President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk have locked themselves into a partnership that would be almost impossible to break without mutual destruction, a CNN columnist wrote Monday.
Stephen Collinson shared his conclusion while focusing on the MAGA “civil war” triggered by Trump’s siding with Musk in recent days over support of visas for foreign tech workers — which many in his MAGA base say goes against his America First agenda.
Collinson wrote the MAGA uproar posed the question — how long will Trump stand for criticism that Musk is the one really calling the shots in his upcoming administration?
But, he wrote, the dynamic of the two makes it impossible for them to part ways without major damage to each.
“The uproar over tech visas also revived one of the transition’s most intriguing questions. How long will Trump tolerate Musk’s capacity to dominate political debate in a way that only he can match?” Collinson wrote.
“Skeptics are convinced that the president-elect will soon tire of Musk’s ubiquity. Democrats have already tried to fracture their relationship by referring to 'President Musk.' And the lesson of Trump’s first term is that those who overshadow him soon find themselves exiting his orbit or becoming a scapegoat when things go wrong.”
But, he added, Trump has never had a relationship like this one.
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“There’s no modern precedent for a faction of a president’s power base being led by someone as rich, mercurial and powerful as Musk with immediate access to a mighty social media network,” he wrote.
“...Both Trump and Musk have huge incentives to stick together. Musk will never be able to replicate the inside government perch that he can use to promote his interests. And Republicans will be banking on the SpaceX chief’s financial might as the midterm elections approach after he poured tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s 2024 campaign.
“But a deeper reality may postpone a possible schism between Trump and Musk. Each has the capacity to wreak destruction on the other. The president-elect will soon be able to wield the federal government as an instrument of revenge. But someone as social media savvy as Trump, who’s spun falsehoods into a reality to which millions of Americans are committed, would surely balk at making an enemy of the man who controls X.”
