Trump allies should be ‘worried’ about relationship with billionaire: historian

Although Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X, formerly Twitter — was critical of Donald Trump at times in the past, he became a strong supporter during the 2024 presidential race. Musk was a major donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and now, the president-elect is calling for Musk and MAGA businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new advisory committee that would be named the Department of Government Ethics (DOGE).Historian/author Timothy Snyder discussed Trump’s relationship with Musk in an interview with The Guardian published on New Year’s Day 2025. And Snyder emphasized that there will be negative repercussions for Trump if he is too reliant on Musk during his second term.Snyder told The Guardian, “I think we overestimate Trump, and we underestimate Musk. 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.”READ MORE: The terrifying reality of Trump’s second term: Your job, savings and freedom are at riskThe historian/author continued, “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.”During the recent budget fight in Congress, some Democrats jokingly referred to the Tesla/SpaceX CEO as “President Musk” — which angered Trump.Snyder told The Guardian, “All the threats that Trump is now going to issue – ‘I’m going to primary people, I’m going to sue people’ — Musk is going to pay for that, not Trump. And when Trump needs money for anything, he’s going to be asking Musk.”Snyder continued, “Unless Trump breaks it off right now, he’s going to be in this kind of dependent relationship for the rest of the way, because you get used to people giving you money.… and I think if you were a friend of Trump, you would be worried.”READ MORE: ‘Terrible situation’: Conservative congressman laments chaos plaguing GOP House majorityRead The Guardian’s interview with Timothy Snyder at this link.

Read Full Article