Keeping track of the Trump team
Donald Trump will appoint the fathers-in-law of his two daughters, Ivanka and Tiffany, to serve in his administration. But it’s not just the men of the family that have Trump’s regard. Two other men with whom he seems impressed are Elon Musk and RFK Jr. What makes them tick? Excerpts from This Week, Those Books. Sign up at https://thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/ and get the post and podcast the day it drops
Welcome to This Week, Those Books, your rundown on books new and old that resonate with the week’s big news story. We’re coming to you a couple days late because of a consequential election.
Please consider supporting this news literacy effort by investing in a paid membership so that we can keep it freely accessible to our community of more than 10,000 subscribers in 114 countries.
If, for whatever reason, it’s not possible for you to upgrade to paid, email thisweekthosebooks@substack.com and we’ll give you full access, no questions asked.
Would you rather listen? We have a podcast.
– Rashmee
The Big Story:
Donald Trump will be the big boss but who will serve as lieutenants as he works to Make America Great Again?
- Entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world’s richest man
- Environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr
This Week, Those Books:
These two men had dramatically different upbringings — Musk with a troubled childhood, Kennedy a mostly idyllic one — but both are imbued by the spirit of their grandfathers.
The Backstory:
Elon Musk
- The founder of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla and owner of X (formerly Twitter), was probably Trump’s most consequential backer in the 2024 election…He put more than $175 million into a get-out-the-vote operation… Before the election, Trump said Musk would lead a government efficiency commission. Musk explained it would examine how departments spend in order to eliminate “unsensible” activities…
Robert F Kennedy Jr
- Scion of the Kennedy political dynasty, the longtime environmental lawyer and supporter of good causes has become known for his vocal vaccine scepticism.
- Kennedy has suggested that common immunisations, as well as fluoridated water, could be under scrutiny, along with the Affordable Care Act — or Obamacare — which provides health insurance to 45 million Americans…
This Week’s Books:
Elon Musk
By: Walter Isaacson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2023
This immensely readable account comes from the man who’s written a number of bestselling biographies, not least of Steve Jobs. Drawing on two years of close access, Walter Isaacson sketches a delicate portrait of the tech entrepreneur who went from a tumultuous upbringing to unimaginable riches and reach. Musk was named for his maternal grandfather Joshua Elon Haldeman, a rule-breaker who left Canada for apartheid South Africa because he felt government was usurping control of the individual’s life. Elon was just three when his grandfather died but he seems to have imbibed the Haldeman family’s motto “Live dangerously — carefully”…
Choice quotes:
“…violence was simply part of the learning experience in South Africa. ‘Two held you down while another pummeled your face with a log and so on. New boys were forced to fight the school thug on their first day at a new school.’ He [Errol Musk] proudly concedes that he exercised ‘an extremely stern streetwise autocracy’ with his boys. Then he makes a point of adding, ‘Elon would later apply that same stern autocracy to himself and others’.”
“’With a childhood like his in South Africa, I think you have to shut yourself down emotionally in some ways’, says his first wife Justine, the mother of five of his surviving ten children…”
American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family
By: Robert F Kennedy Jr
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2018
It’s hard to see Robert F Kennedy Jr, the alleged nutball, in this charming, rather conventional story that weaves his family’s story with that of America…[And] Kennedy’s recent teaming up with Trump, who’s openly admiring of authoritarian leaders, is hard to reconcile with the hard words he writes about an earlier fraught period of history: “While most Americans have forgotten fascism’s dangerous appeal in 1930s America, the era remains an important object lesson today, as private financial powers once again reassert dominion over American democracy”…
I hope you find This Week, Those Books useful, thoughtful, and…a conversation starter. It’s a small operation here at TWTB, and support from readers like you helps keep this news literacy project going.
Email thisweekthosebooks@substack.com to tell us what you think.
Connect with me on LinkedIn | Twitter | Bluesky | Facebook | Threads | YouTube
Originally published at This Week, Those Books
