Musk's unprecedented reach into Congress to scrap a budget bill is America's first look at what authoritarian rule under Donald Trump and Musk will look like. This week, Elon Musk's unprecedented intervention in America's budget process exposed what our investigations have warned about: the emergence of an unelected power center with direct ties to the Kremlin. For months, we've documented how Vladimir Putin's influence operation successfully installed what amounts to a shadow presidency in the United States. The evidence is now impossible to ignore: We revealed direct communications between Musk and Putin beginning in 2021, intensifying during the Twitter purchase in 2022 We exposed Musk's connections to Sergiy Kiriyenko, Putin's propaganda chief We documented how Russian oligarch-linked venture funding helped enable the Twitter acquisition We tracked Musk's political evolution in perfect alignment with these Kremlin contacts We proved Musk amplified content from Russia's Social Design Agency Shadow President But this week's power play over the federal budget demonstrates something even more concerning: Musk now wields unprecedented control over executive policy, legislative priorities, and information flow through X/Twitter - all while maintaining his position at SpaceX and other strategic companies. Center for European Policy Analysis Senior Fellow Olga Lautman explains why this matters: "Who is our president? Trump occasionally puts out messages on social media, but it seems Musk is driving the car." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices