Allies and aides to Donald Trump should be increasingly concerned by Elon Musk’s proximity to and influence on the US president-elect, the Yale historian and bestselling author Timothy Snyder said.
“Trump is a little guy, and Musk is a big guy when it actually comes to having money,” Snyder said. “And I think if you were a friend of Trump, you would be worried.”
Snyder expects that Trump’s soon-to-be home, the White House, will be a stage for uncomfortable and damaging discord between the president-elect and his most powerful ally, the world’s richest man.
“I think we overestimate Trump and we underestimate Musk,” Snyder said. “People can’t help but think that Trump has money, but he doesn’t. He’s never really had money. He’s never even really claimed to have money. His whole notion is that you have to believe that he has money. But he’s never been able to pay his own debts. He’s never been able to finance his own campaigns.
“Musk, with an amount of money that was meaningless to him, was able to finance Trump’s campaign, essentially.”
His power comes from the fact that he is so unpredictable (and petty) coupled with the inexplicable fact he was given the most powerful role in our government makes me at least estimate him as a huge threat.