Call it what it is: a coup
May we live in interesting times.

An unelected, immigrant (possibly working illegally on a student visa, at that) billionaire taking control of the levers of government is a coup.
Putting college interns with no government experience in charge of the most vital systems behind the US' federal finances, who are beholden to no one but him, is a coup.
Firing people who refuse to play along with this, or in retaliation for following the law in a way that made Trump angry, is a coup.
On the one hand, all of this was so obviously going to happen — Trump emphatically said he was going to do this — that part of me is in a state of "well, what did anyone expect?"
On the other, this is shocking, and it's shocking how little it's being treated as shocking. There is no real scramble to fight against it that I can see. The Democrats appear to be rolling over and doing nothing in the face of a hostile takeover of the US. Chuck Schumer is being sarcastic about the price of tomatoes while federal officials are locked out of their jobs and classified computer systems are being breached because Musk wants access to things he was denied clearance to access.
It's always been apparent that Trump has never wanted to be President in any political capacity: he wanted the cachet of the title to lord over those whose respect and admiration he demanded or felt entitled to; he wanted the office to operate as a grift for the financial benefit of himself (first and foremost, and his family at a distant second); he wanted to stay out of prison for his various criminal offences and find a way to escape penalties for the civil ones. He's notedly bored of the realities of the office and his poor attention span and impulse control has always led to scenarios where someone else could easily manipulate him in other directions if they knew the right buttons to press.
Ergo, where we are now with Musk.
The only potential saving grace is that he's as much of a narcissist as Trump is, and I don't think he's clever or calculated enough to stay behind the scenes enough to not provoke Trump's ire. Nor do I believe he's going to be satisfied playing second fiddle and not getting the credit.
But either way, this is all in the "worst case scenario" category and is absolutely frightening to witness in real time.
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