Elon Musk and all of President Trump’s men

Early Wednesday morning, everything was ready at the West Palm Beach convention center to venerate one man: Donald Trump arrived to celebrate his historic victory before thousands of his supporters. He took the stage, with dozens of American flags in the background, with his family, some of his closest collaborators, and J. D. Vance, who will be his vice president.

Vance took the floor to offer him the greatest compliment of the night: “This is the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States.” Trump also had words of recognition, in addition to his inner circle and his followers — faithful, he said in his characteristic hyperbolic tone, to the “greatest political movement of all time” — for five people: the architects of his successful presidential campaign (the aggressive Chris LaCivita and Susan Wiles, always fearsome, and always in the shadows); the mixed martial arts promoter Dana White, who stated “nobody deserves it [victory] more than him and his family;” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., perhaps the most famous anti-vaccine conspiracist in the United States, and, above all, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. “A star is born!” Trump exclaimed. “Elon!”

The billionaire, who owns, among other large companies, the electric car firm Tesla, the astronautics company SpaceX, and the social network X, has become a great ally of the new president, to whose re-election Musk has contributed at least $130 million and a considerable campaigning effort concentrated in the decisive state of Pennsylvania, where he held several rallies at which pro-MAGA theories were expounded, knocked on doors in search of voters, and showered unregistered voters with money in daily lotteries that flirted with electoral legal boundaries.

In gratitude for Musk’s services Trump has promised to keep him close to the White House, not necessarily in a Cabinet position, but as an advisor on public spending cuts: slimming down the structure of the federal government is one of the great promises of the new president, who described Musk on election night as “a super genius.” “He’s a character, he’s a special guy. We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them.”

The day after these compliments, Musk posted a graph on X showing record use of the social network, while Tesla shares rose by up to 15%. On the day of the vote, after casting his ballot in Texas (Musk has a residence on the eastern coast of the state, in Boca Chica, from where he launches some of his rockets), the businessman flew in his private plane to follow the vote counting at Trump’s mansion, in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

The president-elect has already named the title he plans to give to his new and most fervent ally — secretary of spending — and has spoken of a commission that would be “charged with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government to make recommendations for drastic reforms.” “I look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no title, no recognition is needed,” tweeted Musk, who has promised that he will be able to cut into the $2 trillion state apparatus. It is also to be expected that his businesses — which, particularly in the case of SpaceX, depend largely on their relationship with the administration — will do especially well over the next four years.

The flamboyant businessman, who likes to see in himself the comic book character Tony Stark (Iron Man), is the best-known face among the new president’s men, someone who values one virtue above all others: loyalty. The other is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was an independent candidate until he decided to join the Republican’s cause. Last week, Kennedy announced that Trump had promised him a prominent role in the management of U.S. healthcare, specifically, in federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Public Health (NIH).

Anti-vaccine conspiracy

The very idea caused shockwaves in the country’s medical and scientific establishment. The son of the assassinated Senator Bobby Kennedy, a descendant of a Democratic dynasty that has repudiated him, was one of the loudest voices against vaccines during the pandemic, although his crusade extends beyond Covid. He is also the author of an infamous phrase, for which he later apologized, referring to the obligation to get vaccinated and wear masks: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”

Last Saturday, it was possible to get a glimpse of what a health system with Kennedy hovering overhead would be like. On X, Kennedy said that one of his first decisions as an official in the Trump administration would be to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water.” That would mean ending one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century: adding a small amount of the mineral to the supply improved the dental health of millions of people. The alleged harmful effects of a health habit that began to be put into practice in the 1940s is one of the oldest-known conspiracy theories.

Kennedy also sees the FDA as a puppet of the drug companies. “Their war on public health is about to end,” he said, referring to the “aggressive suppression of [treatments, some of them pseudoscientific, with] psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.” Trump supporters are counting on Kennedy to end the power of the companies, and, as one supporter at a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, wearing a T-shirt with the slogan MAHA (for “Make America Healthy Again”) said on Monday, “improve the eating habits of children in schools.” “They are poisoning us,” he added.

Also on the horizon of a Trump return to Washington is Stephen Miller, an old acquaintance from his first administration. As a White House advisor, Miller was the architect of Trump’s racist immigration policies, which included tactics of separating minors from their families at the border, the ban on citizens of seven Muslim countries, and the end of the DACA program, which, since 2012, allows certain undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children a two-year period to avoid deportation and try to obtain a work permit. At the rally full of xenophobic and violent rhetoric that the Trump campaign gave at Madison Square Garden a couple of Sundays ago, Miller — whose oratory has been likened by critics to that of Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi propaganda — declared: “The United States is for Americans and only for Americans.”

Among the names that are being considered for Trump’s second administration are some loyal members of the party (such as Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a converted enemy, or the ultra-right congresswoman Elise Stefanik); the multimillionaire John Paulson; former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who reneged before returning to the fold; or the governor of Dakota, Don Burgum, whose personal fortune and physical attractiveness the future president admires. There are also many who participated in the first administration, who proved themselves loyal in Trump’s lowest moments and were able to survive in a work environment that, viewed from the outside, looked like a grinder. Something that may not come as a surprise, considering that the boss became famous thanks to a reality show whose catchphrase was: “You’re fired!”

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