Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[HVC]

Is it the only strategy? Trump loves his strongman that projects force and is uncompromising. While, I don't think JT can really go back and forth between the 2 personas, he's a forceful guy. Once had a boxing match vs a Conservative Senator and won easily.

Yeah, I don't think he's skilled enough to walk that tightrope. Shame, because trump has shown time and again that's he's willing, and perhaps enjoys, tossing overboard those subservient to him, but has the crippling need to be liked by the "cool" crowd.

[The Minsky Moment]

No, that headline is decidedly not true.

Article blew its cred when it referred to SpaceX as a "startup"

[Sheilbh]

Is it the only strategy? Trump loves his strongman that projects force and is uncompromising. While, I don't think JT can really go back and forth between the 2 personas, he's a forceful guy. Once had a boxing match vs a Conservative Senator and won easily.

I always think this is slightly structural more than personal taste, or views.

Trump has a different relationship with leaders who he thinks he basically can do a deal with - by definition those are leaders who have something the US wants or needs, or where there's a political cost at home. Those are by definition normally leaders and regimes strong enough to at least tilt away from the US. They're not all strongmen but a lot of them are (and I think he'd have a similar relationship with, say, Rahul Gandhi as Modi because India matters, or Lapid v Netanyahu). I think, on the other hand those leaders are happy working with Trump because he is transactional and doesn't care about forms.

When Trump is dealing with leaders who are basically supplicants depending on him (as in the US) or the US government, I think he's pretty comfortable humiliating them and the key is that they bend the knee. The real issue is that most democratic states got into a position where they are supplicants. There's no deal to be done with Canada, or the UK, or Germany - we're all already in too deep, don't really have the capacity to do anything else and don't really have a plausible alternative we can offer or threaten with.

[Syt]

No, that headline is decidedly not true.

Would have preferred to post the original Bloomberg article or its crosspost on Fortune, but both were behind paywalls.

[viper37]

Tesla = the tulips of our day?
It's got to pop soon. Surely.
People have been saying for years...

It would have, had Elmo not joined the government. 

It's automated cars are a failure and the Cybertruck is failure.
One government agency or the other were bound to go after Tesla and create a nightmare for them.

[Neil]

Interfering in our political system by calling Trudeau an idiot.

It's a bit wild that we're defining a Canadian citizen criticizing a Canadian political leader as 'interfering in our political system'.  And even if he wasn't a Canadian citizen (of convenience, granted), it's still not interfering in our political system to criticize our leader. 

Just more of that famous Canadian inferiority complex at work.  Any time Canada is mentioned by a higher-status country's media, our national media swoons and proceeds to go on a bender trying to analyze it to death. 

[Grey Fox]

  I forgot he was also Canadian.

[Barrister]

I forgot he was also Canadian.

Musk's Canadianness is so tenuous though.

I was looking it up.  He got his citizenship through his mother.  His mother was born in Canada in 1948 (in Regina in fact) but her parents moved to South Africa in 1950.  Maye Musk (nee Haldeman) then grew up in South Africa, married Elon's father, had Elon, divorced Elon's father.

Elon did come to Canada for two years to study at Queen's, but then went to the US where he has lived ever since.

I'm not some blood-and-soil nationalist who thinks you need to have lived here for generations to be "Canadian" - but I do struggle with considering Musk Canadian.

[Grey Fox]

Yeah, that's barely above the qualifying line. Although, that makes his comments on Trudeau more palatable.

[viper37]

Just more of that famous Canadian inferiority complex at work.  Any time Canada is mentioned by a higher-status country's media, our national media swoons and proceeds to go on a bender trying to analyze it to death. 

There's also a tendency from all medias to discuss all the trolling from Trump and Musk now that he's in the government.

[Neil]

I forgot he was also Canadian.

Musk's Canadianness is so tenuous though.

I was looking it up.  He got his citizenship through his mother.  His mother was born in Canada in 1948 (in Regina in fact) but her parents moved to South Africa in 1950.  Maye Musk (nee Haldeman) then grew up in South Africa, married Elon's father, had Elon, divorced Elon's father.

Elon did come to Canada for two years to study at Queen's, but then went to the US where he has lived ever since.

I'm not some blood-and-soil nationalist who thinks you need to have lived here for generations to be "Canadian" - but I do struggle with considering Musk Canadian.

Honestly, even if he wasn't a citizen, I still wouldn't consider his criticism of a Canadian prime minister to rise to the level of 'interference in our political system'. 

[Grey Fox]

What would you?

[Neil]

What would you?

Probably if someone were actually interfering in the political system.  Like putting resources into advocating for abolishing the monarchy.

[mongers]

Does Musk's new pulpit (cabinet job) need congressional confirmation?

If so, is this a shot across his bow:

Polio survivor Mitch McConnell criticizes efforts to undermine vaccine

The statement is the first time the Senate minority leader has publicly weighed in on the nomination process beyond acknowledging meeting with some of Trump's picks for his administration.

December 13, 2024

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who battled polio as a child, warned on Friday that anyone seeking a Senate confirmation should "steer clear" of associating with any efforts to undermine public confidence in the polio vaccine.

"The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they're dangerous," McConnell said in a statement. "Anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts."

WashPost Article

[Grey Fox]

So far, DoGE isn't a real government agency. It's a think tank. No approval needed.