Summary

Elon Musk’s frequent presence at Mar-a-Lago and his involvement in sensitive conversations have raised concerns among Trump’s longstanding advisers, who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting.

Musk’s push for influence, including voicing policy ideas and taking credit for Trump’s win, has raised concerns about his motives and loyalty.

  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    I can’t really see 2 egos of that size coexisting. I’m terrified of being wrong about that in this case though

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Did you see Don’s face when Elon was doing his jumping shit? Don’s already sick of him, and only keeping him around because he’s worth so much.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      My coping fantasy plays off of their arrogance. Imagine it. On the day of Trump’s inauguration, he admits that climate change is real and shouts, “good luck, suckers,” as he and Musk board a SpaceX rocket bound for Mars.

      A guy can dream. lol

        • GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
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          12 days ago

          You don’t understand though, by being visionaries who disregard accepted margins of safety, they lowered the cost per (attempted) launch by almost 3%!

        • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          I like to imagine them running out of oxygen and food on Mars after weeks of nonstop arguing, expelling their final, hateful words at each other.

          Either way, it’s like having a warm cup of tea under a blanket while I wait out the storm that is my mind.

          • mkwt@lemmy.world
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            12 days ago

            Any trip to Mars is going to involve massive amounts of personal suffering and privation.

            Minimum mission duration of 3 years. Living space no larger than a small RV. All the food is freeze dried. Can you imagine the smell that will develop? If anything breaks, it’s on you to fix it, and there is no trip down to the hardware store, and no United Rentals to bail you out. Any medical complication? There’s no ER, just whatever you’ve got in the kit.

            And that’s not even starting on the chronic radiation hazard for which there is no viable option to deploy shielding. And a freak solar flare can cook you with acute radiation that will kill you at any time.

            Seriously, we’re talking about an adventure that would be way more epic than Shackleton.

            • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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              11 days ago

              Honestly, I am opposed to sending humans to Mars, period. We shouldn’t do it. It’s unethical, a tremendous lapse of moral judgment just to stroke our collective egos.

              There could be life on Mars NOW. There are bacteria that we know of on Earth, that if you transported them to certain locations deep under the Martian surface, would thrive. There are microbes that live in subterranean saline aquifers on Earth, and there are microbes that live in solid rock miles beneath the Earth’s surface. There is no reason that these bacteria couldn’t thrive equally well on Mars.

              We know of Earth bacteria that could thrive under Mars’s surface. Which means it is entirely reasonable to speculate that there may already be bacteria there filling that Martian ecological niche. But if we send people there…we risk contaminating it. We struggle to sterilize our rovers, but we do a pretty good job. But forget trying to sterilize a ship full of dozens of people. Our very gut bacteria are a contamination risk.

              No, I think we should leave Mars the hell alone. And really, I think we have a very reasonable path forward for still producing very meaningful and important exploration of Mars. Look at how well robotics is advancing. Look at the recent Tesla event where they had all those robots wandering around, each remotely piloted by a human operator. THAT is the real future of Mars exploration.

              I think we should simply wait on Mars until we’ve let remote presence robotic tech advance a few more decades. Then, you build such a robot that is durable enough to survive in an autoclave. You do send human to Mars, but they stay in orbit. The humans stay on a craft in orbit, and they remotely pilot humanoid robots on the surface to do the actual science work. This way, you can have exploration that has all the dexterity and flexibility of humans, as humans are able to pilot the robots in real time from orbit. And as an added bonus, your exploratory vehicles can be a lot simpler as you don’t need to bring any crew or samples back from the Martian surface.

              I think we could still exploit Mars as well. If we find that there is no surface life, well then setting up mining activities on the surface isn’t a problem. If humans want to colonize Mars, we can build big orbital habitats from materials we mine on the surface. If, after a long period of study, we conclusively rule out the existence of Martian life? Well at that point we can start surface colonization by humans. Or, perhaps we discover a Martian deep-rock biosphere and fully catalogue it. Then maybe we discover that pretty much every terrestrial body has such a biosphere if conditions are appropriate. At that point, humans might decide that colonizing the surface with humans is worth the risk.

              Anyway, I really do not support sending humans to Mars. We could potentially wipe out an entire biosphere, a biosphere that if it exists, could tell us remarkable things about how life arises and how common it is in the universe. We’re only a few decades out from being able to do really good remote presence robotics. Let’s just hold off on things until we can send humans that can get the full experience of being on the Mars surface, without actually being on the Mars surface.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          12 days ago

          And it explodes on the launchpad?

          That is an acceptable outcome.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    12 days ago

    who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting

    … that’s one way to put it.

  • h6a@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    He’s also the only appointee who’s sharing his power with someone else. Ramaswamy and Musk will not work well together.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    The only redeeming feature of this whole sorry mess will be watching those hyaenas constantly tearing each other apart.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    Trump has a habit of burning everyone close to him the second it is either (A) useful to him or (B) they are no longer unswerving loyal to their fuhrer. Musk is a dumbshit nepobaby who can’t shut the fuck up and steals credit for everything he’s near that he didn’t ruin. It’s only a matter of time before Trump burns Musk, and all I can ask for is that it completely ruins them both.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        Musk is far richer than Trump could ever dream of being. Trump might be president, but Musk can use his money to get away with anything.

        So it will be a fun fight to watch.

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Please let them be too busy fighting amongst themselves these next four years they just are unable to get anything destructive done.

      • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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        11 days ago

        I’m sorry for being harsh, but the only reason the democrats exist is to slow down the fascists ever so slightly and then just peacefully hand over power to the fascists when they gain control again.

        We need real change, the kind of change that only comes from a revolution. The democrats do not give a shit about you. They serve only the wealthy.

        Stop believing their lies. Go out there and unionise!!

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      12 days ago

      That’s the plan. But while the government is ineffective, big businesses will have free reign to fuck us over.

      • Laurel Raven@lemmy.zip
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        11 days ago

        At least that wouldn’t be some new dystopian nightmare. Just the same old run of the mill dystopian nightmare we’ve already been living in.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      12 days ago

      I am 100% in favor of teenage drama derailing their efforts to remove bodily autonomy from women.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    It’s funny… I said that when Trump dies it will be total chaos because all these people hate each other and they will all work as hard as possible to tear each other apart since Trump is the only thing that unites them.

    Maybe we won’t have to wait for Trump to die.

    • Rin@lemm.ee
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      11 days ago

      I hope we don’t have to wait for the dorito to die. I just hope it happens within the next 4 years.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Trump’s longstanding advisers, who view Musk as overly assertive and self-promoting.

    Sounds like “trumps longstanding advisors” are worried they did all this work to get trump in power to use him are seeing musk come in and begin to use trump instead of them.

    • londos@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      He’ll have them sign something saying they were never advisors at all and he was there from the start.

    • whithom@discuss.online
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      11 days ago

      People should be afraid of musk. He’s gone completely mad with power. He doesn’t have to BE the president to be the hand in the puppet. Trump would be difficult to control, but whoever follows trump will be hand-picked.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      11 days ago

      Honestly, once Trump gets sworn in, I assume the people around him who want to implement Project 2025 won’t have any more use for him. That’s why Vance is there, just look at his track record, he knows how to play ball.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      12 days ago

      Pretty much. His advisors have quietly expressed “concern” to the media about a lot of things, and they go nowhere.

      Every once in a while, it does. Laura Loomer seems to have been forgotten. That might just be Trump getting bored with sleeping with her, though.

  • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    I’m pretty sure a little over half of the conservatives hate Musk just as much as the left does. He painted himself as a victory factor when in reality he’s just a liability. Conservatives don’t like the reminder that Trump got less votes this time that in 2020, and I like to say Elon is why.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Elon almost certainly earned votes for Trump by

      1. Funding a shit ton of election ads
      2. Using Twitter to push propaganda
      • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        I begrudgingly have to concede and acknowledge that you are correct. That being said, he still did so indirectly as his name and ugly fucking face weren’t attached to those.

  • niucllos@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    Oh please let Trump’s first dictatorial move be to strip Elon of his wealth. We’re all going to suffer some shit but let at least one oligarch stuffer too

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      It can start by denaturalizing him since he lied on his immigration forms and was in the country illegally when he first came here. That’s not even dictatorial, it’s the letter of the law.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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        “First they came for the Oligarchs and I did not speak out - because I was not an Oligarch, and really because wage inequality is the core problem facing our society so coming for the Oligarchs seemed like a pretty good idea to me.”

      • Tower@lemm.ee
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        12 days ago

        It’s not to piss them off, but to send a message. Just like Putin, he’s going to put the screws to somebody wealthy to send the message “I did it to them, I can do it to you.”

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        You do realize that all the billionaires don’t have the same motives. A lot of billionaires would love to get rid of some of their peers.

          • Strykker@programming.dev
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            11 days ago

            Bezos might get a kick out of Elon and SpaceX getting their shirt kicked in a bit so Blue Origin or whatever can swoop in for those tasty government contracts