CHRIS CRUCIAL: It's all coming up Elon 🚀

PLUS: The race to replace Mitch!

In 71 days, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. I will be here bringing you everything you need to know between now and then — and over his four years in office.

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1. Musk Man

When President-elect Donald Trump gathered his family around him to take a picture celebrating his victory last week at Mar-a-Lago, he made sure that Elon Musk was included in the shot.

“Elon, you have to have a picture with your boy,” Trump told Musk. “We have to get Elon with his boy. That gorgeous, perfect boy.”

(Sidebar: Trump was talking about Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii.)

That whole Elon-is-part-of-the-family vibe has only continued since last Tuesday night — creating a new reality in which one of the richest men in the world, who also happens to own the de facto town square for politics and political journalism, is a roving senior adviser to the next president of the United States.

Consider:

• When Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke last Wednesday, Musk briefly joined the call.

• Trump handed the phone to Musk during a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

• Musk endorsed Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s bid for Senate Majority Leader over the weekend (more on that below)

• Musk sounded off about his concerns on the selection of Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the United Nations. “Elise is awesome, but it might be too dicey to lose her from the House, at least for now,” he wrote on X. (Trump nominated Stefanik anyway.)

Here’s how CNN described Musk’s rising influence in Trumpworld:

Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club has been brimming in the last 48 hours with two kinds of people: those angling for a job in the president-elect’s incoming administration, and those trying to influence him into hiring their picks for the top spots.

But the one person who has loomed over it all and has exerted a great deal of influence is Elon Musk, according to multiple sources. The tech billionaire has been seen at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, almost every day since Trump won the election last week, dining with him on the patio some evenings and hanging out with his family Sunday at the golf course.

Musk has been in the room when multiple world leaders have phoned Trump, and he’s weighed in on staffing decisions, with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO even making clear his preference for certain roles.

There’s an almost obsessive focus in the media on whether Musk will be in Trump’s Cabinet and, if so, in what job. That seems to me to miss the point — badly.

It would be crazy for Musk, who runs Tesla, Space X and X among other companies, to join the government in an official capacity. Musk is someone with wide interests — and ideas. Why would he limit himself to running a single department of the federal government? Honestly, that sounds like a nightmare for someone with his sort of mental makeup.

What Musk would want — and what Trump seems willing to give him — is free range to roam across the entire federal government, sounding off wherever and whenever it suits him.

Trump, at least at the moment, reveres Musk — for his wealth and his brains. “We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them,” Trump said of Musk during his victory speech early Wednesday morning.

This is, of course, great for Musk — and Musk’s business interests. The perception that he has Trump’s ear at a time when everyone in Washington is scrambling for people like that — is MASSIVE.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at Tesla’s stock price since the election:

Musk’s overall net worth has surged since November 5, with Bloomberg now estimating it north of $300 billion. Amazingly, Musk’s net worth grew by $26.5 billion last Wednesday alone. Yes, you read that right — $26.5 BILLION IN ONE DAY.

That someone that wealthy with that many business interests in front of the federal government has the ear of the next president would be enough to cause ethics watchdogs to flip out.

But then consider this: While Twitter/X has fallen from its prominence of 5 years ago, it remains THE place where political news is broken, where debates on issues play out and where every politician and political journalist defaults to as part of their content diet.

And, as Musk has repeatedly shown, he is totally fine putting a finger (or, really, his whole hand) on the scale to make sure the content he wants surfaced gets surfaced and, more importantly, the stuff he doesn’t want to be seen gets disappeared.

As the New York Times wrote over the weekend:

Mr. Musk is increasingly positioning X as the platform behind the new Trump presidency. Since the election was called on Wednesday, Mr. Musk has used X to talk up how bright the future will be under the president-elect. In addition, he has urged X’s users to replace the news media and report on Mr. Trump’s triumphant return to office, and has promoted the platform as a go-to destination for continuing conservative conversation.

That comes on top of how Mr. Musk has used X as a battering ram for months to support Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Musk, who endorsed Mr. Trump in July, held a wide-ranging audio conversation with him on X in August. That same month, Mr. Trump started using his reinstated account on the platform regularly.

So much power. So much influence. So much money. It’s a combination fraught with all sorts of ethical pitfalls — none of which Musk (or Trump) seem to see or care about.

Donald Trump is, probably, the single most powerful person in the world right now. But Elon Musk is nipping at his heels.

2. The next Senate Majority Leader

John Cornyn, left, John Thune, center, and Rick Scott

Not tired of elections yet? Well, we’ve got a big one coming this week: The fight for who will be the next Senate Majority Leader.

The secret-ballot vote to replace Mitch McConnell, who is stepping down as GOP leader, will take place behind closed doors Wednesday. But the fight is already on as a number of high-profile allies of President-elect Donald Trump are trying to pressure Senators to choose Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

The aforementioned Musk sent out this tweet to his 204 million followers Monday:

And Trump acolyte/influencer Charlie Kirk is on board too:

If you know anything about the Senate, it will surprise you not at all that its members do not look kindly on this public pressure campaign. This is from Politico’s Playbook this morning:

There’s probably no group of Republicans more insulated from an outside pressure campaign than the 53 senators and senators-elect who will be voting Wednesday on MITCH McCONNELL’s replacement.

Most of them don’t have to run until 2028 or later. Some won’t run again at all. And, crucially, the vote is by secret ballot, meaning there’s no public accountability for how they vote.

But the bulk of the Republican rank-and-file is not pleased. At all. We spoke with one senator who was aghast at the effort, as well as a GOP aide who said the campaign is “pissing off senators whose votes Rick needs” to win.

“Senators do not take kindly to having an army of social media trolls attack them,” the aide texted us last night.

So, yeah.

Scott has more announced support from fellow senators than either man he is running against — John Thune of South Dakota or John Cornyn of Texas. But, a lot of that Scott support is performative.

Take Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. He wants to be Secretary of State in the new Trump administration. So, he’s aggressively making sure that Trumpers know he is with their guy. Ditto Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, another name in the mix for Secretary of State.

In a secret ballot, count me skeptical that Senators are going to fall all over themselves to back Scott so as to kiss up to Trump. (Now, if the ballot was public that would be a whole different deal.)

If I had to bet, I’d put my money on Thune — unless, of course, Trump publicly endorses Scott, which he hasn’t done yet. Emphasis on “yet.”

3. Allan Lichtman swings and misses

In the run-up to the election, people who insisted I was being too negative about Kamala Harris’ chances of winning would always point me to American University professor Allan Lichtman and his “keys.”

Lichtman, after all, had publicly predicted a Harris victory — in the New York Times, no less! And he had correctly predicted 9 out of the last 10 presidential election winners with his full-proof system!

As you might now know, Harris didn’t win. Lichtman was wrong. I explain why in a video on my YouTube channel. Subscribe! It’s FREE!

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Trump is vindictive. I do think he will seek retribution.” — Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton

ONE GOOD CHART

Contrary to the conspiracies flying around the Internet right after the election, 2024 turnout was very, very high. This terrific map from the Washington Post makes that point.

SONG OF THE DAY

Jason Isbell doing “White Beretta” live is very much worth your time.

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