Elon Musk doesn't realize he's the fall guy

Stupid is as stupid does.

There’s an old joke about how if you forgot to do your homework, you pretend you actually did, but say “the dog ate it” to cover up your lie.

That’s similar to what I see happening now with Elon Musk, Trump, and Trump’s ongoing autocoup.

Trump has always enjoyed the company of useful idiots. Be it Robert Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as States Secretary of Defense, or Tulsi Gabbard as his Director of National Intelligence (the satire writes itself these days), he continuously surrounds himself with useful idiots who pass his loyalty tests and does whatever he wants them to do. Enter the richest person in the history of history, Elon Musk. Elon is just another useful idiot to Trump, too stupid to see that he’s being played and will be discarded once he’s outlived his usefulness.

“The best people”

The official count of Trump v1’s appointees and staffers who were either fired or resigned varies depending on how you count. But the Brookings Institution, who has tracked presidential turnover since 1980, found that his “A Team” (members of the executive office of the president) had a turnover rate of 92%. And his “A Team” replacements had a turnover rate of 45%. So nearly all of his staff were either fired or quit, and then half of the people replacing them were either fired or quit.

We even have Trump to thank for a new unit of time; a Scaramucci. This, of course, refers to the 11 days that The Mooch was Trump’s Director of Communications for The White House.

I always try to be careful and particular with my word choices because I appreciate the different meanings each word carries. An example of that is the word “stupid.” I consider the definition of “stupid” to mean someone who is unable or unwilling to think of what happens next. It’s someone who either does not have the mental capacity to think ahead, someone who is so hyperfocused on the present that they’re incapable of thinking about the future, someone who is so arrogant to think that they’ll figure the “future” part out once they get there, or someone who foolishly thinks they’re too smart to ever make a mistake.

Elon Musk is stupid.

Let’s look at how other oligarchs have fared outside the United States.

Perhaps the most prominent klepto-oligarchy today is Russia under Vladimir Putin. Putin rose to power with the help of his oligarchs. Once he was president of Russia, he successfully consolidated power and became an authoritarian who imprisons his political rivals and holds fraudulent elections. In 2003, when Putin decided that the owner of Yukos (a private Russian oil company) had outlived his usefulness to him, he had Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev (the heads of the company) imprisoned. Other high-level individuals in the company were also jailed (additional reading).

More recently, since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a curious number of Russian oligarchs have suddenly died or “self-defenestrated” under mysterious circumstances.

I say Elon Musk is stupid not because I think he’s dumb. He’s clearly smart, and though he hasn’t really created anything new of his own, he’s made smart investments in buying different companies (and subsequently pretending as if he created them). I say he’s stupid because he very clearly doesn’t have a great understanding of history, and can’t (or refuses to) envision where this is heading for him.

Perhaps Elon isn't the fall guy. Maybe he's Trump's Roman Stuntman? 🤔🤷🏻‍♂️

There will come a point when the wider public opinion on DOGE will shift. A majority of folks in the US either don’t pay attention to current events or only read a headline here and there. But there will come a point when they are forced to pay attention, because DOGE will cut funding for a government service they use. This may come in the form of social security payments, funding cuts for rural healthcare centers or nursing homes, funding cuts for the Department of State (the agency that issues passports), cuts to the FAA resulting in more air disasters, or perhaps even a data leak resulting from the DOGE team’s mishandling of sensitive government and personal data (if you got your tax refund direct deposited, DOGE has your bank account info and who knows what else, after all).

Once this shift starts, Trump will begin to distance himself from Elon. This is why Trump appointed a well-known figure to such a prominent role (in addition to donating $288 million to Trump’s campaign in 2024). Trump is going to claim ignorance of Elon’s actions, despite Elon’s actions more or less lining up with goals outlined in Project 2025. Claiming ignorance of Project 2025 itself was Trump trying to establish plausible deniability; he pretended to not have any knowledge of it despite former Trump officials authoring it and other contributors currently working in his administration (I’m sure that’s all just a crazy coincidence!).

Trump has never done his homework. He’s never had to do his homework. He’s never had to be held accountable for anything in his life, even when he’s found guilty of defamation against E Jean Carroll or convicted of 34 felonies in criminal court.

Trump will simply say everything is his dog’s fault.