To see the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, dancing and jumping like Mick Jagger on Trump’s campaign stage, showing off his midriff and belly button, is a reminder of the truth: money is the mother’s milk of politics.
That’s not to say that huge sums of money are solely the job of the Republican Party.
Democrats have far outpaced Team Trump this year, raking in a cool billion since Kamala Harris entered the race. Big donors helped force Joe Biden off the ticket — even the presidency was no match for them.
The difference is that Donald Trump — a candidate whose main calling card is his own wealth — has always made an effort to personalize his billionaire backers.
In Trump’s last White House, Wilbur Ross (Commerce Secretary), Steve Mnuchin (Treasury Secretary), Betsy DeVos (Education Secretary), and Linda McMahon (Small Business Administrator) all became personalities as well. as centers of power.
To see the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, dancing and jumping like Mick Jagger on Trump’s campaign stage, showing off his midriff and belly button, is a reminder of the truth: money is the mother’s milk of politics.
Donald Trump – a candidate whose main calling card is his own wealth – has always taken pains to personalize his billionaire backers.
They also all got their jobs mainly because they showered Trump with cash.
In the past, big donations might have gotten you an ambassadorial title, but under Trump you could buy real power.
It’s one of the stark and baffling contradictions in Trump’s politics and personality: He is the populist candidate speaking to the economically disenfranchised working man, who simultaneously surrounds himself with and commands the attention of some of the world’s brashest billionaires.
Trump’s most basic personal identity is that of a billionaire, and his personal comfort zone – on the golf course, at his various clubs and in making business deals – is part of that.
Cut to 2024 – and the rising billionaires in Trump’s inner circle include John Paulson, now often discussed as a possible next Treasury Secretary. Paulson was a little-known investor before the 2008 financial crisis. But by betting on the housing market, he made $4 billion almost overnight.
Making money is fundamentally different – and bears no resemblance – to regulating the economy and financing the government, but Paulson has squandered his wealth on Trump’s three presidential bids and now travels frequently as part of Trump’s entourage.
In April, Paulson hosted a dinner at his $110 million Palm Beach mansion for a long list of other billionaires who netted the Trump campaign more than $50 million.
Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, got rid of Trump after January 6 and even tried to keep him off Fox’s airwaves, but is now believed to be in regular contact with him back in the fold – with Trump once again the star of FoxNews.
For my podcast (“Fire and Fury – the Podcast,” hosted by James Truman), I recently interviewed media mogul Barry Diller, who chided his fellow plutocrats for their willingness to overlook Trump’s character solely for their own economic interests .
Of Murdoch, Diller – who helped Murdoch set up the Fox network – said ‘while Rupert has been anti-establishment all his life, he has also aligned himself in the most erratic ways with whatever the establishment of the moment is. ‘
Jeff Yass — the Pennsylvania investor whose secret wealth may put him at the top of the billionaire pile — is one of the biggest investors in TikTok, a Chinese-controlled company that Trump has long attacked and called for its ban in the US. or separated from his Chinese overload.
After Yass became one of the largest outside investors in Truth Social — the social media network in which Trump personally has a 60 percent stake — Trump suddenly became a TikTok booster.
But returning to Elon Musk, who with $247 billion in the bank may be in a whole new league. Musk is lavishly funding a variety of Trump-related super PACs, as well as his own massive “get out the vote” effort in Pennsylvania — offering Americans $47 for every swing-state voter they recruit to the MAGA cause.
Earlier this month, he received an invitation to take the stage during the ‘Return to Butler’ rally.
What does Elon want?
Musk is said to have made his support for Trump dependent on Trump choosing JD Vance, who is only 40 years old, as his running mate.
Trump was originally against electric vehicles, which, as the founder of Tesla, are the basis of Musk’s fortune. But now Trump is for them.
But Musk, the visionary, probably sees further than that.
Each election tends to accentuate the alignment of a particular demographic group, or the strength of a new center of power. 2024 may go down in history as the year of the tech bros — a group, including billionaire Trump donors Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison, with perhaps more individual financial clout than any before it.
Oddly enough, there is a belief that it is not so much Trump that the tech brethren support, but his Vice President JD Vance, whose career has been fueled by tech money.
Musk is said to have made his support for Trump dependent on Trump’s choice of Vance, who is only 40 years old, as his running mate.
Think about this: On the first day of a new administration, Trump becomes a lame duck — unable to run for a third term — and the jockey tasked with replacing him starts with his eyes already on Vance.
Diller described Musk’s mind in his recent interview with me as “spacious, but often confused.” By generous, he meant that Musk has been a visionary who could correctly imagine the contours of the future. Musk sees the steady rise of technological power in the new AI world and may already be looking ahead to the complicated regulatory war with the government that the tech bros will have to wage to come out on top.
That’s the strategic power play he may be making, with Vance as his proxy.
But then you also have the ‘corrupted’ part of Musk’s mind. There are the drugs he proudly consumes, the multi-wife lifestyle that produces his twelve children, and the $44 billion he spent on Twitter to alienate half his audience.
With $247 billion, you probably think you can do anything – and that no one can stop you. Billionaires are not subject to the same rules as the rest of us.
As Musk danced and twirled, his T-shirt rising to his chest on Butler’s stage, Trump seemed to look at him in bewilderment and even horror.
What happens when the megalomania of your billionaire supporters turns out to be even greater and more demanding than yours? Is that the new world Trump envisioned on the Butler stage?