Summary
Musk is trying to backtrack on his previous demands to shut down the government.
Elon Musk initially supported a government shutdown, criticizing Republicans who backed a continuing resolution and calling for no new bills until Donald Trump retakes office.
His posts on X encouraged GOP hardliners and contributed to chaos in Congress.
After a bipartisan spending bill failed to pass, Musk blamed Democrats, ignoring that 38 Republicans also voted against it.
Facing backlash for his earlier remarks, Musk is now deflecting responsibility as House Speaker Mike Johnson struggles to avoid a shutdown.
I wonder if Trump will scapegoat Elon for this and fire him before taking office to prove that he works alone.
Firing Elon would deflate Musk’s stocks and net worth, maybe even knock him off the richest man slot. A lot of that wealth is speculative gains priced into the market under the assumption that Musk will be very influential in Trump 47, and that he will use that position to benefit his businesses.
Trump wants to send the message that he, as president of the united states, has the power to dethrone the world’s richest man with a simple “you’re fired”. Trump wants to make sure that the world knows that he rules alone, and that he has more power than money can buy.
Trump doesn’t need to get reelected again. He doesn’t need Elon manipulating the twitter algo anymore. Donny already won and got everything he wanted from Elon (assumption). Why should he keep playing with Musk if he’s just going to keep getting tied up in all this stupid drama?
Seems very Trump-like to knock him down a peg for his hubris and let him come crawling back in a year or two. I think most of the world agrees that someone needs to do something about Musk’s ego. It would probably give him a popularity boost to start his new term.
disclaimer: this is a prediction, not a recommendation or an approval of these tactics.
EDIT: I was going to wait until after inauguration day for this, but considering the MAGA civil war… If this prediction resonated with you, and turned out wrong, you should reanalyze your understanding of the relationship between Musk and Trump.
Hundred per cent, Donny is using Elon and will throw him under the bus at the first chance. You know what looks worse than a normal loser? A billionaire loser
using Elon and will throw him under the bus at the first chance
I think you’re giving him far too much credit. Elon is there because DT lacks object permanence. Once elon dissapears for 10 minutes, or DT sees some advantage to throwing him under the bus, he’ll be gone. He doesn’t have the mental capacity to use someone, he’s like 2yo playing in the living room with toys.
I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. He won the presidency twice despite an array of charges that threatened to put him in gaol and would’ve ended the political career of anyone else. You shouldn’t like him, but underestimate him at your own risk
i selfishly approve and with limited cognition recommend these tactics
trump and elon are the two biggest divas on the planet and i hope the inevitable fallout between them hurts as many rich people (emotionally) as much as possible
too much fucking pride in this country. be ashamed for once, fuckers.
FAFO?
No shit. Turns out being the world’s richest failson is not a super useful skill? Who knew?
Oh, did someone brief Musk in between ketamine hits?
Sure, if “to brief” is analogous with “to pants”.
Guarantee he hasn’t realized shit. In his mind, it was the best idea in the world when he had it, and now it’s the best idea in the world to walk it back. He’s so brilliant, he was right twice about the same thing.
Whoever wrote this headline hasn’t met a true narcissist.
The guy has basically admitted takes K to not face personal accountability.
If that’s true and he’s not a full-blown sociopath with resistance to the impact of his actions, we just have to wait is for him to need to dose up so high he never leaves his k-hole and we can get back to never talking about him ever again.
That’d be nice but seems unlikely
It’s pretty hard to OD on K, if not impossible in most cases. So not likely. I share your desire to stop hearing about this asshole though.
You basically have to deliberately try to OD on ketamine, and even then you’re unlikely to be successful if you’re snorting it, easier if you’re injecting it. It was created to be a safer alternative to morphine
Not only that but he tweeted something around 100 times that day. Someone got their “special medicine” and went on a bender confident they knew everything. And now they’ve come down and they’re confident they still do but can’t admit they were off their gourd for a day. Like a typical narcissist yes.
He’s 2 steps ahead and we’re just tripping over each other while wallowing through his feces trying to compete up
I wish actual bad things would happen to musk.
At the very least I wish that every morning he steps on a 4 sided die and a handful of Lego’s.
A d4… fuck, remind me not to get on your bad side lol
Or even if something good like being able to learn from mistakes. Seems so unlikely.
Can we focus on realistic outcomes?
Spoiled children don’t have the capacity for that much emotional Intelligence. It’s physically impossible.
For Former Husband to Canadian Author Justine Musk to realize that they do not have the ability to realize that they can’t govern would require self-reflection. Fairly sure, Estranged Father to Vivian Wilson does not have the ability to self-reflect.
Oh, you mean the President of the United States, Elon Musk?
Republicans: Have a majority in the House
House spending bill: Fails to pass
How could Democrats do this??
See I’m not saying nothing horrible is gonna happen.
I just saying Im not as scared as the doomers.
They’re all so fucking hungry for power they’re gonna eat each other before we have to worry about eating the rich.
Fingers crossed.
Musk has been positioning himself pretty well to be a single big bad. I’m hoping he can cause enough fracturing and dysfunction to kill Project 2025
He is an insufferable weakling who is probably gonna be a focal point of hate within the Republican party. Also he is a South African, regardless of all other factors he is a foreigner and I hope he gets the Mick treatment.
I hate Musk far more than I hate bigotry, I encourage open bigotry and racism against the rich. At least then its useful.
Well no to your last point, it’s long past suppertime.
What I don’t get is why anyone in power (except maybe Captain Cheeto) actually bothers to listen to him in the first place. It’s not like he has any actual authority. Congress is absolutely free to ignore him entirely, and they should — regardless of which side of the aisle they’re on.
He can use his money to support challengers in their next elections. He’s already said he’s going to do this to the Democrats. As we’ve seen with AIPAC recently, it doesn’t take much money to unseat politicians. Musk has enough money to basically control congress.
Because he’s paying off Trump’s legal debt is my best guess.
I could be wrong, but that’s my head canon at least.
Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
Shouldn’t have run for President then. 🤷
He can’t. He’s an immigrant, and technically not even a legal one.
Deny. Defend. Deport.
Musk is doing the setup for a joke, because back in the day we had “Boehner loses control of his caucus.” Now it’s Johnson’s turn.
Next time I hear that government should be run like a business…
The response is easy…
“That’s exactly what Musk thought”
Musk’s inability to govern should have become apparent when he fired everyone at Twitter, scrambled to hire them back, and then got caught failing to do basic things like “pay rent”.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/14/twitter-is-being-evicted-from-its-boulder-office-over-unpaid-rent/
Like when he did the same thing at spacex and Tesla?
I can’t tell if this is satire or not.
I’m confused, why is he walking it back?
Because he cares about “looking like he was right the whole time”, because he’s a narcissist.
