Although Donald Trump is known for tossing aside any political conventions or traditions he doesn't like, there's one aspect of his transition that seems rather jaw-dropping, although few have commented on it (other than by making jokes). Ultra-cynical observers of American politics have long denounced the wealthy (not to mention corporations) for "buying" politicians. If you've got enough money, then you can easily fund a re-election campaign... or fund a primary challenge if this carrot doesn't work as intended. From that point on, they have certain politicians "in their pocket," and can count on them to vote to support their interests.

This has been rampant in American politics for a very long time, of course. Campaign-finance reforms are occasionally enacted, but there's a saying in Washington: "Money in politics is like rain on a paved road... there will always be cracks that allow it to seep in." And ever since the Supreme Court ruled that money equals free speech in politics, campaign finance laws are notable only for their weakness (or their non-existence). The business of buying politicians has been made easy, which has led to not just a rainfall of people using political donations to buy influence, but an absolute flood.

But usually, up until now at any rate, this sort of thing was routinely denied and hidden away by the politicians. "Political donations don't influence my vote," they would sanctimoniously say, right before voting exactly the way their donors want. "There's no quid pro quo -- the fact that I was swamped by donations from [insert rich donor or company or industry here] just before I voted to eliminate taxes on them was sheer coincidence." They have a term for this in Washington, too: "plausible deniability."

But now it seems that Trump doesn't care if all of this happens right out in the open. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has gotten so close to Trump after the election that people joke that they are going to be "co-presidents." Musk himself said he was now "First Buddy" to Trump. Late-night comedians (following Trump's own lead) now joke that Trump can't get rid of Musk -- he seems to have ensconced himself in Trump's Florida home and is weighing in on all sorts of decisions Trump is making during the transition period.

It's even gotten to the point where others surrounding Trump are getting seriously annoyed by Musk's presence and his outsized influence over Trump. According to NBC, some anonymous sources from Trump's inner circle are beginning to show their resentment towards Musk: "He's behaving as if he's a co-president and making sure everyone knows it. And he's sure taking lots of credit for the president's victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen."

This highlights the fact that Musk's PAC spent over $150 million on the 2024 campaign, which is a substantial amount of money. But Donald Trump is not a normal politician, so it's a little strange to see Musk being so in-your-face about the power and influence he now thinks he is due. Because this sort of thing can backfire, with Trump.

During the campaign, Trump made a promise to his followers about what Musk's role in his administration would be. Musk would perform an "audit" of the federal government, and cut the federal budget down to size. When asked about this, Musk said it'd be easy to cut almost one-third of the federal budget altogether -- promising $2 trillion in cuts to a $7 trillion budget. The New York Times points out that this would be "more than everything the government spends on stuff other than defense, interest and transfer payments such as Medicare and Social Security." So it's not likely to happen.

But then again, you never know. Musk can be a wrecking ball just out of spite, even when it is self-destructive. He bought Twitter and immediately fired something like 75 percent to 80 percent of the people who worked there. When nobody was left to do things like content moderation, large advertisers fled the platform. The investment company Fidelity now estimates that the company is worth only one-fifth what Musk paid for it -- down from $44 billion to less than $10 billion. But Musk sure did have a whole lot of fun firing all those people....

Trump is following through on his promise, at least in part. He announced that Musk would be teaming up with Vivek Ramaswamy (who has publicly embraced firing 75 percent of the federal workforce) to run the "Department Of Government Efficiency," which spurred a whole lot of jokes about the efficiency of appointing two people to run the effort instead of just one. The name is misleading too, since it won't be a government department at all -- it will somehow exist outside the government, with the question of how to fund the effort still rather open. Musk chose the name himself, as a grift (the acronym DOGE helps Musk make money off of cryptocurrency). Trump has only talked about a rather vague timeline for the effort, saying they'd come up with recommendations in roughly 18 months or so.

The big question in Washington is whether this effort will actually achieve anything or not. As that Times article points out, talking about making huge cuts to the federal budget is a lot easier than actually doing so. Slashing entire federal departments is a perennial conservative dream, but when you look at what the federal government actually does (other than Social Security, Medicare, the military, and paying off the federal debt), it gets hard to justify. "We're going to eliminate all federal food inspectors" isn't going to be wildly popular with the public, to put this another way.

Setting aside the question of whether Trump is actually sidelining Musk by sending him off on a wild goose chase against the dreaded "waste, fraud, and abuse" in the budget or will actually act on Musk's recommendations, what I wonder is whether Musk will essentially wear out his welcome long before the effort even gets underway. Because one thing Trump truly hates is being upstaged by anyone. The final part of that quotation from the NBC report is telling: Musk is "trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the president is indebted to no one."

Musk and Trump share a searing need for the spotlight to be focused on them. But outshining Trump is a cardinal sin, to Trump. And Musk already seems to be in danger of doing so. He's annoying the rest of Trump's team by butting in where he doesn't belong, he's been trying to influence Trump's cabinet picks (even going so far as to publicly post his recommendations to Musk's online audience), and he seems to want even more influence in the future.

This may already be chafing Trump. Last week he appeared in front of House Republicans and made a joke about the situation: "Elon won't go home. I can't get rid of him." And we all know how Trump's "jokes" can really be a strong signal for what's annoying him.

Trump reportedly loves hanging out with the rich and powerful. But he has his limits as well. He seems to be in the process of realizing that the optics of the situation with Musk aren't really working in his favor. From the outside looking in, it appears that Musk is the rich puppetmaster pulling Trump's strings -- and that is an unforgivable sin to Trump. Musk is taking credit for Trump's win, which is another unforgivable sin. It certainly appears to those outside Trump's inner circle that Musk is the one calling the tune, and Trump is dancing to it (so to speak... Trump's not exactly known for his dance-floor skills, so perhaps another metaphor might be better).

Big political donors wield an enormous amount of influence on American politicians in general. But as I mentioned, this is usually cloaked in plausible deniability and conducted in closed rooms far from the public's prying eyes. But both Trump and Musk have outsized personalities that thirst for the spotlight, so they both don't really mind that all of this is playing out for everyone to see.

Yet. We'll see how far this bromance goes before Trump decides that Musk is trying to steal his thunder and decides to create at least the public image of some separation between the two.

Until then, the puppet/puppetmaster jokes will continue.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant