Middleboro Review 2: The only man who might be having a better week than Donald Trump

Friday, November 8, 2024

The only man who might be having a better week than Donald Trump

November 8, 2024

When Elon Musk first bought Twitter, only to set the social media platform ablaze into the broken hellscape it is today, I believed that we as a society would soon be disabused of the belief that Musk knows what he is doing—and that, in good time, we'd no longer have to hear about him.

I was clearly wrong, and gravely so. But as we sit anxiously on the cusp of a new political order, I don't think many of us have fully grasped the immense power Musk amassed the instant his political bets paid off with Donald Trump's reelection. It's not simply that Musk will now be hanging around the White House, or that another tech billionaire has a president-elect on speed dial. As my colleague Anna Merlan writes:

Musk and Trump both said during the campaign that Musk will head a "Department of Government Efficiency," which they have floated could slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion, a strategy that could throw the country into economic chaos. While there’s also no guarantee that DOGE—a jokey acronym referencing Musk’s favored cryptocurrency—would actually come to pass, such an arrangement would see Musk wielding power over agencies that are currently investigating his companies, including the SEC, which is probing his 2022 acquisition of Twitter.

Need a concrete example? As I was literally typing this newsletter, the New York Times reported that Trump had Musk join him on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shortly after his victory became official on Wednesday.

Anna has more on Musk's vision. Put it all together and clearly the richest man in the world is having one helluva week. And I'm deeply sorry for it.

—Inae Oh

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MOTHER JONES MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

WHAT CONSTRAINS AN AUTOCRAT?

The guardrails protecting democracy may have buckled, but they are not broken. The election makes clear that autocratic forces are ascendant in America—yes, it can happen here and did—but the story isn’t fully written. Truth-telling independent media is one remaining bulwark against Trump’s unrestrained exercise of power. He rails against the press as the “enemy of the people,” because like all liars and extremists, he hates the scrutiny that comes from fearless investigative reporting.

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