If he does cut Musk loose, yeah, Tesla is toast. But Trump instinctively defers to money. So long as Trump hasn’t cut Musk loose, Musk is “the richest man in the world”. Trump may not want to risk letting all that money, in the hands of an open, shameless manipulator of US politics, go offsides.
OTOH Trump might realize, The can ruin Musk. Then there’s no money left for retribution, nothing to worry about. He could pull his own Khodorkovsky. All I got is 🍿
* He not The… (i want my edit button!)
Tesla’s fundamentals are Musk’s access to the state. That’s pretty hard to value!
new revenue sources on the horizon. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system
Link Preview: Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system: A top Treasury career staffer is expected to depart. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.
This is fine. Musk wanted access to the literal spigot of Federal money in a way that made the totally nonpolitical guy who supervises it, a guy Trump and all his Project 2025-ers had been happy to reappoint, feel like he had to resign. ht @marisakabas.bsky.social
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We are all so proud of our great corporate champions. 40yrs.blogspot.com/2025/01/ecch...
yes. that's certainly my perception, which partly motivates the question. i can't believe no matter how badly D leadership fails us — we're at serious risk of full blown fascism! — the faces at the head of the party are always people who've been there for years or have just waited their turn. 1/
the lack of accountability ex post, or incentive ex ante to take outcomes rather than fundraising seriously, drives me nuts. /fin
it is very debilitating of democracy that our choice of our most direct Federal "representative" (for 760,000-ish people, that's a weird word) is so often is basically completely removed from the risk and energy that might come from a meaningful election.
Good idea or bad? "Ensure every Congressional Democrat in 2028 faces a meaningful primary challenger." (at first blush: upside is accountability for ppl some of whom seem to worry abt more abt risking their jobs than risking the country; downside is primary challenges might cripple in the general.)
To be fair to Trump voters, he presented himself as isolationist and antiwar, before he was elected.
Normie white dude: This renaming shit is just stupid. Let Ulysses S. Grant Elementary stay Ulysses S. Grant Elementary. Yes, the Black Hills. It was 150 years ago. I mean, even Robert E. Lee Elementary. Who cares? Let's get real stuff done. Trump: Have I told you about the Gulf of America?
9/11: “They hate us for our freedoms” 1/6: “They free us for our hatreds.”
is there a list of domains where Congress has imposed mandates the Trump Administration would characterize as DEI, so we can monitor the degree to which it is “tak[ing] Care that the laws be faithfully executed”, at least until it can persuade Congress to change the laws, as is its right to try?
“it turns out that most Americans are uninterested in acting like a belligerent asshole on the global stage.” @dandrezner.bsky.social danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-pretty...
The Pretty Prudent American Public
Link Preview: The Pretty Prudent American Public: Turns out that most Americans do not like being expansionist assholes on the global stage.
i think it’s not the loudness of influencer culture but its intimacy that renders it effective. which is not inconsistent with temperance and quiet confidence! influencers (very sadly) substitute for friends, and the people they talk to are part of your friend group, and gain the trust that implies.
we have to learn to appreciate the small pleasures.
Screenshot from e-mail inbox, from Facebook, subject, "Your account is scheduled for permanent deletion"
because the energy industry is in their coalition. you don’t want people to be efficient about the product you sell.
i always used to wonder what it would feel like to live in a golden age.
i feel that way every day.
it might not be right to say the Trump Administration's garish chaos-monkeying contributed to the crash. maybe. but we don't really know that. nevertheless, it's a whole lot less ridiculous a claim than any attribution of blame to "DEI". ferchrissakes.
i'm not dissimulating i'm dissembling.