What is Elon Musk up to now..

[stylofone]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... m-krishnan

Well, that didn't take long. I thought they'd make it at least to the inauguration without a crack appearing.

Maybe Trump's first war will be the one he conducts within his own movement.

In the blue corner: "we hate all foreigners!" in the red corner: "we also hate all foreigners but we'll let a few of them in if they are skilled"!

Can it be a cage match with gloves off and no rules please?

[pipbarber]

In the blue corner: "we hate all foreigners!" in the red corner: "we also hate all foreigners but we'll let a few of them in if they are skilled"!

Can it be a cage match with gloves off and no rules please?

I think a duel would be more appropriate, with those automatic weapons these people love.

[pipbarber]

And here's the trigger

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... risk-trump

He'll be selling state secrets to China if he doesn't step out of the limelight. His business forfeited to Trump the government, for security reasons.

New year fantasy probably.

[stevebrooks]

And here's the trigger

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... risk-trump

He'll be selling state secrets to China if he doesn't step out of the limelight. His business forfeited to Trump the government, for security reasons.

New year fantasy probably.

You think there's some left? How do you think Ivanka got all her patents?

[pipbarber]

Trumpomuskovia?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/ ... nald-trump

Timothy Snyder says “...we overestimate Trump and we underestimate Musk”

I kind of see it more the other way around. Also, Trump has the fan base, not to mention the state apparatus at his corruptible finger tips. On the other hand Snyder is clearly better informed than me.

[stylofone]

Trumpomuskovia?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/ ... nald-trump

Timothy Snyder says “...we overestimate Trump and we underestimate Musk”

I kind of see it more the other way around. Also, Trump has the fan base, not to mention the state apparatus at his corruptible finger tips. On the other hand Snyder is clearly better informed than me.

When Putin takes out a wayward oligarch, he does it "with extreme prejudice". One of my questions is, will Trump do the same... will he realise he has to do it that way, will he have the resources to do it and get away with it? Has he got what it takes? Snyder is a very switched on analyst on the way these things work and his answer is no. The telling line is that Trump is not like Putin, he is a Yeltsin figure.

“And also, I wanted Muskovia because I wanted the idea of Russia to be there in the background, because a lot of smart Russia hands are saying this all the time: this is kind of like the 1990s in Russia. You have the doddering, rich-but-not-very-rich president [Boris Yeltsin], surrounded by more youthful, more active, ambitious oligarchs. That’s the kind of scenario [America is] in.”

Earlier this week I was bingeing on various articles about the rise of American oligarchy. It is multifaceted, but from my perspective a lot of it has emerged from surveillance capitalism. The modern tech giants have grown out of a new model of business which is untethered from the ethics and constraints which governed businesses and powerful individuals before them.

[stylofone]

(my musing/brainfarts continue)...

The Russian position in the 90s was somewhat similar to the tech bro ascendancy in the 2020s. The Russian oligarchs' money grab was an opportunistic response to the orgy of deregulation and privatisation unleashed by the neoliberal consultants who designed the post-soviet system which Yeltsin was too dopey to comprehend.

The highly profitable wild west world of AI, engagement algorithms and the manipulative power of misinformation is the current US version of the 1990s, when the disastrous Russian trajectory towards Putin's dictatorship was launched.

In the beginning, Yeltsin had to use violence to come out on top after rival political factions tried to overthrow him in 1993. Today, with the Democrats down the toilet, Congress and the Supreme Court pretty much tamed, the US is not in the same position. It's already moved on from that stage, and Snyder's assessment seems to be that Trump is now in the equivalent of the Yeltsin's drunken clown mode. The stage is set for the oligarchs to bring home the bacon, for themselves of course.

It really makes AUKUS look like a very bad idea.

[stevebrooks]

Trumpomuskovia?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/ ... nald-trump

Timothy Snyder says “...we overestimate Trump and we underestimate Musk”

I kind of see it more the other way around. Also, Trump has the fan base, not to mention the state apparatus at his corruptible finger tips. On the other hand Snyder is clearly better informed than me.

The entire point of the Trump Presidency is that the fan base doesn't matter, he only needed them as long as he was trying to get elected, now, as far as he is concerned, they can go and get fucked, they have no influence over him, well only as far as the elected critters in congress can apply, and that's not much really. Now it comes down to who has the most power to influence the coming President, and what influences Trump most? Money, that's it, that's all of it. Musk is filthy rich, richer than Trump will ever be. Trump wants to do something Must doesn't like? Here's a 100m Trump, just do what I say. You see what you got right was the corruptible finger tips, and money drives corruption. Musk is in the driving seat now and he knows it.

Basically unless Trump is willing to pass legislation to curtail the power of billionaires over the white house it's all over, Musk's government, bought and paid for, it will require sensible adults in the room to control the corruption driven by Musk and his billions, and where are they, well they aren't in the room are they?

As for we overestimate Trump, no, Republican's might, but normal people, reasonable people, remember him kowtowing to Putin and Kim, Trump is weak and spineless, when push comes to shove he just falls over. What's the bet his next plan for ending the Ukraine war is for Ukraine to surrender?

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... labour-mps

Tommy Robinson? The informal head of English Nazism? Elon wants him free!

Musk is like some giant toxic fart that has escaped from a volcanic hell-scape and is slowly spreading around the world - a stochastic terrorist, unquestionably, a vampire, a parasite, a malignant growth in the rectum of the world.

Beside all that i'm sure he's a great guy.

[stevebrooks]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... labour-mps

Tommy Robinson? The informal head of English Nazism? Elon wants him free!

Musk is like some giant toxic fart that has escaped from a volcanic hell-scape and is slowly spreading around the world - a stochastic terrorist, unquestionably, a vampire, a parasite, a malignant growth in the rectum of the world.

Beside all that i'm sure he's a great guy.

This bit almost made me giggle;

Several ministers said they thought this should be the trigger for the government to leave Musk’s platform. Others, however, warned that doing so could cause a diplomatic incident given Musk’s role in the incoming Trump administration.

Diplomatic Incident? How? I mean if you going that way the he has already caused a diplomatic incident, for this at least;

The Tesla co-founder and X owner has repeatedly attacked Starmer over the prime minister’s response to the UK riots last summer. He is reported to be considering donating as much as $100m (£80m) to Reform UK, and was pictured alongside the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, and its treasurer, Nick Candy, two weeks ago.

What's this? A foreign billionaire threatening to influence another countries politics, not only that but a foreign billionaire with ties to the future US government, if that's not grounds for a Diplomatic Incident, then I don't know what is, these ministers are bootlickers of authoritarian wannabe dictators!