)kay·fabe — /'keɪ,feɪb/
1. (professional wrestling) the act, situation, or code of portraying staged events, performances, rivalries, etc. as authentic or spontaneous,
2. (figurative) Similar fakery or suspension of disbelief in other contexts.
(Source: Wiktionary)
If you read my hidden diary entry post for today, you'll know that Trump had me convinced that he's the all-powerful dictator in much the same way that the Undertaker convinced his fans that he was some sort of, like, undead priest or something with Satan on his speed-dial. It took me shaving and taking a shower to remember our word of the day.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are the two most hated figures in America right now, have been for years. Like I said back in November, right now they're just using each other to escape federal prosecution. They aren't each other's friends, they hate each other just as much as everyone else does, but they have enough supporters who would string them up by their shoelaces if they cut the act short that they have to play nice for the cameras and the internet.
If, for example, Trump has Elon assassinated (idk, just spitballing here), all the techbros with cottagecore trophy wives who worship the ground Elon walks on would rise up against Trump's supporters, possibly even Trump himself. It might even be enough for people who support BOTH Trump and Elon to finally deploy their toolshed arsenals and... do something that I would be the target of a Secret Service investigation for if I continued that thought. It wouldn't even necessarily have to be assassination of Elon; it might just be Trump having Elon locked up for something. A cult cannot have two leaders.
Back to kayfabe: Donald Trump is playing the character of a political strongman when, in reality, he's so bad at making executive decisions that he's gone bankrupt a dozen times. Elon, on the other hand, is playing the character of a polymath genius when he doesn't even realise just how much data the financial records of 350 million individuals and 75 million registered businesses all across time amounts to. Of course, Elon is also the man who insisted on reviewing printed hardcopies all of the code the engineers at Twitter were working on at the time he took ownership and ended up with 25,000 reams of paper stuffed in his office.