[wisty]

Asset is a weasel word.

You think Trump takes orders from Putin? He's too much an egotist, and he sent the Javalins to Ukreain when lots of the establishment thought it was a bad idea since the experts thought Putin wasn't mad enough to invade again. (Even if he took Kyiv in the time the US took Baghdad, the counterinsurgency to follow would / will break them).

Yeah, IMO Putin does think Trump is incompetent, easily manipulated, corrupt, and easily influenced by actual assets. Elon is similar, but rather than incompetent, he has aligned interests (Russia is a gas station, and Elon sells EVs, both want the price of gas to skyrocket and I suspect both think US global power basically exists to keep gas prices low).

I'm in shock that more people don't realise that Elon / Trump foreign policy is easily explained by Elon wanting higher gas prices, and Trump being easily manipulated.

There's no solid evidence Trump is secretly and knowingly working for Putin, that's just a cooker left-wing conspiracy theory IMO.

[sheepscreek]

This argument doesn’t hold much water. The tariff actions will only compel oil producers to explore new markets. With the US out of the picture, there will be a significant increase in supply. A big portion of this will be due to Canadian oil finding buyers in non-US markets.

[wisty]

Tariffs might hurt Elon but ceding US influence to OPEC (including Russia) by threatening to leave NATO and the UN? What happpens with instability and a lack of US influence in the Middle East?

[jldugger]

> There's no solid evidence Trump is secretly and knowingly working for Putin

Not enough to indict, anyways, but there's a spectrum between insane left-wing conspiracy and a jury conviction. Paul Manafort, Trumps 2016 campaign chairman, was sentenced to 7 years prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy against the United States. His protege Rick Gates did 45 days in a plea bargain deal.

Then there was the time Trump stood up at his campaign podium and directly asked Russian hackers to leak more Clinton emails:

> “Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

And during his presidency, he went out of his way to take secret meetings with Putin in Hamburg Germany[1], among other places. We have no idea what was discussed, which seemingly checks the "secret" box at least. As for "knowing," well, he directly asked for their help, but who knows how mentally "there" he is. Comes down to "for" I guess, as I'm sure he'd characterize it as "with"?

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump...

[wqaatwt]

> explained by Elon wanting higher gas prices, and Trump being easily manipulated

Artificially triggering an economic recession is a sure way lower oil prices. So how exactly are they planning to do this?

Besides that.. if this is really musk’s goal he’s going in very roundabout way.

> There's no solid evidence Trump is secretly and knowingly working for Putin

True. He is obviously working for him very publicly and whether he’s conscious of that or not does not even change much