One person turns up surprisingly often at Donald Trump’s side. Not his No 2, JD Vance, nor his wife, Melania, but another man a quarter-century younger and about $300bn heavier: Elon Musk. The two hunkered down in Mar-a-Lago on the night of the election, celebrating the results. This week they were in Texas, watching Mr Musk’s staff test-launch a spacecraft. During the campaign, Mr Musk personally chipped in $130m, made speeches at rallies and organised campaigns to “get out the vote”. Last week, the world’s richest man was picked by the president-elect to run a new “department of government efficiency”. So close are the pair that Mr Musk dubs himself “First Buddy”.

American politics has always been coiled around money, tight as a vine around a trunk. Nearly 25 years ago, George W Bush joked at a swanky white-tie dinner: “Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.” Nor is it confined to the........

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