How Do You Solve a Problem Like Elon?

Plus: Zuckerberg joins the surrender parade

No, it’s not your imagination the zone is flooded today with bullshit. Amid his rants about windmills, Donald Trump refuses to rule out using military force to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal and says he wants to change the name of Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Meanwhile, Judge Aileen Cannon blocks release of Jack Smith’s report; Meta and Mark Zuckerberg go full beta… and the POTUS-elect may be realizing that he has a problem with the man he’s made his Shadow President.

From Der Postillon

Happy Tuesday.

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But let’s start with the day’s most interesting news. Eli decided he wanted to climb into the bathtub this morning.

Fortunately, he settled for just climbing up and looking out the window.

So, that problem was resolved relatively easily. This next one may be a bit trickier…

Trump’s Elon Problem

I do not claim that I can fathom the mind of the incoming president. But there are some signs that he may be starting to realize that this whole co-presidency is a bit problematic.

“Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot,” the NYT’s Maggie Haberman told Kara Swisher yesterday.

That’s understandable, of course, because the limpet-like Musk is objectively annoying. But at some level Trump must ken the central dilemma of this relationship: Elon Musk is the one person in his orbit that Trump can neither fire nor cancel.

Trump can flick Marco Rubio aside like dandruff; brush Mike Johnson off like an errant crumb; turn Pam Bondi into Nikki Haley by midnight tonight. His orbit is filled with botoxed disposables who hang upon his favor; courtiers who can be stripped of their livelihoods and status — and exiled from MAGA altogether — if they offend the Orange God King. Trump can’t fire JD Vance, but he could destroy his truckling veep’s political future with a single Truth Social post.

Not so with Elon Musk.

Musk is the world’s richest man; a cult-figure in his own right, and the master of his social media domain. Now, in part thanks to Trump’s own patronage, he also holds sway over much of his domestic agenda via DOGE. If that were not enough, Musk is rapidly fashioning himself into a global power broker — with a decidedly Trump-like flavor.

Indeed, the two men seem to be dueling for attention — vying with one another with competing distractions, as Musk conducts his own independent foreign policy.

He’s inserted himself into German politics by endorsing the far-right, Neo-Nazi party there; has embroiled himself in controversies involving Italy’s immigration policies; and has launched a furious attack on the government of Great Britain, where he is playing an increasingly intimate role in right-wing politics.

Indeed, Musk yearns to play a Trumpian role abroad; and he’s already demanding Trumpian levels of kowtowing. Consider this episode from England:

Musk has loudly promised to help massively underwrite Nigel Farage’s anti-immigrant Reform Party. Just last week, the two posed for chummy picture together. But over the weekend, Musk dumped Farage — via social media, of course — declaring that the “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.”

Farage’s fatal sin? He dared to disagree with the Trumpian paymaster. Via NBC:

Farage has distanced himself from comments made by Musk in support of British anti-immigration and anti-Muslim activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, who is serving a prison sentence for contempt of court.

Farage responded to Musk’s post on Sunday saying: “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.”

To summarize: Elon Musk’s foreign policy not only includes backing right-wing parties throughout Europe, but — like Trump — Musk also wants to pick and choose the leaders of those parties. Like Trump, he relishes cancelling party members who display any sort of independence. And, like Trump, he loves doing it by tweets.

But even though he is leveraging Trump’s favor to extend his clout, it’s also clear that Musk thinks of himself as a sovereign actor. He’s going rogue, acting on his own, without necessarily clearing any of it with Mar-a-Lago — and without much apparent concern whether he might embarrass either Trump or this country.

Musk’s behavior has already generated a backlash from American allies. The leaders of four European countries — France, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom — made public statements criticizing Musk’s attempts to influence their countries’ politics.

“Who could have imagined, 10 years ago, that the owner of one of the world’s largest social networks would intervene directly in elections, including in Germany?” asked French President Macron.

But the only opinion that really matters is Trump’s — who has resorted to his own grand gestures and dueling distractions: Greenland. The Gulf of Mexico. The Panama Canal. Canada.

So far, Trump has kept Musk close. When the wannabe-oligarch set off the MAGA scat fight over H1-B visas and foreign workers, Trump quickly sided with his rich friend over his base. And it’s unlikely that Trump is especially bothered by Musk’s foreign affairs, since they basically hate the same people. At least for time being, Musk’s DOGE is also useful, because it’s still just smoke and mirrors.

But there can only be one Master of the Universe — and the two men are in very different places in their lives.

Trump is about to ascend the mountaintop, but he will immediately become a lame duck.

Musk, on the other hand, believes that the future belongs to him.

So sooner or later, something has to give. But Donald Trump hasn’t figured out yet how to get rid of his troublesome billionaire.

Zuckerberg zucks up

The surrender of billionaire toadies continues with Meta’s mark Zuckerberg, who really put the lickspittling back in groveling this week.

First, we learned that he had named UFC head and Trump ally Dana White to the Meta board of directors. He followed by posting a hostage-video-style announcement that he was ending fact-checking on Facebook. And he sent Facebook exec Joel Kaplan to fawn over Trump as (I shit you not) a “big defender of free expression.”¹

“There’s no question that there’s an opportunity here with the new president taking office, as I said, who really believes in free expression. And that’s just going to give us the space to get back to those values that Mark has talked about for a long.”

FFS.

**

To what can we attribute Zuckerberg’s MAGA red-pilling?

Mediaite’s Colby Hall had some thoughts about what he called Zuck’s “stunning pivot” towards Trump.”

One motivation? That upcoming antitrust suit that Zuckerberg’s company Meta is facing in April. The lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission alleges Meta has a monopoly-style power in social media through acquisitions of other platforms beyond Facebook.

“It’s a stunning pivot from Mark Zuckerberg being kind of the nerdy kid at MIT to this sort of curly haired necklace wearing jiu jitsu guy who’s clearly appealing to the Trump administration when [there’s] a big antitrust suit that they’re facing in April. So it’s a pretty stunning pivot on a number of levels,” Hall said.

Zuckerberg and others want to work “hand in glove” with Trump in this second administration, he added, which is also exemplified by Zuckerberg teaming up with Trump allies, like making UFC’s Dana White part of Meta’s board.

“Trump once said that he was going to put Mark Zuckerberg in prison for life. Cut to late November, Mark Zuckerberg was dining with Trump at Mar a Lago,” Hall said. “So I think Facebook’s pivot on moderation reflects what Elon Musk was doing on X, and it’s a clear signal that they want to work hand in glove with the Trump administration.”

Mark Cuban has some additional thoughts:

Trump’s take on Zuck’s pivot?

Nota bene:

Something else Trump & Co. don’t want you to hear.

Finally

Everything Trump touches dies. “Rudy Giuliani is held in contempt of court in $148 million defamation case : NPR”

NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court Monday for failing to properly respond to requests for information as he turned over assets to satisfy a $148 million defamation judgment granted to two Georgia election workers.

Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled after hearing Giuliani testify for a second day at a contempt hearing called after lawyers for the election workers said the former New York City mayor had failed to properly comply with requests for evidence over the last few months.

Liman said Giuliani "willfully violated a clear and unambiguous order of this court" when he "blew past" a Dec. 20 deadline to turn over evidence that would help the judge decide at a trial later this month whether Giuliani can keep a Palm Beach, Florida, condominium as his residence or must turn it over because it is deemed a vacation home.

The actual courtroom sketch.

1. Except of course for his lawsuits against ABC; his lawsuit against Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer; his suit against CBS for how it edited an interview with Kamala Harris. And don’t forget his lawsuits against the Pulitzer Committee and against Simon and Schuster because Bob Woodward published a book that included verbatim quotes from him.