It’s been two weeks and two days since Election Day. In that time, Elon Musk has camped out at Mar-a-Lago, inserted himself endlessly in Donald Trump’s meetings and calls with world leaders, and openly bragged about how he delivered the swing states for Trump. During that same time, Trump’s people have been briefing about how much they hate Musk and how he’s a big, weird creep. The Trump-Musk alliance is not built to last. In fact, according to Rolling Stone, the Trump people were fully prepared to lose the election and hang the loss entirely on Musk. Some highlights from this funny and frightening piece:
Trumpers were ready to burn Elon Musk: Had Donald Trump lost the 2024 election, several Republicans close to him, GOP lawmakers, and conservative megadonors would have been quick to blame his top billionaire surrogate: Elon Musk. In fact, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, a number of these sources — including one senior Trump campaign official — said they were each willing to go on the record with Rolling Stone about how furious they were at Musk and his America PAC operation for comically botching the Trump ground game in the battleground states, thus blowing the presidential race for Trump. The catch was: These sources were only willing to vent, with their names attached, if Trump actually lost. And some of these Republicans were indeed anxious that he would.
Musk is a loser: “What a loser,” said a source close to Trump, who agreed to allow their quote to be used anonymously for this story, to show what they would have publicly said of Musk, had Vice President Kamala Harris won the election. “Donald Trump was right to call Elon a ‘bullsh-t artist’ … A tenth-grader could have run a better [operation] in the swing states.” The Trump campaign official went as far as to concede to Rolling Stone that “we never should have outsourced” so much of the ground-game operations to that “very strange man.”
Things are worse now that Trump won: Yet the embattled former president nevertheless came out on top — and now Musk is more firmly embedded within the MAGA and GOP elite than ever, to the frustration of some of the president-elect’s longtime advisers. They are, at least for the time being, stuck with him, due to a victory that many in the MAGA upper crust see not as the result of Musk’s efforts, but in spite of them. At this moment, he is a protected man in Trumpworld, in the good graces of key members of the Trump family, Tucker Carlson, and other MAGAville luminaries, and the president-elect — even though a few short months ago, Trump was privately trashing Musk as “boring” and awkward.
Not built to last: There are numerous sources close to Trump — big donors, incoming administration officials, lawyers, even some who like Musk — predicting that the Trump-Musk bond is not built to last. This is largely based on Trump’s tendency to loathe sharing the national spotlight, as well as the inevitable friction you get when two titanically large egos — both of whom came into this 2024 alliance with wealth, fame, and political muscle — become so intertwined. There are some Republican figures who predict Musk might just get bored and bail.
There’s also stuff about how Musk apparently got into a public confrontation at Mar-a-Lago’s dining hall with one of the senior transition people. It’s sort of funny to me that all of the beefs are between Musk and Trump’s people, and not Trump himself. In some ways, it seems like Musk’s larger scheme has paid off – at some point this year, Musk plainly decided that there was an opening to “run” Trump and get Trump elected and then make Trump into the guy he wanted. The thing is, Musk has a childlike understanding of the government and how to wield power. The same is true of Trump.
There’s also a section of this RS story where Republicans were absolutely panicked in the final month before Election Day because Musk’s America PAC was so poorly organized and the campaign had basically outsourced all of their ground game to Musk. Which reminds me, yet again, of how f–king weird it is that Trump won all of those states with basically no resources on the ground.
Also: please enjoy a photo of Musk with a wig-free Donald Trump??
Elon loves Diet Coke pic.twitter.com/uApjU2jJGO
— Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) November 17, 2024
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Instagram.
- Miami, FL – Tech CEO Elon Musk arrives at Carbone Beach to enjoy a 7:30 p.m. to midnight dinner event in Miami. Pictured: Elon Musk BACKGRID USA 4 MAY 2024 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
- Washington, DC – Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Mike Johnson (Republican of Louisiana)speaks during a meeting with House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC. Pictured: Elon Musk BACKGRID USA 13 NOVEMBER 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
- 10th Annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles Featuring: Elon Musk Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 14 Apr 2024 Credit: Faye’s Vision/Cover Images
- Elon Musk listens as United States President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with US House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC Featuring: Elon Musk Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 13 Nov 2024 Credit: Allison Robbert/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
The staff is not wrong about Musk. But have they taken a good look at their boss?
All the rumors about the “bullet ballots” in the swing states are just confusing me. I don’t get how that supposedly worked to help Trump or what Musk’s Starlink had to do with it. If anyone understands this conspiracy theory I would love an explanation in plain English.
Bullet ballots are ballots where only one candidate , Donald Trump for president, was selected. The conspiracy theory is that this happened almost exclusively in swing states. The problem centers on the”election deniers” who broke into voting systems in 2020 and 2021 and spread the information they stole around who knows to whom.. They were looking for vulnerabilities. And serious election security experts think they may have found them. A time-limited exploit would not show in the pre-election logic and accuracy test, it would only become active on Election Day itself.
In Presidential Races since 1980, these bullet ballots rarely account for more than 1% of the total votes including in Trump’s winning 2016 and losing 2020 , and when they do it warrants further investigation. In 2024 in the 43 non-swing states, bullet ballots make up a nominal >1%. The argument is that the bullet ballots are much more than that in the 2024 swing states — but no one knows for sure.
I have been so averse to hearing anything about a corrupt election, especially through Starlink. That is so believable it is scary.
It is already a blow enough how this election went; I don’t even know how we would take on an election that rigged. Dems overall don’t seem to want to take this on. I really really hope the election was an honest one–because we are doomed otherwise. I mean, we may be doomed already. But if we have Musk manipulating election data through Starlink, I don’t know how that would ever get exposed and ended.
“Dems overall don’t seem to want to take this on.” I can see why, especially if you’re one of the people who put the “ick” in Democratick party by openly trashing the sitting president who is the top of their party. There’s not nearly enough soul searching by Dems fomenting the ‘old fogey Biden’ narrative that was immediately amplified by RW media.
The “old fogey” narrative started on the right. It didn’t gain traction with Dems until the debate from hell on June 27th.
I know what bullet ballots are and that they supposedly were much more prevalent in swing states. Apparently, this is why Kamala lost states to Trump which the Dem Senate candidate won with fewer votes than Kamala. After that, it’s pretty unclear how this conspiracy actually worked. The dumbf**kery after 2020 from Trump’s minions could have been a factor I suppose.
I saw a Thom Hartman YouTube video featuring a data scientist who looked at this. He said the law is that only the individual harmed has standing to request a recount. That’s Kamala. I just assume she had a discussion with Mark Elias of Democracy Docket immediately following the election and he told her what he has stated publicly. That there was no fraud. In that case, she will not request a recount without rock solid evidence of fraud, not just “concepts” of a possibility of fraud. In other words, I fully understand her reluctance to act like a whiny baby a la Trump and blow up any future plans. It’s totally unclear if there can even be a recount based on the sketchy premise of too many bullet ballots or over votes.
Thanks everyone for your input!
@Brassy Rebel – Sounds like somebody missed the 2/16/24 valentine that thought leader Ezra Klein delivered to Biden in NYT, replete with phony sympathy, then followed up on in New Yorker, etc. Why on earth would the electorate have any faith in a political party whose members are openly and viciously trashing the top of the ticket? Why would the electorate want to take a chance on the #2 of that ticket when she becomes the replacement? And why wouldn’t the electorate believe RW BS amplified on Xhwitter that Biden and Kamala are fighting? Spineless Democrats turned their party into the Democrat-ick party.
We should take bets on who leaves the Trump Administration first, Elon Musk or RFK jr?
I mean…at least Musk’s assigned job is a fake one? I’d rather RFK is out first because his campaign of lies on vaccines scares the ever living f-ck out of me.
That last photo. One of the celebitches on here commented a few days ago about how Mike Johnson was so clearly the kid who didn’t get to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table at school and now that he’s in this inner circle with Musk and Trump, he is so eager to do anything to please them and be in their photo ops.
Right?!? Mike Johnson looks like he’s photobombing them in a bunch of photos. His desperation is almost tangible.
What a bunch of freaks. I’m already reading about how Trump’s body language, at their latest joint appearance, indicated his subordinate status. Can’t imagine Musk will last long after Trump starts reading this kind of stuff.
“how f-king weird it was that Trump won the swing states without basically any resources on the ground”
I’m not a conspiracy type of person but I believe it was won through some fraud. Not necessarily through bullet ballots. (I know we lost the hispanic vote but it was bigger than that) The Silicon Valley gazilion$ were made on software & computing and Musk’s behavior is a tell. Plus every post-Dobbs election we saw such a strong voter response. I don’t think that same demographic would ‘keep their gunpowder dry’ for the guy who created the scenario for Dobbs.
I think there are some questions around whether “ground game” matters any more too. If people are being fed a constant stream of disinformation online, someone coming to your door might not matter.
The thing is Trump didn’t need a ground game. His voters have been locked in since 2016.
The various pollsters and journalists who are stunned Trump won don’t seem to understand Trump’s base is MASSIVE. It’s not just the rabid nitwits that act out at his weird rallies. It’s also the people in our communities that go to church, teach in our schools, coach our children’s sports teams, work at our grocery stores, cook and serve our food, handle our legal and financial plans, work in all levels of our government agencies, run our Scout troops, etc…
They are nice, normal people who are nice and friendly to everyone (even to the marginalized people)…until they fill out their ballots. Then they deliberately vote for the hate and bigotry candidates. They aren’t brainwashed, they are accepting of the hate and bigotry because they hate and they are bigots.
There is no fraud other than the media not accurately reporting on Trump’s base and on Trump himself.