Of all the groups celebrating former President Donald Trump’s re-election this week, maybe no one has more of a reason to celebrate than his boosters in the tech world.

Given the key role Elon Musk played in bringing Trump back to office, the newly vocal Silicon Valley right expects a bonanza of industry and “innovation”-friendly de-regulation — and they are celebrating it, very publicly.

President-elect Trump and Elon Musk, two billionaires with strikingly similar DNAs, are fusing into a new, powerful governing-media paradigm, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a “Behind the Curtain” column.

Musk, who threw himself into the presidential campaign this past year, has his hands in several Trump projects:

1. He’s helping pick the Cabinet and top White House staff.
2. Trump handed Musk the phone during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. Musk is expected to attend Trump’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago this week with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei.
3. Musk is working on a project that would sit outside the official government to use technology to find trillions in possible budget cuts — his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE, in homage to the Musk-friendly cryptocurrency).
4. He’s mobilizing his 204 million followers on his X platform to try to elect dark-horse Senate majority leader candidate Rick Scott, a staunch MAGA ally, in tomorrow’s secret ballot election.

Part 2: Trump and Musk’s backstory

Of all the groups celebrating former President Donald Trump’s re-election this week, maybe no one has more of a reason to celebrate than his boosters in the tech world.

Given the key role Elon Musk played in bringing Trump back to office, the newly vocal Silicon Valley right expects a bonanza of industry and “innovation”-friendly de-regulation — and they are celebrating it, very publicly.

President-elect Trump and Elon Musk, two billionaires with strikingly similar DNAs, are fusing into a new, powerful governing-media paradigm, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a “Behind the Curtain” column.

Musk, who threw himself into the presidential campaign this past year, has his hands in several Trump projects:

1. He’s helping pick the Cabinet and top White House staff.
2. Trump handed Musk the phone during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. Musk is expected to attend Trump’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago this week with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei.
3. Musk is working on a project that would sit outside the official government to use technology to find trillions in possible budget cuts — his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE, in homage to the Musk-friendly cryptocurrency).
4. He’s mobilizing his 204 million followers on his X platform to try to elect dark-horse Senate majority leader candidate Rick Scott, a staunch MAGA ally, in tomorrow’s secret ballot election.

Part 2: Trump and Musk’s backstory

Of all the groups celebrating former President Donald Trump’s re-election this week, maybe no one has more of a reason to celebrate than his boosters in the tech world.

Given the key role Elon Musk played in bringing Trump back to office, the newly vocal Silicon Valley right expects a bonanza of industry and “innovation”-friendly de-regulation — and they are celebrating it, very publicly.

President-elect Trump and Elon Musk, two billionaires with strikingly similar DNAs, are fusing into a new, powerful governing-media paradigm, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a “Behind the Curtain” column.

Musk, who threw himself into the presidential campaign this past year, has his hands in several Trump projects:

1. He’s helping pick the Cabinet and top White House staff.
2. Trump handed Musk the phone during a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. Musk is expected to attend Trump’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago this week with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei.
3. Musk is working on a project that would sit outside the official government to use technology to find trillions in possible budget cuts — his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE, in homage to the Musk-friendly cryptocurrency).
4. He’s mobilizing his 204 million followers on his X platform to try to elect dark-horse Senate majority leader candidate Rick Scott, a staunch MAGA ally, in tomorrow’s secret ballot election.

Part 2: Trump and Musk’s backstory

Here’s a brief guide to the Masters of MAGA.

The Inner Circle
Elon Musk, Don Jr., Tucker Carlson, Susie Wiles, Jared Kushner

MAGA Elite
Vivek Ramaswamy, Rep. Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, David Sacks, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Linda McMahon, Brooke Rollins, John Ratcliffe, Elise Stefanik, Bill Hagerty, Ric Grenell, Dana White, Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Barron Trump, Kash Patel, Charlie Kirk, Calley and Casey Means, Nigel Farage, Boris Epshteyn, Stephen Miller, Tom Homan, Steve Bannon

Donors 
Timothy Mellon, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Bill Ackman,Miriam Adelson, John Paulson,Ike Perlmutter, Steve Wynn, Steve Schwarzman, Steve Witkoff, Tom Barrack

Campaign Stalwarts
Chris LaCivita, Steven Cheung, Jason Miller, Sergio Gor, Andrew Surabian, Alina Habba

Wild Cards
Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta, Alex Bruesewitz, Laura Loomer

Oligarchies are unstable.  They have flaws and weaknesses and can crumble quickly.  They have given way to democracies.  But we have to see them for what they are.  We need to see the oligarchs not only as selfish and unpatriotic but as ridiculous.  But the same things that make them ridiculous — the utter self-absorption, the nattering cliques, the pointless struggle for unreal things — make them lethal to the rest of us.  They have entertained their way to power, and it is a new kind of power: an international oligarchy inside the American capital.  If they can entertain their way to power, perhaps we can at least entertain ourselves toward clarity.  Comedy might help us to see the tragedy.  And we should think in other genres, too — next time I will try a little mathematics.

if we want to anticipate what will happen in 2025, if will be more useful to think of oligarchs on an island, starting in apparent unity, dreaming an impossible Russian dream, wreaking bloody havoc, and then coming apart.

For much of the country, October was an extremely hot and dry month. We are currently on pace for 2024 to become the hottest year ever recorded, a declaration that forecasters from the World Meteorological Organization are making with confidence even with more than a month left.

According to the US Drought Monitor, the long periods of hot and dry conditions have left every state in the country facing drought — an unprecedented statistic.

This extreme period of dry weather is a part of the larger picture that scientists have come to expect: that our weather will become more extreme and unpredictable and that we will collectively experience more pronounced swings from incredibly dry periods to incredibly wet periods.

Trump isn’t as cozy with Putin as often portrayed

For example, Trump provided the Ukrainians with anti-tank missiles after the Obama administration had refused to give them such weapons. Also, in 2018, the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing the previous violations of the treaty by Russia. In contrast, in 2014, then President Barack Obama accused Russia of breaching the INF treaty after it allegedly tested a ground-launched cruise missile but chose not to withdraw from the treaty.

In 2019, Trump signed the Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act, which included sanctions halting the construction of the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline directly connecting Russia to Germany, via the Baltic Sea. The pipeline, which has since been rendered inoperable by a sabotage attack in 2022, would have bypassed Ukraine, prompting the Ukrainian government to label it an “economic and energy blockade.” It was one of 52 policy actions undertaken by the first Trump administration to restrict Russia.

So do something you can control. I raked my lawn, then raked my elderly neighbor’s. That didn’t solve everything, of course, but it felt good.

I’m also changing my information diet. For example, I’m not reading or commenting on the inane takes, often from prominent, highly paid pundits, that the election was decided by their long-running personal bugaboo. You already know what they’re going to say.

And the Rubio pick is the rule, not the exception. In each of his Cabinet and senior staff choices so far in his 2nd term, Trump is moving faster — at times MUCH faster — than he did in 2016.

• Secretary of State: Rubio (11/11/24), Tillerson (12/13/16)
• National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz (11/11/24), Mike Flynn (11/18/16)
• UN Ambassador: Elise Stefanik (11/11/24), Nikki Haley (11/23/16)
• EPA: Lee Zeldin (11/11/24), Scott Pruitt (12/7/16)
• Chief of Staff: Susie Wiles (11/7/24), Reince Priebus (11/13/16)
• DHS: Kristi Noem (11/12/24), John Kelly (12/7/16)