Trump promises he won't put his boot on Musk's neck

Elon Musk could use a win after Tesla's weak second-quarter earnings, and he sort of got it when President Donald Trump proclaimed he wasn't going to use the power of the presidency to destroy his businesses.  Stepping away from the front lines of his ongoing feud with the world's richest man and owner of social media network …

[The man with a spanner]

Its realy quite hard to be sympathetic to a drug addled gambler who has no quarms about shutting off food and medicine supplies to the worlds poorest people.

The concept of the deserving and undeserving poor appears to be still with us.

[Andy Mac]

The only definition of “deserving” poor I see here are the ones unable to afford a second yacht.

[Anonymous Coward]

I’m surprised he hasn’t been swept up by the ICE Gestapo and put in the FL Alligator concentration camp for immigrant drug offences. War on drugs etc.

Revoke his US Citizenship and send the cunt to South Sudan (at least for him it would be the right continent for South Africa repatriation).

[The man with a spanner]

That would be a particularly poinient punishment as us Brits developed the concentration camp to lock up South African Boers. It was invented by the Spanish a few years earlier.

[retiredFool]

In the back

Seems I remember trump saying this sort of thing to others in the past right before he twists the knife.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In the back

Well, if you can't believe a serial vindictive megalomaniac pathologic liar, who can you trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: In the back

"Seems I remember trump saying this sort of thing to others in the past right before he twists the knife."

The British writer T H White^† prophesied in his journal in September, 1963 weeks before JFK's assassination and months before his own death:

"I foresee a time when the President of the United States will be as powerful and vicious as Caligula. We are in Republican Rome at present, the Emperors of America have yet to seize power."

"Powerful and vicious as Caligula" certainly has a contemporary ring of truth about it.

_{† of The Once & Future King (which the musical Camelot was based on) fame.}

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: In the back

Did Caligula have small hands?

[BebopWeBop]

Re: In the back

Small hands and a big horse.

[ShipyardTechWork]

Does it really matter?

Especially after ol Elon has done more to scupper his companies than anyone else to this point. Sure the government could cut his contracts (they aren't going to. They already awarded installation contracts publicly) but that's the least of his worries. Tesla's a massive dumpster fire that needs extinguished but Elon's constant need to be in the spotlight just keeps pouring extra fuel onto it. Man needs to step back, relax, lay off the ADHD meds, and lock in on fixing the problem (he will be back in political news inside of 7 weeks of this article.)

[Thought About IT]

Re: Does it really matter?

If Trump's such a genius negotiator, how seriously can any threat to break contracts with SpaceX be taken now that he's cut NASA's budget to the bone?

[The man with a spanner]

Re: Does it really matter?

Not so much a dumpster fire, more of a lithium fire. The boy genius does need to realise that pissing on the fire will not work as urine is mainly water.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: Does it really matter?

It might make for an interesting steam blow back as he pisses though.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Sounds like among Musk's possessions is a certain document about a certain dead pedophile and his customer base...

'Cause Drumpf sure as hell hasn't shied away from pursuing Murdock even though he's the biggest shill for Drumpf on the planet through Faux News.

[Paul Crawford]

After all of his minions raped the US Gov security processes, you might call it a DOGEy dossier?

[Winkypop]

Just more passive/aggressive BS from a mad man

Nice little business you got going there.

Shame if something happened to it…

[Pascal Monett]

"We're all businesspeople here"

Trump is most definitely not a business man. Every one of his business ventures were failures, and most of them were a scam from day one.

Musk, for all his faults (and God knows he has a list), has at least proven that he can manage a business.

Sometimes.

[deadlockvictim]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

Having seen Musk's management style at Twitter, I would say that Musk is good at founding businesses but awful at managing them, when he actually manages them that is.

That is, the businesses survive despite him managing them.

[blu3b3rry]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

That said, he didn't found Tesla or Xitter, but bought them.

The only company he has founded that has done well has been SpaceX and that's thanks to huge government contracts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

… Gwynne Shotwell successfully keeping Musk out of the day to day operations more like.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

lack of empathy, lack of people skills (musky's asperger's help him out there), rule with an iron fist , goes for both of them, how long can it last before the empires collapse ?

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

X.com/Paypal did not take off until Thiel (spit) threw him out. The sale of Paypal allowed Musk to buy the right to call himself a founder member of Tesla which had been founded 6 months earlier. The Paypal sale also provided the startup money for SpaceX. Neuralink made some early headlines but is now behind competitors. I tried finding financial data for The Boring Company but all I found were projections for the future based on unsupported high utilisation figures. Twitter/X/XAI is doing so badly it needed a $2B bailout from SpaceX. Tesla is in shit from every direction: they set up a good supply chain in China that now supplies BYD. Traditional car companies used to pay money to Tesla instead of making BEVs but now sell BEVs of their own. Musk's support for Trump in the US and AfD in Europe make him toxic to the left and his fallout with Trump erodes support from the right. Tesla have increased their delay in paying suppliers. I am surprised the suppliers have accepted that. If you absolutely have to trade with Musk, require payment in advance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "We're all businesspeople here"

I assume his $50bn plus performance pay deal is off the table these days… regardless of the on-going legal wrangling in Delaware.

[PhilipN]

".. Donald Trump proclaimed .."

For the millionth meaningless time.

[Zibob]

For once I believe him

I do t expect him to go in on Musk, I expect him to go in on every industry Musk is a part of. It won't be targeting him. It all just happen to catch him up in all the other cuts applied to everyone, to get to him, and tank the various parts of the economy.

[Jason Bloomberg]

"This is not so! I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE."

Isn't this what we used to call concocting a pre-emptive alibi?

[LVPC]

Poisoning the well, knife in the back

Trump appearing to be nice to Musk is just going to make owning Swastikacars even less desireable.