Musk pulled the same stunt with vendors after buying Twitter.
The news is full of stories about him settling cases because his actions were either illegal or in breach of contracts.
He comes across as supremely arrogant—someone who refuses to play by the rules and probably never will.
At this point, if you extend him credit or don’t demand full payment up front, that’s on you for trusting him.
Trump and Elon are two peas in a pod. Same tactics, different industries.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/cities-seek-7...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/...
I'm curious how this works over time. I read somewhere (would have to search to find it) that after Trump became notorious for stiffing small contractors on his properties, the wisdom them became you just quoted a ~50% premium, because you knew Trump would only pay you 2/3 of what he originally said he would.
But agree with your statement, which is why I always gag a little when I see working class people lionize these two as "champions of the working man".
Trump believes there is a winner and loser in everything. So you stiff the contractor, he gets upset and might not work with you again, you just get another contractor. Trump was a big enough name and has enough money that even if his reputation is horrible, people aren't just going to not work with him. You can imagine that how works on a global scale as president.
> Trump believes there is a winner and loser in everything.
This, precisely. It's Fred Trump's mantra, inherited.
It's also bound up with his malignant narcissism; no deal is ever closed, it can always be renegotiated and he can always decide it was bad for him even when it was his deal.
People did refuse to work with him, though I am sure the rest came to realise you overbilled so you got paid at all.
And he made some hilariously bad deals when he was desperate (the ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal got comically good terms because Trump was so desperate to have a book).
Famously his lawyers would only meet with him in pairs. He is that untrustworthy.
All of this factors into how the tariff deals are going; any diplomatic department anywhere in the world understands all of this.
Similar psychology, too, and extremely similar backstory: a truly dreadful, cruel, selfish man for a father. Fred Trump would have found a lot in common with Errol Musk, and they both did a lot of emotional damage to their sons in their early years. They are fully the products of emotional damage in early childhood.
(Musk has the small advantage of being able to express his feelings about his father’s behaviour; Trump still worships his)
If this were the whole story you'd expect all of Trump and Elon's siblings to be equally terrible. Maybe they are and just haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate it? I have the impression, though, at least in Trump's case, he's in a different league.
Not necessarily. Every psychopath has a golden child, after all; perhaps it’s the same here. It depends who was singled out for more abuse and coldness or demands, and it depends who had more parental love from the other parent, and it could also be a question of genetic predisposition in terms of how they react, it might be different if you have more siblings, etc.
Maryanne Trump Barry —- a federal judge —- was nevertheless part of the family tax cheating scheme.
Robert Trump cheated on his wife and his egregious behaviour seemingly drove her to an overdose.
Fred Trump Jr (Mary’s dad and Fred’s eldest, intended to run the business) drank himself to death, unable to survive the unbearable pressure his father put on him.
DJT is in a different league for sure: he is a malignant narcissist which is already a very unusual personality type, and he was also shaped and protected by Roy Cohn.
Either way, evil dads are always in the back stories of these guys (Emory Tate was a cruel, diagnosed narcissist, a misogynist and adulterer, and often absent too)