How Elon Musk eclipsed JD Vance as Trump’s real running mate

Elon Musk has spent so much time at Mar-a-Lago since the election that Donald Trump’s 17-year-old granddaughter Kia posted a photo of herself with Musk and his 4-year-old son on TikTok with the caption: “Elon achieves uncle status.” “

Even before this past week, the tech billionaire had been a star attraction at Trump rallies, pouring at least $200 million into voter turnout and promising to give away another million a day to random Trump supporters in the final days of the campaign . Cameras captured the 53-year-old jumping for joy as he shared the stage with the man who will become the future president.

“Novus Ord Seclorum,” he wrote in X, which is Latin for “New World Order.” Because of Trump’s fascination with wealth and celebrity, Musk has the ability more than anyone to shape this new order.

He is unlikely to join Trump’s administration – he has too many conflicts of interest – and suggested that Trump create an efficiency commission to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion. He has agreed to lead such a panel and is warning voters to prepare for hardship.

As Trump assembles his team for a second attempt at becoming president, proximity is power – and it’s not his official vice president, JD Vance, who is on the ground weighing the decisions. It is Musk who was on the phone when Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the President of Russia. Musk’s Starlink Internet satellite service is essential to both war-torn countries.

Meanwhile, Vance is back home in Ohio, preparing for his meteoric rise from Silicon Valley tech investor to vice president in just two years. In a clip aired on Fox News, he said that he and his wife Usha had lost friends because of his alliance with Trump.

His sponsor is Donald Trump Jr., who campaigned for Vance’s candidacy and knows better than most how his father can trample people. Musk is a naturalized South African citizen and is ineligible to run for president.

Vance is the heir to the throne, and like any vice president, he knows his place and has to wait for the right time. His role is currently undefined, but his office will likely become the center of the New Tech Right as it builds its political power.

While Vance figures out his job, Musk is a critical player in U.S. national security, whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House. “Starlink wasn’t meant to get involved in wars,” Musk told author Walter Isaacson in his 2023 biography of Musk. “It was about people watching Netflix and relaxing, getting online for school and “We can do good, peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

Musk threatened at times last year to withdraw Star Link from Ukraine, which he had made available for free. He then said the US government should adopt the bill before withdrawing both demands.

The tussle reveals the problems when the government relies on a fickle outside donor for national security. Now the outside funder is on the inside, bringing with him an outsized intellect that, when it chooses, grasps the world’s complexities in a way that eludes Trump, a master of instant gratification.

The COP 29 climate conference, just beginning in Baku, Azerbaijan, highlights the challenge that lies ahead if Trump withdraws again from the 2015 Paris climate agreement as expected.

In 2017, Musk resigned from two presidential advisory boards in protest, saying, “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”

This time, Musk is our only hope of maintaining some sanity on the matter. He got into the electric vehicle business because he was worried about fossil fuels, and Space X because he wanted a backup planet if efforts to combat climate change failed.

Musk’s latest obsession is population growth, putting him at odds with those more concerned about an overcrowded planet and not enough resources. He believes that smart people should have more children and that IVF is an efficient way to achieve this goal. Trump declared himself the “Father of IVF” in a Fox town hall with Republican women in the battleground state of Georgia.

It’s Musk who is Trump’s real partner, not Vance, who we haven’t heard much about as Trump gets that rarest of chances – another presidency. Voters remembered his first term as a time of prosperity and peace. The pandemic was never discussed during the election campaign. It was a national trauma that we collectively forgot and never held Trump accountable for his lies and lack of leadership in dealing with what was coming. Biden did the cleanup and paid the price for the inflation that followed.

That was then and now, and the new alliances forming around Trump – with Musk as the most intriguing figure at the center – hold promises we cannot ignore. Forget “one president at a time.” The new world order is here.