[timcambrant]

They won’t remain friends or partners in four years. I can almost guarantee it. I’m betting they’ll have a public falling-out within two years.

Elon strikes me as a mix of Howard Hughes, John McAfee, and Henry Ford: brilliant, eccentric, and volatile. I hope I'm wrong here, but I believe he might lose his mind within the next decade. Fortunately, SpaceX will manage without his direct involvement, and his role in advancing humanity’s path to Mars will be remembered. I'm willing to bet this is a net positive for us. His greatest strengths lie in securing government funding and getting seemingly impossible companies off the ground against all odds. But there will come a point when adult leadership will need to take over as he becomes distracted by culture wars or veers into fascism.

Trump has a simpler task: avoid starting a third world war over the next four years. After that, his power is gone and someone even scarier is likely to take his place.