Yale historian Timothy Snyder quoted in an interesting interview conduced by David Horowitz in The Times of Israel:

I don’t think either Musk or Trump is working within a framework of US national interest. I think they’re working within a much more 19th-century East India Company, colonial-style framework, where what really matters is the big company, and the government maybe gets dragged along. But the important thing is the big company.

Trump is very comfortable in the number two role. It’s a natural fit for him. Trump plays a strong man on TV. He’s an actor, but he’s not the director. He’s not the scriptwriter. That’s what Musk is.

Trump is very comfortable showing his skills and his talents in public, and he’s very skillful. He’s very talented. But I think he’s essentially the frontman for what is, in fact, the Musk administration. I think that’s comfortable for him. People perceive Trump as being number one. Trump’s the one who gets all the adulation. Trump’s the one who has the popular movement. I think he sees Musk as the person who’s going to allow him to remain in power, or whatever you want to call it, in office, indefinitely.

There are a lot of people who think that Musk and Trump have to collide at some point, and I’m not among them, because I think the hierarchy is already structured, and I think it’s comfortable to both parties.