Other Democrats have begun calling Musk, not Trump the president. President Musk. What do you make of the role that's built off of that that Musk is playing here? I mean, who is in charge, do you view in terms of who you have to negotiate with? That's a great question. I don't have the answers right now. [00:00:15] I think that the narrative is going to be driven by president elect Musk. I'm sorry. I mean, Trump. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech overlords who appear to be running Trumps second term agenda, rely on highly skilled immigrants to power their enterprises. [00:00:32] There is this ongoing and growing narrative in the mainstream media and among Democrats that the real incoming president is not Donald Trump. It's actually one of his billionaire donors, Elon Musk, that he's really the shadow president. And there are some reports alleging that as a result, [00:00:50] Donald Trump is souring on Elon Musk. And that is, if you are to believe, some of the anonymous sources who spoke to Mediaite about this matter. So they say that Trump is allegedly growing weary of Musk's presence, and that his antics are drawing a little too much media attention that. [00:01:08] Trump doesn't see as favorable. In fact, one person says 100%. Trump is annoyed. This is from a Trump insider who worked on the 2024 campaign and spoke to Mediaite. There's a Chinese saying two tigers cannot live on one mountaintop. [00:01:28] Another Trump insider told Mediaite, quote, there was likely an allure to. The alliance between the president elect and Musk in the beginning, but it seemed like it could go ugly. Trump is Trump. I think it's just the way Trump is. [00:01:44] Someone that is around that much and having influence would be a bother. I mean, the guy came in, gave a boatload of money and wants to take over the place. I'm just going to pause right here. This Trump insider sounds a little bitter, right? Like, I'm wondering if this Trump insider is leaking things that are embellished, [00:02:04] or maybe engaging in some hyperbole to kind of snipe at Elon Musk? I don't know how much of this is manufactured or how much of this is real, but I'll give you one more quote from this individual. They say that the media is portraying Musk as a co-president. [00:02:19] Musk is a character actor. There is only one executive producer, one lead in this TV show, and that is Trump. Elon will have his role, his focuses, but he is meant to disrupt the status quo in Washington and Trump is weaponizing him. [00:02:34] So with all that chatter in mind, Jake, how real do you think this is? Or do you think that this is kind of manufactured in order to, you know, basically put a wedge between Trump and Elon Musk? First of all, a quick note for the audience and us at home today, because two [00:02:53] tigers cannot be on the same mountain. People are saying, okay, so this is a real conundrum for Donald Trump because it's the two things he loves most money versus MAGA. So the one thing that he's good at, and this could lead in a very bad [00:03:12] direction for the country, or sometimes I think it could lead in a good direction, which is he is way more responsive to his MAGA base than the Democrats are to their base, or anybody else is to their base. So as a political figure, that's not such a bad thing. You should be responsive to your voters. [00:03:29] And so now his voters want some things that we massively disagree with. So that could be that's why I say it could be bad for the country in some ways. Right. But but the fact that he's responsive to any voters is such a huge difference than, you know, [00:03:44] my entire career of covering politics, where both corporate Democrats and Republicans couldn't care less about their voters. So, on the other hand, if there's one thing Trump cares more about, it's money. Money, money, money. So and Elon has an infinite amount. [00:04:00] So there's a thousand different ways that Elon Musk can get Donald Trump money while he's in office after he leaves office. And, there's I would be very surprised if Elon Musk didn't suggest some of those ways to Donald Trump already, [00:04:16] and I would be very surprised if that wasn't at the very forefront of Donald Trump's mind. So, so far, we've had a couple of fights and including the H-1b visas, and Trump has come out on Elon Musk's side every single time. Now we have another problem, which is that Elon Musk is uncontrollable, [00:04:34] just like Donald Trump. So if he was savvy and didn't have A.D.D., he would wait for Trump to say something and then he would back it up. But instead of doing that, he's going out in front of Donald Trump and making it appear that Donald Trump is following him. [00:04:50] That is a very, very bad idea. Right. So he's not even bothering to, like, pause for a second to do some degree of political strategy that would be savvy for him. So there is a bit of a freight train collision ahead. [00:05:06] And Donald Trump hates anyone else taking the spotlight spotlight. But he loves money so much. So that's why I got no prediction on this one. I don't know how it resolves itself. I don't know if Musk basically becomes president because he's promised Trump a couple of billion dollars, or at some Trump at some point. [00:05:24] Trump goes very disappointed with the leader of my Doge. Very disappointed. Okay. We're not picking the best anymore. Okay. So and then does Musk try to use X against Trump. Do the people on X rebel against Musk. Those are some serious heavyweight dramas. [00:05:42] And they're almost certainly coming down the pike. And and and I don't know which way it ends. So a couple of things. The whole debate on the H-1b visas. You're correct in that Elon Musk got wrapped up on the in this online debate. [00:05:57] Trump really wasn't involved in it until he was asked about it. And at that point, he sided with Elon Musk in the case of endorsing House speaker Mike Johnson for reelection for the speakership role. Donald Trump was the one who came out and decided to endorse Mike Johnson, [00:06:14] and then Elon Musk followed along. So what I'm noticing. Well, he did. I mean, he said, all right, you have my full support to Mike Johnson. He did, but also told hold on and then told Thomas Massie, all right, let's give him a shot. Let's see how this goes. [00:06:30] But prior to that, prior to Trump's endorsement, he was sharing his discontent toward Mike Johnson and how he was handling the effort to fund the government. That was before Christmas break. So I don't know. We'll see how this plays out. And you're right. [00:06:46] I mean, these types of relationships tend to be a little fragile with Donald Trump. But the other factor in all of this is the insane amount of money that Elon Musk, you know, of course, contributed to Trump during the campaign. And the other thing that I'm noticing jank, is Steve Bannon [00:07:03] hasn't been getting his way. And I wonder if that has more to do with Susie Wiles, his, you know, obviously his the head of his campaign and his incoming chief of staff, or if it has more to do with Trump's just wanting to side with Elon Musk [00:07:18] over the campaign contributions. But interesting things are happening and we'll see how it plays out. Yeah. So a couple more things. So first of all, just to be clear on the Massie thing, Massie's opposed to Johnson. And so when Elon Musk then an hour after he said, oh yeah I agree with Trump. [00:07:35] Let's go with Johnson, then said to Massie, yeah, maybe you might be right about being against Johnson. Let's see how it plays out. That's kind of saying, hey everybody, I don't necessarily agree with Donald Trump, and that's a risky card to play, man. [00:07:52] An hour after you backed Johnson, just giving you a heads up on on the dynamics of that. Elon might not even know. He's not that he has. He's never been involved in politics. And he just blurts out anything that's at the top of his head. So, it might be less strategy and just being a little bit [00:08:08] of an amateur on this stuff. In terms of, Steve Bannon. Yeah. He's being super aggressive against Elon Musk. I mean, he keeps having Laura Loomer on. Laura Loomer keeps pointing out, hey, you know, he's a big donor. And these tech bros aren't really pro-American. [00:08:25] And, and, and Laura Loomer said, hey, maybe we should do campaign finance reform. I mean, what world do we live in? That is amazing. Interesting bedfellows here. Right. And so and and Bannon like, tried to calm her down a little bit [00:08:41] and said, hey, you know maybe there's some misunderstandings etc.. But then he did say bayonets forward and you know that they're never going to surrender. They're never going to give in to any of this stuff. The H-1b visas, any immigration. Now he's saying, let's get rid of all legal immigration. [00:08:57] So obviously I massively disagree with that. But so Siouxsie Wiles has made it tougher to reach Donald Trump. And Siouxsie Wiles has also said that if you're part of the administration, you're not allowed to tweet until you check with her. [00:09:13] The only person who's ignoring that is Elon Musk, because he's not technically part of the administration, also because he's Elon Musk. So, last thing, besides. Which, that's never going to work anyway. - I mean, we know from experience. - Yeah, but I hear you. But like the the smaller characters in that play don't want to mess [00:09:32] with the chief of staff for Donald Trump. Right. And he's given her a lot of latitude. And so they're not going to want to mess with Trump or Musk either. So they're going to want to keep their powder dry like I don't see Stephen Miller jumping into the middle of this, because what if he picks the wrong side and then Trump dumps him? [00:09:48] And remember, he unceremoniously dumped Bannon because Bannon had said some bad things about him in a book. So that's always possible. But last thing is, is it real or is it manufactured this kind of conflict between the two? It's a little bit of both. So look, of course the Democrats and people on the left [00:10:04] are egging this division on by calling him President Musk and all that stuff. And they know that that's going to get under Trump's skin, and that's why they're doing it. On the other hand, yeah, I mean, Trump can be controlled by money. [00:10:19] He has been controlled by money before and Elon has all the money in the world. So. And remember guys in the past Elon gave as in like that. What just happened. Elon gave money to his campaign. Miriam Adelson gave money to his campaign. Mellon did. ET cetera. [00:10:36] But now they could just give money directly to him through a lot of different ways that are now legal, because Donald Trump has a giant public company on the stock market. So at this point, the promises are no longer campaign contributions. They are direct, gigantic potential checks that Donald Trump himself. [00:10:56] And if you don't think Donald Trump cares about that, you don't know the brother at all. So the only red flag that I've seen so far is obviously the allegations that Elon Musk is going to be the shadow president is something Trump felt the need to address, [00:11:13] and he did that while speaking before Turning Point USA. So I just want to play that quick clip. Let's take a look. The new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no, that's not happening. [00:11:34] But Elon's done an amazing job. Trump later joking the South African born Musk, who helped Trump kill the original bipartisan spending deal, couldn't be president. You know why he can't be. He wasn't born in this country. [00:11:51] So I thought that was interesting. Like the the need to address that. I don't know if it's because it's getting under his skin or if he just wanted to make that joke about it. But the whole point of a shadow president is that this individual would not actually be known as the acting president. [00:12:08] It would be the, you know, person behind the scenes, essentially like a puppet master, kind of like how Dick Cheney was with George W Bush. Yeah. The Elon running at some later point when Trump's not in office is not at all relevant. So that comment made no sense. [00:12:23] And as you know, I think that that Trump is wrong about that. I believe that if you're not born in the country, you can't still can run for president because of the 14th amendment. But none of that is relevant. He's deflecting because the real question is whether Musk is controlling Trump, and he's avoiding that by talking about some future election. [00:12:40] But you can tell he's he doesn't like it. And that's not and that's not surprising at all. He hates anyone else getting the spotlight. So that's why it's such a giant conflict. And he's spotlight precious money precious. [00:12:56] And then and by the way, where MAGA is is not at all clear either. There's a lot of tech bros in MAGA, and there's a lot of Bannon fans in MAGA. And then there are people that are not in either one of those camps. So this thing could be a wonderful, interesting mess. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. [00:13:12] Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. 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