Comment by bookaway

The parent post is by and large correct, except for the right-hand man of Donald Trump stuff. Musk was indeed trying to buy influence, which is definitely not a "5D chess move" but simply common sense for extremely wealthy people if they can get away with it. He also wanted to ensure that he is always the center of attention and intended to use twitter as the marketing arm for his brand. He only wanted to back out once US and global economic indicators started going south and made his offer look ridiculously overpriced, and also made himself look like a sucker. And Musk does not like being the sucker. But his wanting to back out later doesn't cancel out his initial intentions. And once he was forced to buy it, he started playing high stakes poker and managed to turn it into a great investment for him personally by the end of 2024, becoming one of the most powerful men in the world in addition to being the richest. How long it will last might depend on how many consecutive presidential terms the Republicans can hold on to.

The righthand man for Trump stuff was never the intention initially. Musk went gaga for Trump rather late, he was a DeSantis supporter after all, with DeSantis launching his terrible presidential bid on Elon's twitter.