Yale historian and best-selling author Timothy Snyder offered a revealing explanation for why "little" President-elect Donald Trump needs his billionaire ally Elon Musk, whom he characterized as the "big guy" in their relationship, observing that allies and aides should be concerned about the influence Musk has over Trump's decisions.
In an interview with The Guardian, Snyder expressed concern that the White House, soon to be occupied once again by Trump, could become a theater for uncomfortable and potentially damaging tensions between the president-elect and Musk, the world’s richest man.
The answer, Snyder said, to why Trump keeps Musk around is pretty simple—he needs Musk's money:
“Trump is a little guy, and Musk is a big guy when it actually comes to having money. And I think if you were a friend of Trump, you would be worried.”
“I think we overestimate Trump and we underestimate Musk. People can’t help but think that Trump has money, but he doesn’t. He’s never really had money. He’s never even really claimed to have money."
"His whole notion is that you have to believe that he has money. But he’s never been able to pay his own debts. He’s never been able to finance his own campaigns. Musk, with an amount of money that was meaningless to him, was able to finance Trump’s campaign, essentially.”
“All the threats that Trump is now going to issue – ‘I’m going to primary people, I’m going to sue people’ – Musk is going to pay for that, not Trump. And when Trump needs money for anything, he’s going to be asking Musk."
“Unless Trump breaks it off right now, he’s going to be in this kind of dependent relationship for the rest of the way, because you get used to people giving you money … and I think if you were a friend of Trump, you would be worried.”
Snyder also addressed Trump’s controversial stance on Russia. Trump’s 2016 White House victory was marked by allegations of Russian interference in his favor, followed by a two-year investigation into his ties to Moscow by special counsel Robert Mueller amid widespread criticism for his perceived deference to the country's president, Vladimir Putin.
Snyder—whose 2018 book The Road to Unfreedom extensively explored Trump and Russia—shared a term he recently coined for the incoming second Trump administration:
“So I thought about this dependency position. I was going to call it Muskotrumpovia, because I think Musk is a more important person, but Trumpomuskovia had a nicer ring to it."
“And also, I wanted Muskovia because I wanted the idea of Russia to be there in the background, because a lot of smart Russia hands are saying this all the time: this is kind of like the 1990s in Russia. You have the doddering, rich-but-not-very-rich president [Boris Yeltsin], surrounded by more youthful, more active, ambitious oligarchs. That’s the kind of scenario [America is] in.”
Many concurred with Snyder's assessment.
And Trump cannot escape him or fire him, this is particular event shows glaringly just how much of a coward Trump is, he won't have the cojones to do it. Musk is now renting a cabin at Mar-a-Lago, he invites himself everywhere. For the first time in his miserable life Trump kowtows someone.
— evan1024.bsky.social (@evan1024.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 6:19 PM
The point about this scenario being similar to 1990s Russia is what concerns me. The next 4 years will be rough, but where this country is in 20-25 years scares the hell out of me.
— Matt Sammon (@sammonsez.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 11:39 AM
The last thing America needs is that megalomaniac Musk anywhere near a president!
— minidisckid.bsky.social (@minidisckid.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Musk was clearly savagely bullied at private school in apartheid South Africa & as a vindictive, self-absorbed, totally self-unaware narcissist he's going to make the world pay.
— rktecture (@rktecture.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 8:23 AM
everybody knows who is the president. #presidentmusk is the man, in a country where great majority praise the money musk is the most important in the picture, #vptrump is just an untrustworthy , old, sick deranged man that is just useful due his amount of ignorant worshippers.
— joseph (@joseph73.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Welcome to the oligarchy. Now that they own the government they will make their well paid slaves milk the rest of us so they can build another spaceship.
— cromination.bsky.social (@cromination.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Pondering how we could have let this happen - allow a insurrectionist, criminal and felon -- become Predident of the US. Money can buy anything to the detriment of the common man.
— Norma DeLiberty (@normajdl.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 1:43 PM
👀 All the threats that Trump is now going to issue – ‘I’m going to primary people, I’m going to sue people’ – Musk is going to pay for that, not Trump. And when Trump needs money for anything, he’s going to be asking Musk. Musk owns Trump (Something about don’t bite the hand that feeds you..)
— RubinRubin (@thetallsister.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Last year, Snyder warned that Trump will cause the end of the republic as we know it in the wake of a Supreme Court decision granting him sweeping immunity protections.
Snyder said the U.S.'s enemies "know" that "unless Trump loses [the 2024 election], America ends," adding that "the Supreme Court has made this clear," not to mention Trump himself "over and over."
Snyder has issued a warning for years about the threats Trump poses to the country and in 2021 said that Trump's claims the 2020 election was stolen had relied on “personal charisma and signals to his followers and a few people in the Justice Department and hope.”
Notably, he said that the January 6 insurrection was merely a "trial run" for a successful coup attempt.
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