Is Trump Headfaking Us on Musk Too?
Trump’s admissions that he was lying and deceiving the American public about Israel and Iran makes it possible that he’s also lying to us about his alleged falling out with Elon Musk too. What are they planning? This is part 4 in a series on Trump, Iran and the arrival of artificial superintelligence (ASI)
In my previous essays, I warned about the dangerous convergence of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, the Iran war drumbeat, and the approaching emergence of artificial superintelligence. I wrote that essay an eon ago, way back in April. I was unfortunately prescient.
What I didn’t fully anticipate was how sophisticated Trump’s political theater would become — how he would use manufactured conflicts to obscure his true alliances and provide plausible deniability for actions that might otherwise generate unacceptable political costs.
The Iran strikes have revealed a disturbing pattern: Trump’s supposed “falling outs” with key allies appear to be elaborate headfakes designed to provide political cover while maintaining operational coordination when it matters most. This isn’t just garden-variety political deception — it’s a systematic approach to governance that could fundamentally undermine democratic accountability, especially as we enter the age of superintelligence.
The Netanyahu Template
The first clear example was Trump’s alleged tensions with Benjamin Netanyahu. For months, we were told that Trump was frustrated with Netanyahu, that he was genuinely pursuing diplomatic solutions with Iran, that he was keeping Israel at arm’s length. Axios reported in May that Trump cautioned Netanyahu against striking Iran, with Trump saying “I would like to be honest, yes I did” warn against military action.
Media coverage emphasized Trump’s supposed restraint and Netanyahu’s alleged impatience for military action. Trump was quoted as telling Netanyahu that he believed there was “a chance of reaching a nuclear deal with Iran” and therefore opposed military action.
Then came the strikes. Not only did Trump authorize unprecedented attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, but we learned it was all an elaborate deception. In a bombshell Axios report, a Trump adviser revealed the truth: “It was a headfake. He knew the media couldn’t resist amplifying it. He knew the Iranians might think he was bluffing. Well, everyone was wrong.”
The “diplomatic outreach” to Iran was similarly theatrical — designed to provide the appearance of good-faith negotiation while military preparations continued. According to another Axios report, the supposed tensions were cover for intensive coordination: “Trump’s historic decision to join Israel’s war against Iran marked the culmination of months of intense — and at times strained — U.S.-Israeli coordination.”
The Musk Revelation
Even more revealing was the Trump-Musk “feud.” In early June, these two men engaged in one of the most spectacular public breakups in modern political history. ABC News reported that Trump called Musk someone who had “lost his mind,” while Reuters documented how Musk backed calls for Trump’s impeachment and claimed Trump “would have lost the election” without his support.
The conflict appeared genuine and devastating. The Washington Post reported that Tesla stock dropped 14% in a single day, wiping out $150 billion in market value. Trump threatened to cut off billions in government contracts to Musk’s companies.
But then the Iran strikes happened, and the truth emerged. Despite their supposed feud, when Trump needed Starlink’s capabilities for the Iran operation, Musk immediately complied. Within hours of Iran cutting internet access, Musk activated Starlink satellites, posting simply “The beams are on.”
Most damning of all, Trump’s Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell publicly urged Musk to provide free Starlink access to his “friends” in Iran — hardly the behavior of an administration at war with the tech billionaire. As TASS reported, Grenell wrote: “Can you turn on Starlink for free in Iran for the next few weeks, @elonmusk? My friends inside Iran don’t have regular access to information right now. I’ll chip in a donation and I think others would, too.”
This revealed active coordination between Trump officials and Musk despite their theatrical public conflict.
Even if Trump and Musk aren’t faking it about their falling out (admittedly, some of the things Musk said went very far even for him) it appears clear from this evidence of strong coordination on Iran that their people are still very much working together.
The Strategic Value of False Conflicts
Why engage in such elaborate deception? The strategic benefits are enormous:
Political Cover: The supposed tensions allowed Trump to appear independent of both Netanyahu’s war-mongering and Musk’s controversial influence. Democrats and critics who might have opposed the Iran strikes as Netanyahu’s bidding or worried about Musk’s role in government operations were disarmed by the apparent conflicts.
Plausible Deniability: When Musk activated Starlink to support operations in Iran, it could be framed as his independent humanitarian decision rather than coordination with Trump’s military operations. As multiple sources note, the system has “proven critical for battlefield coordination and drone warfare,” making it invaluable for complex operations.
Operational Flexibility: Maintaining the relationships while publicly distancing himself gave Trump maximum flexibility to use these partnerships when strategically valuable while avoiding political costs when they weren’t.
Media Manipulation: The theatrical conflicts generated enormous media attention that obscured the underlying strategic coordination. Reporters focused on the personal drama rather than the policy implications.
The ASI Dimension and Political Weirding
This pattern becomes even more concerning when we consider the approaching emergence of artificial superintelligence and where we might be in what I’ve previously described as the “seven stages of the AIpocalypse”. In that framework, I outlined how AI development might unfold from 2025–2035, including a crucial third stage: “Political weirding.”
Stage 3: Political Weirding describes how “Politics breaks down due to domestic and foreign actors flooding the mindsphere with fake stories, fake images and fake videos. A billion ultra-intelligent AI agents are deployed around the world to bring down enemy nations through propaganda and persuasion… It’s an AI free for all. International affairs and the normal rules begin to break down.”
The Trump-Netanyahu-Musk headfake operations suggest we may already be entering this political weirding phase earlier than anticipated. The sophistication of coordinated deception we’re witnessing — complete with market reactions, media manipulation, and seamless operational coordination despite public conflicts — hints at capabilities that may already be AI-enhanced or are laying the groundwork for AI enhancement.
If Trump is willing to engage in such sophisticated deception over conventional alliances, imagine the possibilities when superintelligent AI systems enter the equation. Advanced AI could make this kind of political theater far more sophisticated and harder to detect. Superintelligent systems could help craft conflicts that appear genuinely spontaneous, complete with authentic-seeming emotional responses and realistic market reactions. They could coordinate complex narratives across multiple actors while maintaining perfect operational security.
More troubling, ASI systems themselves could be subject to this kind of theatrical distancing. Trump could publicly criticize or appear to constrain certain AI capabilities while privately maintaining access for strategic purposes. The complexity of AI systems would make such deceptions nearly impossible for outsiders to verify.
We may be witnessing the early stages of what I called the transition toward “techno-dictatorship, defined as dictators achieving superpowers with top-down AI spread throughout their societies.” The headfake strategy represents a form of information warfare that could be exponentially amplified by AI systems capable of generating coordinated disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, and manipulated social media responses that make distinguishing authentic political conflicts from manufactured ones virtually impossible.
Constitutional and Democratic Implications
This pattern of governance through false conflicts poses profound challenges to democratic accountability. How can Congress provide meaningful oversight when the president’s stated positions and relationships may be elaborate fictions? How can voters make informed decisions when the information they receive about key alliances and policies is systematically deceptive?
The Iran strikes were conducted without Congressional authorization, but part of the limited pushback they received was due to the false impression that Trump was acting independently rather than in coordination with Netanyahu. Similarly, concerns about Musk’s influence in government were dampened by the apparent conflict between the two men.
If this becomes Trump’s standard operating procedure — and there’s every reason to believe it will — we’re looking at a fundamental erosion of democratic governance. The checks and balances that depend on accurate information about presidential decision-making cannot function when that information is systematically falsified.
I suspect this is just the beginning of this kind of technique. We should expect to see more “conflicts” between Trump and key allies that serve similar strategic purposes. Watch for apparent tensions with tech leaders, foreign allies, or domestic political figures that provide convenient cover for controversial policies or operations.
The sophistication of this approach suggests careful planning and coordination. This isn’t just Trump’s instinctive tendency toward chaos and drama — it’s a systematic strategy for maintaining maximum operational flexibility while minimizing political costs.
And let’s not forget that while we’re all focused on Iran, Trump and Netanyahu, Israel continues its overt genocide and reoccupation of Gaza. This is surely a key part of the whole operation.
Moving Forward: Piercing the Veil
The challenge for journalists, Congress, and citizens is learning to look beyond the theatrical surface to the operational reality underneath. We must:
Follow the Actions, Not the Words: When Trump claims to be at odds with an ally, look for evidence of continued coordination in policy implementation and resource allocation.
Track Resource Flows: Government contracts, access to facilities, and coordination of operations tell a more accurate story than public statements or social media feuds.
Demand Transparency: Congress must insist on real oversight of Trump’s decision-making processes, not just his public pronouncements about those processes.
Prepare for Escalation: As AI capabilities advance, these deceptions will become more sophisticated. We need frameworks for verification and accountability that can function even when superintelligent systems are helping to craft the deceptions.
The Iran strikes have revealed that we’re not just dealing with an authoritarian president — we’re dealing with one sophisticated enough to systematically deceive democratic institutions while maintaining the alliances and capabilities he needs for maximum power projection. As we enter the age of superintelligence, this combination of authoritarianism and sophisticated deception could prove even more dangerous to democratic governance than I initially feared.
The theater of false conflicts isn’t just political gamesmanship — it’s a direct assault on the information infrastructure that democracy requires to function. We ignore this pattern at our peril.
My next essays will sketch out a positive vision for AI and democracy: using “AI proxy voters” or APVs for voters to be able to easily and regularly vote on matters small and large, taking back our democracy from the utterly corrupt halls of Congress and the White House — and of course the same holds true for state houses and city councils.
Sources:
- Axios: “It was a headfake”: Inside Trump’s secret orders to strike Iran
- Axios: Trump cautioned Netanyahu to avoid steps that undermine Iran nuclear talks
- Axios: At Trump’s request, Israel cleared way for U.S. bombers in Iran
- Reuters: Trump, Musk feud explodes with threats of cutting contracts, backing impeachment
- RT: Trump’s envoy urges Musk to provide free Starlink to ‘friends’ in Iran
- TASS: Trump emissary asks Musk to give Iran temporary free access to Starlink
- Tam Hunt: The seven stages of the AIpocalypse
