It is not uncommon for American presidents to have informal advisors. Kennedy, Ford, and Reagan all had unpaid advisors who made up their “kitchen Cabinets.” Those advisors have often wielded significant influence on American policy.

Now it would appear that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is going to serve in that informal advisory role for President-elect Donald Trump. We got a taste of what the next four years might look like when Musk seemingly initiated a move to kill a bill designed to avoid a government shutdown. What followed was chaos on Capitol Hill. Musk leveled threats against Republicans who didn’t fall in line, promising to fund primary opponents against anyone who didn’t vote to kill the bill. Fortunately for the country, Musk’s initiative failed. Congress passed the new spending bill, foiling Musk and Trump’s attempt to shut the government down. But while Musk failed this time, it doesn’t bode well for the future of our nation. Trump, who hasn’t even taken office yet, demonstrated in this instance that he is willing to use Musk’s money to bully Republican members of Congress.

From Musk’s perspective, control of our government is the return he expects from his $275 million investment into Trump’s re-election. Musk, of course, has no government experience to speak of. Despite his inexperience, he and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tasked with leading a nongovernmental task force, the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE). Musk and Ramaswamy have said that they plan on recommending $2 trillion in federal spending cuts and the elimination of certain agencies. But the government shutdown episode demonstrates that Musk isn’t content with running DoGE. DoGE can only recommend spending cuts, they have no authority to actually make any. Musk seemingly wants to control the very purse strings themselves, a power that up until now had been reserved for Congress. And in his attempt to usurp those powers for himself, he showed that he is willing to use his considerable wealth as well as his personal social media platform, X, to take power as an unelected oligarch.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole episode is that it seems as though Musk was the one leading it. Musk posted a message in opposition to the spending bill and then Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance posted after, seemingly following Musk’s lead. Then Trump tried to derail the spending talks by calling for Republicans to address the federal debt ceiling, adding complications to an already complicated process at the last minute.

The bright spot in this otherwise foreboding episode was that it didn’t work. Congressional Republicans joined with Democrats to pass a bipartisan spending bill that avoided a government shutdown. The bill passed both the House and the Senate and was signed into law by President Biden shortly after.

Still, one wonders how many presidents we are going to have when Trump takes office later this month. Will we have the elected president sitting in the White House and an unelected shadow president actually calling the shots? You can tell this is weighing on Trump’s mind too. He attempted to address it in Arizona at a Turning Point USA event, but, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the president-elect doth protest too much, methinks.

Trump’s only argument that Musk wasn’t going to be president was that he wasn’t born in this country. But while there is a requirement that the President of the United States be born in the United States, the office of shadow president holds no such requirement. If the spending bill fiasco is any indication, it appears that Musk has bought this presidency and will wield tremendous influence over the Trump administration.

Our only hope now lies with the Republican members of Congress who stood up to Musk and passed the spending bill. Perhaps Musk’s attempts at power will force more acts of bipartisanship. Hopefully members of Congress will recognize these attempts for what they are, an attempt to buy our democracy and turn it into a plutocracy, rule by the rich, or, perhaps more accurately, a kakistocracy, rule by the least suitable to govern.