Trump, Vance and Musk: This is what absolute power looks like

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Trump, Vance and Musk: This is what absolute power looks like Michael Hanfeld • 6 hours • 2 minutes reading time What does Elon Musk have to do with NATO? A lot. We will see exactly how much when Donald Trump has defined what role the X, Space-X and Tesla owner should play in his cabinet (he is already the unofficial propaganda minister). In any case, Musk, whom the soon-to-be American President Trump brought into the conversation he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj, already has something to do with NATO, and in many ways. With his Starlink satellite system, he is supporting Ukraine in its defensive fight against Russia's war of annihilation. If he cuts off the connections, Kiev will not be able to hold out for long. If Donald Trump, as expected, stops military aid altogether or drastically reduces it, experts believe the Ukrainians will have three months to surrender. Then the "peace" that Wagenknecht wants would come Then the "peace" that Sahra Wagenknecht keeps talking about would come. And the American medium-range missiles that the BSW boss does not want to see would not come to Germany either, where people may still not fully understand the dramatic nature of the situation. But Musk has even more to do with NATO, which supports Ukraine, as the broadcaster n-tv has now reminded us. Before the election, Trump's vice president J. D. Vance said in a conversation with YouTuber and former Navy Seal Shawn Ryan that the USA could leave NATO under Trump's leadership simply because the European Union would not leave Elon Musk and his Platform X alone with its Digital Services Act. Some EU official - who exactly, of course, Vance did not know - even threatened Musk with arrest. Then it's: "Yankee goes home" The EU, as is well known, took a long time to pass its digital law, which makes platform companies responsible for the content they transport. The EU Commission is willing to impose conditions on Musk and punish him if he does not ensure greater security at X. Musk is of course not very concerned about that. With his ranting about Europe and its governments, he is in no way inferior to Trump and Vance. With the bill that J. D. Vance presents and which the British "Independent" reported on at the time, Musk's "you can go to hell" attitude becomes even stronger, according to the motto: If you think you can interfere with X, it will quickly be "Yankee goes home", and Europe will have to wait and see what happens when Putin's troops start storming a 4,000-kilometer-long NATO external border. So it is becoming increasingly clear what Elon Musk's investment in Donald Trump means: absolute power. And there would be no Clint Eastwood to oppose her, as in the film of the same name. Instead: autocrats as far as the eye can see, in the East and the West.