Will the Trump administration offer Elon Musk a decent return for the time, effort, and political capital that he spent on backing Donald Trump?
Resolves NO if in my best guess based on public or shareable info, it looks like Donald Trump did not repay Elon Musk's backing, actively undermined Musk, decided that he was on the outs with Musk without Musk having previously clearly acted against Trump, etcetera. Resolves YES if my subjective judgment is that Musk struck first, or Trump acted in good faith until the point of a mutual break. If Trump doesn't specifically act against Musk, but Musk receives little or nothing in exchange for backing Trump, resolves NO.
This would resolve NO if Musk receives as little for backing Trump as Peter Thiel received for backing Trump in the 2016 election cycle. (E.g., Jim O'Neill was previously tipped to become FDA head, but did not become FDA head.) (I am open to hearing about how Trump repaid Thiel and I didn't hear about it yet.)
May resolve YES early if it's clear early in the Trump administration that Trump is already making a good-faith effort to fully repay Musk's backing, even if they end up on the outs later.
This isn't limited to selfish repayment; it counts if Musk obtains altruistic political desiderata.
1,000
3.00I think this alone could be enough to resolve this yes (at least, once it happens). https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/trump-transition-recommends-scrapping-car-crash-reporting-requirement-opposed-by-2024-12-13/
I think NASA director being former spacex astronaut has to be worth a lot. I'd say that alone is worth well over the 100m Musk spent on super pac etc.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-picks-jared-isaacman-head-nasa-2024-12-04/
@CryptoNeoLiberalist The alliance between Caesar and Crassus lasted for seven years and only ended when Iranians killed the latter. The dynamics was as similar as it gets to Trump & Musk.
BTW here's what the great Elon has to say about him:
@Predictor i think it's already happening. insane that this is a real quote
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4987984-house-senate-republicans-leadership-election/
@EliezerYudkowsky Eh, I'd wait and see. DOGE could easily be mostly pencil pushing to keep Musk and Ramaswamy busy but without significant power.
@Kraalnaxx if you wanna buy NO shares at this price i got some limit orders up
Seems like a good start for Musk so far.
(As to what duration of time this lasts, time will tell.)
@ChristopherRandles it could be possible that the Tesla price increase is from shareholders anticipating Trump enacting policies favorable to Musk. If Trump unexpectedly ended up not doing that, I could see Tesla price dropping as a result