israel’s duty to defend itself after Oct. 7.
What Trump is not is detail-oriented.
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