President Musk flexing his muscles even before puppet inauguration.
One thing I wondered is what would happen if Putin and Musk disagree at some point about what Trump is supposed to do? But the answer is actually easy: whoever strokes Trump's ego better at the time gets their policy through. Trump lives in the moment.
what would happen if Putin and Musk disagree at some point
Nothing significant. Musk is running on a purely American strain of right-wing revanchism. Trying to deflect all our problems onto Evil Foreign Man is a big part of why the country is as fucked as it is today. We simply cannot let ourselves believe that the fascist strain gripping our country by the taint is American born and bred. So every four years, Republicans accuse the Democrats of being Chinese and Democrats accuse the Republicans of being Russian, and then the parties do old fashioned American Protestant Capitalism to the country while we all writhe in torment, looking for someone else to blame.
I don't know, I still think Putin has info on Trump that Trump really doesn't want to be public for whatever reason. So I'm thinking he would defer to Putin.
I used to think that, but there's nothing Trump could have done that the loony right wing public wouldn't gleefully dismiss as not important. (Well, apart from a lewd orgy with trans Muslim Mexican immigrants, but I don't think any of those exist, and Trump would just call it faked anyway.)
Now I think that Putin just rings him up to tell him what a great president he is and all the world admires how strong a leader he is, not like those weak Democrats who (insert policy Putin wants dropped), no, Trump is a strong and courageous leader and everyone can tell how strong and virile he is because he supports policies like (insert policy that Putin wants implemented).
I mean maybe there's a video of Trump shouting "Yes, shove that big beautiful black dildo in me harder!", but I don't think it's necessary at all. See how easy it was for the North Korean president to get Trump to completely change direction. He just sweet talked him for a bit. Trump is an absolute sucker for someone he perceives as strong telling him he's great. American foreign policy is at the whim of any world leader who can make Trump feel proud of himself for a week.
Putin probably gave him a few billion to buy him. It's peanuts money for an oligarch. Putin could reveal the amount and banking details, how much was invested into the different building projects Trump is so proud of.
For him it's not so much a worry about losing people as it is a personal branding ego thing. He's payed off people for stuff that was already known and his supporters didn't care about just to not mention again.
They just wouldn't believe it. They wouldn't accept that it was real, and any investigation would either confirm that belief or be obviously political and corrupt.
"There's a big secret that somebody knows that will totally sink Trump's career at long last and if we can just find what it is and tell everyone else we'll win" is a lie liberals have been feeding to one another for thirteen years running.
We have him glad-handing Jeffery Epstein and nobody seems to fucking care. We have him on record paying off prostitutes and taking bribes from the Saudis and implying he'd like to fuck his daughter. We have videos of him saying insane shit about having sex on a yacht during a speech to the fucking Boy Scouts. We have him rambling incoherently about "Eating the Dogs and the Cats" in the middle of a national debate.
But don't worry, there's something even deeper and weirder and crazier. And that's going to make all the difference.
And that's why he's friends with Vladimir Putin. It's certainly not just that they're both white nationalists who agree with each others' politics.