Staying right on the grounds has helped provide Mr. Musk with easy access to Mr. Trump.
He can drop in on Mr. Trump’s dinners, such as one he had recently with Mr. Musk’s rival, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos....
Mr. Musk is not the only member of the president-elect’s inner circle who has been bunking on Mr. Trump’s property.
Trump's home is not a normal home either.
Vice President-elect JD Vance has stayed in one of the cottages at Mar-a-Lago when he has been in Palm Beach and has been there frequently during the transition, according to a person with knowledge of his stays. And others are said to have used cottages since Election Day. But few have been as omnipresent as Mr. Musk....
"Omnipresent" means present everywhere at once, like God. So, it's hyperbole, but how about the facts? Is Musk making a pest of himself, horning in on every dinner? Is he more "omnipresent" than Trump? Do other guests object? Did Jeff Bezos rankle at Musk crashing his special dinner with Trump? That's a good scene for my unmade movie, and that's Michael Fassbender in the Bezos role.
Back to the NYT article:
Mr. Musk is known around the club to make requests like meals outside the normal kitchen hours.
Ha ha. What a prima donna!
While staying at Mar-a-Lago, he has been accompanied by at least two of his children — Mr. Musk has at least 11 — and their nannies....
Family! In the end, it all comes down to family. That could be the final message in my movie. We could have the Trump character and the Musk character — each alone in a posh Mar-a-Lago room — staring into space.
Mr. Musk travels frequently and is known to stay at properties owned by his friends. In San Francisco, he has been known to stay at the home of David Sacks, the venture capitalist whom Mr. Trump nominated recently to be an adviser on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. While in Hawaii, he has resided at places owned by the billionaire Larry Ellison on the island of Lanai.
That's not an acknowledgment of Musk's idiosyncratic avoidance of owning a home, only a recognition that when he travels, he stays with friends.
Mar-a-Lago is different, however, in being a for-profit enterprise owned by Mr. Trump rather than a private home....
Is there a whiff of an accusation of bribery? But who's bribing whom? It's not possible to bribe Musk. A $2,000 a night freebie would feel the way a penny feels to us, the people. Is Musk overpaying? Overpaying for rooms and food at Mar-a-Lago is a way to hand money to Trump.
On Friday, in a post on Truth Social that seemed intended as a private communication to Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump wrote: “Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.”
Oh, no, Trump let it slip out that his party is the best party!
I note the disconnect between "omnipresent" and "Where are you?"
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so where are Musk's security housed?
The commenters are beside themselves. One suggested the NYT should provide a helpful map of Mar a Lago to the Iranians so they could bomb it.
Professora > compared to your stay at Driskill > who is the smarter businessman/cheapie > Trump or Musk? 2000/night!!! for a whole cottage [not cheese]
Look at the photo of Musk at that article. Very cinematic. Clearly EM is the villain. He looks like Frankenstein. Or Rami Malek.
I first read your topline as asking AI to write a different fictionalized account of Musk's residency at Mar-a-Lago, which is probably an accurate description of the NYT story.
Musk’s gamble on Trump pays off. It wasn't a passive bet. He put his money and influence where his mouth was.
Musk is a force of nature who has consistently made bets that have paid off.
Trump may be his most profitable yet.
@Narayanan
Not sure what you're implying about me, but the Driskill was only something like $250 a night (but I took a room in the historical wing of the hotel, for aesthetic reasons, and that room was quite small).
Anyway, I agree with what I think you're saying about Musk and Mar-a-Lago: $2000 a night sounds pretty cheap for a whole cottage there.
It took three NYT people to write that? The NYT write as if $2k per night is a big deal to either guy.
The NYT comments are as clueless and unhinged as expected. Here’s one,
“Thanks for the info, which does nothing but to confirm that this “beacon of the world” is now governed by a plutocracy of grifters.
What a difference from the time of Jimmy Carter, who did his best to govern with honesty and integrity.”
Do NYT readers even know what Joe, James and Hunter did?
Mar-a-Lago is not a secret location. The Palm Beach waterfront is rather skinny, it shows up on Google Maps, and it has street signage. I happened to drive through the area during Trump 45's term and there were concrete barricades, security staff in uniform, lookie-loos in cars being sent on their way.
The Driskell had maybe the best hotel food ever.
I just wanted a concrete comparison !! that anyone can relate to.
I have not traveled recently.
Belonging to the "Party of change" means never having to be consistent or remember what happened yesterday.
Carter's "best" and Biden's "best" were similar: head-in-the-sand myopia in all ways. Inflationary gifts for friends, and thereby gifts that became theft. Incompetent and reckless foreign policies that dug deep holes and made the USA more enemies than friends.
The main difference was that "frugal" Carter carried his own luggage and struggled to fight a rabbit, while Biden slid along on greasy dark money and struggled to fight stairs and sand.
They use shadow to literally put a mask on him. Like a bandit or something. The NY Times is a danger to our Republic and we shouldn't allow it to continue operating the way that it does. It's embedded agents should be reassigned to other places in our intelligence community.
“Still, Mr. Trump has often liked to collect people, and has enjoyed knowing that many of them pay for access to him. Since he first took office, people seeking to curry favor with him — or to get face time with him — have joined his clubs, rented ballrooms at his properties or stayed in his hotels.”
LOL - Trump collects people! (What, for sport?) And he >enjoys< knowing that they pay for access! How do they know he “enjoys” this? These journalists have completely lost their bearings.
They never sleep.
You mean like this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@26.6773829,-80.0389592,953m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Not very hard for the Iranians to find, I'd suppose. When they exit the 4th Century.
If there’s a petty, childish angle to any story involving Trump, count on Haberman to embrace it and write about it.
And others are said to have used cottages since Election Day. But few have been as omnipresent as Mr. Musk....
I initially thought that had been written by the AI bot. I was very disappointed, as it seemed to me that AI had mastered the trope of suggesting that the ordinary was somehow tinged with corruption when engaged in by one's enemy.
But it was the NYT, of course. Which rarely disappoints.
My first thought to this:
Staying right on the grounds has helped provide Mr. Musk with easy access to Mr. Trump.
was this:
Mr. Musk travels frequently
No one at the NYT has the slightest capacity to understand Elon Musk and the businesses he runs.
A bit of an aside, but I provide it to show the gap between the people who read and enjoy the NYT and people that enjoy Musk.
Starship 7 is set to launch January 10th. That's the 7th test flight of the world's largest spacecraft and rocket. The first 1st was April 20th. There are now rumors that SpaceX may attempt a lunar landing before the end of 2025, and whether they succeed in that or miss it by two years, it would still be an amazing achievement.
By comparison, NASA Space Launch System was supposed to do its 2nd launch and fly by the moon late in 2024, then slipped to 2025, and now may not launch in 2025 at all. Boeing's Starliner crew will finally return on a SpaceX Dragon capsule in March. And Boeing is now saying the next Air Force 1 747's, a contract initially awarded in 2015, may not be delivered before 2029 after Trump leaves office.
If you believe Musk is spending his time crashing Trump dinners; then what the hell is all of NASA and Boeing doing with their time?
"The Driskell had maybe the best hotel food ever."
Every morning, for 4 days, I would set up in the cafe — the 1886 Cafe — as soon as it opened, 6:30 am. I'd eat my breakfast while blogging and eventually others would join me. The cafe was open until 2 and at 2 the lounge on the mezzanine would open, and we spent a lot of time there on Christmas.
"No one at the NYT has the slightest capacity to understand Elon Musk and the businesses he runs."
I think they have the capacity, just not the desire.
One of the nice things about being immensely wealthy and owning many homes with many rooms and cottages, staffed accordingly, is that you can invite your wealthy guests and put them up at your place, instead of them going to Holiday Inn. In fact that is the whole purpose. It's what wealthy people have always done. (I wish I knew a few).
Excellent location for blogging. One of the things I loved about the 1886 Cafe was the high ceilings. The same as the high ceilings at Fort Robinson in the NW corner of Nebraska. Crazy Horse was killed there.
Perhaps ask AI to compare and contrast Musk’s living scenario to NYT reporters? There must certainly be similarities. New York isn’t cheap and I suspect the twenty somethings in charge of Times drivel have done much sleeping on couches and slut exchange for a queen bed once in a while, or every night.
Yup that’s how it goes. Staff goes out to visit clients in Telluride or wherever and they let themselves in, often without the clients acknowledging their presence. A stay on the property next to JT’s place on MV was unbelievable, or so I am told. A stay at Trump’s time worn place in Florida with the cafeteria is down right institutional 😳
I agree with what I think you're saying about Musk and Mar-a-Lago: $2000 a night sounds pretty cheap for a whole cottage there.
Wait a minute, Mar-A-Lago has 126 rooms and a court-derived valuation of $18 million to $26.7 million.* That $2000 is clearly waayyyy to high - I sense a new NY-based lawsuit!
* - something I never knew at the time, the NY Court based its valuation in the lawsuit on the Palm Beach county assessors valuation, which itself was based on Mar-A-Lago's annual net income as a private club, and completely disregarded the Trump residence or the likely resale value of the property.
No, they truly don't have the capacity. And it's the knowing that that really irks them.
A single family home in Palm Beach can go for eight figures even without an income stream.
I've read that one of the latest fashions is to have real contact with other people. I can remember that sort of thing in the old days. For example, you meet with them and have dinner face to face, or you join a chess club or play a sport. It seems that this old-fashioned way of doing things has turned a corner and become rather novel and exciting - like having a record player, perhaps. Perhaps Trump and Musk are just enjoying the novelty of talking in real time to another fantastically bright, accomplished man instead of being interviewed by an NYT dullard.
Did Musk have his employees, with read-write access to official government voter rolls, do "get out the vote" efforts in specific Democrat heavy precincts and ignore Republican precincts, the way that Zuckerberg did for Biden in Wisconsin?
It's funny how when billionaires back a candidate, it is only out of self interest if the candidate is a Republican. Because, you know, it was important to have the most corrupt POTUS, possibly ever, in office, if he's a Democrat.
It almost makes you wonder, if you were a billionaire who earned your money in a shady way, why you would be anything but a Democrat? Why would you walk away from the cover that outlets like the New York Times, would give you?
So second hand gossip no one would talk to swan or haberman on the record
That was the price in 1982
I note the disconnect between "omnipresent" and "Where are you?"
And I note that a formerly respected news source that misuses such a specific word is probably not to be trusted on any fact that cannot be independently verified. Certainly their opinion page should be discounted.
I think they have the capacity, just not the desire.
Maybe, but hard to judge when they put in so little effort.
Ryan mac the guy that said musk destroyed twitter
"On Friday, in a post on Truth Social that seemed intended as a private communication to Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump wrote: “Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.”"
...seemed intended as a private communication...
LOL.
The comments to this article in the NYT are surprisingly subdued. None of the energetic Trump hatred that was usual in the comments before Trump’s victory at the polls.
The president Musk meme is strong on Bluesky
Someone else started it but I've been working hard to propagate the "prime minister Musk" meme
Unelected
No legislation authorizing it
Loyal to the man (not country, office or peoplel
No executive powers or any other powers
John Henry
A partial answer to the question about Musk owing a home. In Walter Isaacson's very good biography of Musk, he recounts that Musk sold many of his homes because his trans offspring was anti-capitalist and critical of the lifestyles of billionaires. Musk was trying to re-establish his relationship with him/her.
How are Bezos and Musk "rivals"? Musk is actively working at 5-6 major business ventures, bezos is semi-retiref
Musk is worth almost twice as much as bezos.
What are they rivals at?
John Henry
This is akin to sleeping/living at the office. DOGE is a startup. Trump 47 is a startup.
The Musk and the Furious 2. It's all about family.
What's "brilliant" and "innovative" about importing a million Indian tech workers? These people have the equivalent of a community college education and are nobody's idea of the top "0.001%" of engineers world wide. Oh and they get to bring over their wives (who are also their first cousins, so that's nice) and a couple dozen relatives. It's bologna.
And, guess what, Musk's crypto nonsense is going to end in cataclysm. It's insane technobabble nonsense and goldbuggery.
Trump needs to kick Musk to the curb. His ideas are nonsense. Make America great again not make America garbage again.
With that sour and dour mug shot, Maggie Haberman could pass for a Cheney.
I like how so much excitement is being built up on both sides. There's really nothing of significant substance to report on, however, a society with the attention span of a goldfish must be fed constantly to satisfy the whole and the sole.
Mealtime at Mar a Lago reminds me of a cruise ship: lots of people, with everybody all dressed up as if for a glitzy event -- every night (or so it appears)! Do they ever all just hang out in the kitchen, cooking spaghetti or something, like in The Big Chill?
everybody all dressed up as if for a glitzy event -- every night
You haven’t cruised with Carnival or The Atlantic.
This is all part of the Democrat/MSM/Leftwing propaganda barrage against Musk. Pick a target, freeze it, attack it. As Sol Alinsky wrote. Funny how the NYT's wan't that upset about billionaire Jared Kushner. Wonder why? Maybe because Kushner is liberal and is/was pushing Trump left?
And what about all the Democrat billionaires donating to Harris/Joe Biden and giving him their homes to stay at? Or running the DNC or Chuck Shumer? Well, that's different!
It makes sense that Billionaire Trump loves to hobnob with other Billionaires. This time, he's gotten more smart, and will keep them as advisors and not in his cabinet.
And imagine a billionaire, thinking he can have a meal anytime he wants. Man, that is arrogance.
One thing I love about the Trump-musk era, is listening to stupid libtards who can't "Buy a pair of pants" talking about much smarter they are then Elon Musk and Trump and how both men got rich through luck or whatever.
Yeah dude, you believe everything you read in the MSM and see on TV, and that's makes you smarter than a Billionaire President with a supermodel wife, and Musk, one of the richest man in the world. Cause... you.
The press has been writing about a fictionalIzed Trump for eight years now.
The email landed in Ann Althouse’s inbox like a rogue missile. Subject: URGENT: Presidential Appointment. She nearly choked on her lukewarm coffee. Ann, the sharp-tongued, meticulously reasonable law professor who doubled as a fiercely independent blogger, being approached by the Trump administration? It was absurd. Comedic, even.
She clicked, steeling herself for some elaborate prank. But the official letterhead, the formal tone, the actual printed signature… it was undeniably real. The President was offering her the position of Secretary of Education.
Ann reread the letter, her brow furrowed. Why her? She was a law professor, not an education expert. And a frequent critic of Trump, to boot. Sure, she’d dissected his policies with laser-like precision on her blog, but she hadn’t exactly been singing his praises.
The news detonated in the blogosphere. "Althouse, the anti-Trump blogger, to Trump's cabinet? Is this a glitch in the Matrix?" one commentator quipped. Her comment section exploded, a cacophony of disbelief, accusations of selling out, and bewildered curiosity. Some even theorized it was a deep, 4D chess move by the President.
Ann, meanwhile, retreated to her cluttered office, the same one where she’d penned thousands of blog posts dissecting everything from Supreme Court decisions to the latest celebrity scandal. She stared at the framed photo of her and her beloved dog, Meeko, feeling a dizzying mix of dread and… a strange, reluctant fascination.
The President called. His voice was surprisingly affable, devoid of the bluster she’d come to expect. He told her he valued her intellect, her sharp mind, her willingness to challenge the status quo. He said he needed someone who wouldn't back down, someone who would actually think. He even admitted he’d occasionally read her blog, a revelation that left Ann speechless.
"I first read your topline as asking AI to write a different fictionalized account of Musk's residency at Mar-a-Lago, which is probably an accurate description of the NYT story."
Ha ha.
For the record, I had already asked for and received one version of a movie about the Musk/Trump alliance. The prompt you see at the top of this post is an effort to push the machine to give me something with better psychological depth.
@Lazarus
Made me think of how rarely I check my email.
BTW, I've never had a dog, and I can't imagine the circumstances that would cause me to keep a framed photo of myself around where I could look at it.
Won't it be instructive when Musk beats NASA to the moon?
HAH! I'm going to love the new era of AI writing. I wonder what a comments collab effort would look like?
I had the same thought. Perhaps space flight, though Blue Origin is soooo far behind I doubt Musk considers it a rival. Bezos may look at it that way.
But you don't deny your office is cluttered …
The richest man on the globe mooches off acquaintances when he travels. Here's the screenplay you're seeking: An Agatha Christie-style story of a bunch of rich people planning to murder this billionaire who can't be bothered to buy his own house or rent a proper hotel room.
Either that, or they're financing his Mars project to get him away from Earth and off their lawns.
Stage whisper Truthfully Socially
For the super-rich, money is so trivial that they think nothing of mooching, because actual money is basically free to them so it doesn't seem like mooching.
Also, do we know that Musk isn't paying the $2k per night? I suppose if he were there would be bitching about emoluments and the like.
I wonder if Trump has twenty shell companies in order to move the money he makes from Mar a Lago around and make tracing it impenetrable? Joe and Jill Biden do. What business are they in that requires that level of financial obfuscation? [It's a rhetorical question.]
I read the article. They mentioned in a just- the- facts sort of way all the negative things about Musk's life.. They did not mention any of his accomplishments. They were not relevant to the article. Just the negative stuff was. This is true of everyone in Trump's inner circle. Just the fact that they're at Mar A Lago means they're morally damaged. It's worse than a trip to the Isle of Lolitas where serious men went to discuss world hunger......One of the diners at Mar A Lago observed that he'd much prefer the man who invented the mass production of electric cars to be in charge of setting up a string of recharging stations than the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. That's the kind of idiots that hang out at Mar A Lago. Is it any wonder the NYT is on their case.
Is there a whiff of an accusation of bribery? But who's bribing whom? It's not possible to bribe Musk.
Of course it is possible to bribe Musk. Do you know how many billions of government contracts has and how many regulations his companies are subject to? He has already demonstrated disdain for regulation (hell, he ignores traffic laws and drives around in unlicensed vehicles that have not even passed DOT requirements for use on public roads-- a few years back he tore out of a parking lot in L.A. making an illegal left turn in a cybertruck that at the time was not even approved for use on public roads).
And, of course, the bribe issue is not whether Musk can be bribed, it is whether Musk is bribing Trump. And Trump has already unequivocally stated that he can be bribed. The whole inauguration fund is nothing more than a bribery fund.
I assume Elon is working remotely with his work now?
Didn't he decry on how bullshit that was within the last year?
Trump hired Elon Musk to do and say things his American-born MAGA workers like Steve Bannon refuse.
he could just pass out that much in tips!!! [or wait till Trump tax exempts!!]
Maybe Bezos uses WaPo for flight into alternate / Bizarro reality? so much easier to do!!
WaPo at millions of dollars vs X/Twitter for billions
So now Trump is Musk's puppet. A step up from Putin, I guess.
Who's next?
The spectacle of our house lefties losing their minds is wondrous to behold. Happy New Year!
Straighten up please
I did vote for Elon. F you corrupt left.
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