“The future is gonna be fantastic,” America’s unlikely kingmaker posted on X, above a photograph of his Starship rocket blasting into space.<\/p>\n
It was, after all, Elon Musk<\/strong> who strapped boosters to Donald Trump’s campaign<\/strong> and helped propel him to a decisive victory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The world’s richest man bombarded his 200m+ followers on the platform he controls with pro-Trump content, some true, much false.<\/p>\n There’s also evidence that, since Mr Musk endorsed the president-elect, X algorithms amplified pro-Trump content.<\/p>\n “I don’t think this race would even be close if it wasn’t for what Elon Musk was doing with X and showing people what is going on,” said Mr Trump’s eldest son – Donald Trump Jr – in a polling day podcast.<\/p>\n Throw in Mr Musk’s tens of millions in campaign donations to Mr Trump, million-dollar giveaways to voters, appearances at his rallies and podcasts supporting him, and we have ourselves a winner.<\/p>\n US election latest – world congratulates Trump<\/strong><\/p>\n But what is in it for Elon Musk?<\/p>\n First is the role promised to him by Mr Trump as head of a new Department Of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n This would give the billionaire the power to scythe through US federal bureaucracy that both he and Mr Trump say has long held America back.<\/p>\n Mr Musk certainly feels it holds him back. Environmental and safety regulations have, at times, delayed his break-neck rocket testing programme and the rollout of self-driving Tesla robo-taxis.<\/p>\n Mr Musk nicknamed the would-be new department DOGE – a reference to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency he often promotes – so quickly you wonder if the idea was his all along.<\/p>\n Removing regulatory barriers to his own business interests, or cutting contracts for his more cumbersome, government-dependent rivals like Boeing, would clearly appeal.<\/p>\n But Mr Musk is also ideological and wants to go much further – arguing there is $2tn (\u00a31.55tn) in inefficiency to be slashed from the federal budget.<\/p>\n Many economists think this would be insane, gutting budgets for healthcare, education, science, environment and welfare, tanking the economy and fuelling unemployment.<\/p>\n But Mr Musk didn’t become the world’s richest man by doing things by half.<\/p>\n His purchase of Twitter<\/strong> for $44bn (\u00a334bn) in 2022, was seen as a spectacularly bad business move. Does it look that way now?<\/p>\n Mr Musk also wants Mr Trump to deliver on his promise to promote the cryptocurrencies he backs ideologically and is invested in financially – even a plan to use a crypto price boom to pay down America’s $35tn (\u00a327tn) debt.<\/p>\n And Mr Musk’s gamble in backing Mr Trump is already paying off. The value of his companies like Tesla has grown, if X and Space X were publicly traded, it’s expected they’d have soared too.<\/p>\n The price of cryptocurrencies has also shot up at news of Mr Trump’s victory, including meme coins like Dogecoin – long regarded as junk even by most crypto investors.<\/p>\n The Trump-Musk relationship takes America into new, very uncertain territory.<\/p>\n Big business has always sought influence in government – but never has the relationship been this close or exclusive.<\/p>\n And never between two men as madcap and morally removed from the mainstream.<\/p>\n But will the relationship endure?<\/p>\n Mr Musk might bring the White House Silicon Valley<\/strong> expertise and cash. He has promised to continue his America PAC donations<\/strong> to support Republicans. His control of social media is a formidable tool for the Trump administration.<\/p>\n However, Mr Trump’s plans for aggressive tariffs could destroy Tesla’s business with China.<\/p>\n Mr Musk has said “f*** oil,” while the president-elect calls it “liquid gold”.<\/p>\n Then there’s the two men themselves. Mr Trump has said he will accept only total loyalty in his new administration.<\/p>\n Can he – more his famously fragile ego – tolerate a man with greater wealth, a clearer mission, and possibly even a larger ego than himself?<\/p>\n Mr Musk is famous for not suffering those he sees as fools, and a willingness to blow things up in his dogged pursuit of success.<\/p>\n This could all end with a bang.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The future is gonna be fantastic,” America’s unlikely kingmaker posted on X, above a photograph of his Starship rocket blasting into space. It was, after all, Elon Musk who strapped boosters to Donald Trump’s campaign and helped propel him to a decisive victory. The world’s richest man bombarded his 200m+ followers on the platform he <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}