It’s been quite the week and the late Friday news dumps is likely to be one for the books. As the week unfolded it was clear a true rift had developed between Trump and Musk and rhetoric heated up. Yesterday the words and actions escalated into truly high stakes brinksmaship. It could lead to annihilation of both MAGA and Musk worlds. However time and again Trump has talked big only to back down which has led to the term TACO. Musk is still appallingly rich but has lost HUGE sums and looking at losing more so he too might be making chicken squawks of his own these days.
Us old farts, and younger ones that paid attention during history classes in school know how at time the Cold War between the U.S/NATO and the old USSR would flare up sometimes. Sometimes with actual proxy military fights but in other ways too. Who could have known a freaking hockey game in the 1980 Olympics, the “Miracle On Ice” would become a flashpoint? Through it all the threat of each side unleashing their thousands of nuclear tipped ICBMs hung over it all. Mutually Assured Destruction, commonly known as MAD was what kept it from happening. It’s not widely known or thought about but that’s not the only time we came awfully close to the worst. However those weeks in October 1962 played out publicly and as I said for weeks. Lots of posing and sabre rattling threats took place, and that’s what I see going on with Musk and Trump. They are now solidly in a personal political version of MAD.
Each I believe can in fact destroy the other. The world’s most powerful man vs. the world’s richest one who holds more power than most people realize. Musk’s salvo about cutting off the Space Station is one huge shot across Trump’s bow. He’s fired shots across our country’s bow before via cutting back or cutting off parts of Starlink at times, but he’s done it with other countries too including Russia and China. He has via Space X all manner of highly classified stuff he can share with our enemies. He’s basically threating Trump and the U.S. at this point.
For his part Trump has the power of the DOJ to wield and could, thanks to SCOTUS immunity ruling order Musk’s arrest and detention at any time. I can’t help but wonder if Musk is being closely watched in case he climbs on a private jet and hightails it out of the country! I don’t see Musk choosing to make like Eric Snowden and settle in Russia but I think he’d be fine with doing so in China. And China would treat him quite well for a price! Anyway I doubt at this point Musk could flee and if he tries long before he gets away safely his jet would be shot down by the Air Force or Navy. Trump’s talk of investigations is HIS major warning shot across the bow.
So from where I sit they are now firmly locked into “MAD” mode. The only question in my mind is whether one will ‘fire their arsenal’ and the other respond in kind – a if I’m going down I’m taking you with me exchange. Or instead will they will each realize )and soon) they’d better de-escalate. Which brings me to the second part of the title of this. By now TACO as in Trump Always Chickens Out has become part of the lexicon. Because of the truth in it, it really gets under Trump’s skin. Even the orange gunk he paints on his face every day. For reasons I’ll get to the ever transactional Trump might have some brief periods of lucidity where he coldly looks at his options. And will look for a face-saving off ramp. It will be one bigly TACO. For him one filled with sh!t but he might decide he’s got no choice.
Musk, who’s ego is every bit as big and delusional at Trump’s is also capable at times of cold and calculating assessments of his situation and options. Tesla is how Musk made most of his fortune and it was down by half from a year ago at the beginning of this week. He had a very black Thursday, or rather red one as in red ink. Telsa stock lost over $140 Billion in a single day. That’s enough to make Musk say ‘Uh Oh’ and the Board of Tesla look at lot harder at removing him entirely! Add in having to spend a fortune in legal fees and seeing Space X operations (including Starlink) caught up in all manner of red tape might make him look for an off-ramp to. But in Musk’s case it wouldn’t be TACO but MACO – Musk Also Chickens Out!
Trump can do far worse to Musk than gut EV subsidies. He can do a number on Space X too. He can also have AG Bondi whip up criminal charges on both business dealings/’contract fraud’ and also on national security grounds. He can accuse Musk of sharing top classified information! Hell, there might even be admissible evidence of both. However all the scandal would mean losses so great for Musk that he’d no longer be the world’s richest person. Or even in the discussion. He could find himself being reduced to a mere multi-billionaire. For you or me having ten or twenty BILLION would be awesome but not for someone like Musk. Trump can do that to him and the only question is does he realize it in time.
For Musk’s part again I don’t think the Epstein tweet was some off-the-cuff type of thing. Especially as Xitter had a series of posts of Trumpty and Epstein partying it up with hot women with more (I’m sure) to follow. I think it’s entirely possible he’s got the goods, or at least enough to finally ruin Trump and here’s why. A lot of very important and rich/powerful people felt their blood run cold when it came out Epstein’s NYC home was wired to record goings on. People are on video doing things and with people they don’t want to get out. (There’s probably sound too) People with either money Trump has only dreamed of until now, or who via their jobs control such money. Or both.
Plenty of people besides Trump had a vested interest in keeping Epstein from talking. If anyone actually believes Epstein committed suicide I’ll be glad to cook up and serve them a Trump Steak they can wash down with a bottle of Trump Vodka on Trump Airline! Anyway, we know Trump attended his share of parties there. We also know there are allegations not all of his trysts there were consensual. This is after all Trump so those allegations have credibility. Ok, so DOJ came in and gathered all that, and all sorts of written records up.
Does anyone think for a second Epstein didn’t have MULTIPLE backups stashed away? I’ll bet that’s why Ghilane Maxwell is still breathing. If anything happens to her procedures are in place for the internet to be flooded with all manner of awful things Trump and others can be seen doing. But wait, there’s more. The USSR broke up but there were an awful lot of KGB agents around and many wound up working for the Russian govt. again. Putin wasted no time ingratiating himself to Yeltsin and had friends from his KGB days. We also know that perhaps as far back as the 1980s, even before the fall of the old USSR Trump might have been considered a possible target for recruitment.
There’s certainly plenty of indication Putin has if not actively cultivated Trump as a potential asset since before the mid 1990s he at least made sure the proverbial file/case was kept open. “Water the seed” at the very least. Now, consider that and the size of the Russian govt. presence in NYC. PLENTY of Putin’s old KGB associates were among them. Trump’s partying ways and his relationship with Epstein was well known. It would have been child’s play for seasoned KGB operatives to get recordings of video Epstein’s cameras captured! Maybe that’s what Putin has had on Trump all these years. Why would he need a pee tape of Russian hookers with Trump if he had video of (multiple times?) sexually assaulting women at Epstein’s place? I think that would be ugly enough that even MAGA would lose their faith in Trump. Or at least not punish elected officials who turned on him.
It’s only a theory on my part but one I believe fits the facts. We know Musk has had his own direct dealings with Putin. Also, with his money it would be easy to come to an arrangement with Maxwell to get his hands on incriminating stuff along these lines. If Putin hold on Trump is from this and he’s threatened Trump it’s not hard to imagine him telling Trump Elon has some of it too! If I’m right, between that and documentation of quid pro quos Musk could ensure a third Trump impeachment. And if so perhaps it wouldn’t be so unthinkable that enough GOP Senators would finally do what they should have the first two times. I’m betting Musk has the goods.
So we’ve got a situation where if they each sit down and calmly game it out each can in fact destroy the other. Both are spiteful enough to do so “just because” but it’s equally possible each will have an “Oh SH!T” moment and mutual feelers will go out to ratchet down the rhetoric. That neither Trump or Musk will be able to stick to any truce is a subject for another time.
For now Trump AND Musk are playing their political version of the Cold War’s MAD. The question is whether it will resolve into TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) and MACO (Musk Also Chickened Out) – T&M. For a while at least…
“He can also have AG Bondi whip up criminal charges on both business dealings/’contract fraud’ and also on national security grounds.”
Well this might not be quite so easy as there’s a story out there that Bondi’s facing an accusation before the Florida Bar of “serious professional misconduct.”
(Full story at https://www.aol.com/bondi-accused-serious-professional-misconduct-231513851.html though the article cites, and apparently originated at, a Miami Herald article.)
From the article: “Bondi’s record as the head of the Justice Department is being slammed by close to 70 law professors, attorneys and former Florida Supreme Court justices via a Florida Bar ethics complaint filed Thursday, according to the Herald.
In the complaint, the group alleges Bondi has breached ethical duties in her current role and that “serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice” has been carried out by the attorney general, the Herald reported.”
So, if Bondi does something to do Drumpf’s bidding against the Muskrat, it’s only going to add to the case against her. Of course, Bondi probably feels she can do whatever she wants–especially Drumpf’s bidding–as the article has a statement from the Justice Department holding “out-of-state lawyers” as being behind the latest complaint (as if that makes any difference–“professional misconduct” is professional misconduct, regardless of who makes the accusation or who perpetrates the misconduct. A state’s bar association is not simply going to ignore a misconduct charge even if it happens in a different state and when the subject is the Attorney General of the United States, that becomes a SERIOUS case. I’m not sure that the US AG is required to be a practicing attorney or not–sources I’ve done a quick glance at seem to indicate it’s not a requirement but all AGs have had legal training since the post was first established. (The actual duties of prosecuting and defending legal cases–the original reason for the AG position–seem to fall to the Solicitor General and/or the White House Counsel.)
It seems I wasn’t as clear as I might/should have been. Like other insanely rich people most of Musk’s wealth is tied up in assets of some sort. Buildings, land etc. and also stocks and bonds. Yes, there’s the value of the land on which Musk’s production facilities sit and the buildings and equipment (rockets ain’t cheap!) but the lion’s share is the value per share of his stocks. For someone of his wealth selling off ten or twenty million worth of stock for a quick cash infusion for some reason is no big deal and won’t affect the price per share. However one of the things Trump and the GOP have been accused of in recent times is manipulation of the stock market. Investors can make money when the Dow and Nasdaq tank if they are prepared for that to happen, just like they can make out like bandits when those things go up.
Remember, when something big tanks in stock price those with money to spare can gobble it up if it’s a blue chip asset because over time it will recover. Those with enough money actually count on being able to do this because they are so rich they have the luxury of time. Many months, even a couple of years for the price to recover. However, taking steps to tank a stock or the overall market so you can swoop in and grab stocks at a discount is a crime. A felony in fact. But that’s just what those who know how this works say has been done at times this year via the yo-yoing on tariffs for example.
By using, or more accurately abusing the powers of his office Trump can do a real number on the price of stock Musk owns in his companies, Tesla in particular. Of course, Musk is much more connected with the players in crypto currency than Trump and I’m sure with those who do their stuff on the dark web. Crypto is I believe for Trump that “Big Score” con artists spend their lives dreaming of. I don’t trust it and never have nor do I know a lot about “Bitcoin” and the like but I’ll bet Musk has the ability to fuck Trump to death on this one. That’s likely some news some poor Trumpy has to deliver to him soon if they haven’t already.
But getting back to using the DOJ/Bondi Trump can seriously damage the price of Musk’s assets just by announcing specific investigations. With actual charges being filed even more so. Such cases, the white collar financial kind take a long time to play out legally. More than enough time to strip a vast amount of Musk’s wealth. Think of it like Trump trying to extort the then new President Zelensky. It was a ‘just announce you’re investigating him, you don’t have to follow through. I just need you to announce it and I’ll take it from there’ mess than got Trump impeached when it became known. And Trump could have and would have played the hell out of that to kill the candidacy of the one person he feared could beat him – Joe Biden.
My point is that DOJ doesn’t have to win any conviction(s) to accomplish what Trump wants.
I don’t think maxwell has anything. she wouldn’t be sitting in a cage for the rest of her life if she did. along with musk it’s not good enough to know stuff you have to be able to prove it. now musk might have the goods. part of the reason his boys were wildly rooting around everywhere was so people couldn’t really see what they were getting into. their efforts were no doubt not as random as they appeared and they were able to hoover up all sorts of useful information including doj files.
as for epstein, by his own estimation he had a very good life. when he was denied bail he realized that life was over and he didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be interested in spending the rest of his life in prison. I don’t see suicide as much of a stretch. if trump pardons maxwell then I’m probably wrong but he hasn’t made any noise about that yet even though he has said nice things about her in the past.