posted January 05, 2025 01:04 AM            

http://www.salon.com/2024/12/30/its-elon-musk-over-maga-donald-makes-his-pick/

quote:

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couple of days after Christmas, Donald Trump posted something very odd, even by his standards. He accidentally posted a personal text to his BFF, Elon Musk, on Truth Social. (Trump staffers confirmed to CNN that the message was intended to remain private.) Sounding downright forlorn, the president-elect wondered when his pal would return to Mar-a-Lago ("the center of the universe") because he misses him and his son, X. He also mentioned that the New Year's Eve party was going to be "AMAZING" and that Bill Gates had asked to come to dinner.

http://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1872650373086986283

"Where are you? When are you coming to the “Center of the Universe,” Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT

Donald Trump Truth Social 08:47 AM EST 12/27/24"

Sometimes you can be lonely even in a room full of people, so perhaps Trump needs the richest man in the world by his side to make him feel loved. But it's also possible that he senses his new best buddy is no longer as interested in him and has instead decided that he's going to play president without him. Where are you?

Trump, for his part, is spending his days down in Mar-a-Lago golfing, holding casting sessions for his administration and wining and dining CEOs who might be able to boost his personal fortune over the next four years. He doesn't appear to be paying very close attention to what's been going on in Washington or among his MAGA faithful. Several times now, he's been late off the mark, belatedly following Musk's lead after all hell broke loose.

It happened just before Christmas when he was busy golfing while Musk blew up the continuing resolution and almost caused a government shutdown. Trump later attempted to appear to have taken control by pretending that he had been the one to decide the deal was untenable due to overspending while at the same time demanding that Congress raise or eliminate the debt ceiling before he took office. The Republican hardliners balked and didn't extend or eliminate the debt ceiling and they ended up passing a watered-down version of the original deal with Democratic votes. Trump looked weak, Musk looked strong and the MAGA/Freedom Caucus appeared to be siding with Musk rather than Dear Leader.

Over the past week, more fault lines appeared in the coalition, with Musk once more right in the middle of it.

While Trump was photographed on the golf course and entertaining his dinner guests with his insufferably weird playlist of "YMCA" and Pavarotti, an online war broke out between the MIA friend Musk and some of Trump's most loyal MAGA activists. The problem began last weekend when Trump named Indian-born Sriram Krishnan, as his senior policy advisor on AI, to work with another Musk associate and fellow South African-born David Sachs, his new AI and "crypto czar." That got the attention of some MAGA loyalists, notably Laura Loomer who was, until recently, a great friend of the president-elect, even traveling with him on his campaign plane. She noticed that Krishnan is a big proponent of the H-1B visa program which allows skilled workers to come into the US to work temporarily, many of them from Asia. The tech sector makes particular use of this program.

Loomer went after the program, saying it was unfair to native-born Americans and began complaining that the loyal MAGA followers were being left out of the administration in favor of these tech-bro interlopers who were betraying the American First cause. Other MAGA followers weighed in making it clear that they did not want any brown foreigners coming into the country. They voted for Trump because he said he was going to get them all out. They don't see any difference between a Guatemalan migrant, a Haitian refugee or a Pakistani engineer.

It was at this point Musk personally joined the conversation, explaining that in order the make America great again they would need to hire lots of foreign engineers and programmers because they're the best and it would help the team. That didn't go over very well. Soon his deputy, Vivek Ramaswamy, joined the fray, posting a long screed about how American mediocrity, bad culture and a compulsion to worship prom queens instead of smart nerds makes it impossible for the country to succeed. It surely made incels everywhere rejoice that they have finally been seen but it enraged the MAGA faithful online even more.

Meanwhile, Loomer and her cadre were going specifically after Musk, suggesting that he was playing Donald Trump for a fool. She wrote at one point, “The elephant in the room is that [Musk], who is not MAGA and never has been, is a total ******* drag on the Trump transition. He’s a stage 5 clinger who overstayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump’s side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago."

Everything went downhill from there, with this post perfectly distilling the argument. (Musk has since deleted his tweet in agreement)

He later called his MAGA critics "contemptible fools" and said to one, "take a big step back and **** YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend." But at least he didn't call them deplorable. That would be very bad.

It got even uglier at that point with the likes of Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec getting in on the act as Musk proceeded to suspend the X privileges of a number of his critics, including Loomer.

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There's more at the link.