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Elon Musk is building a framework to dominate the global political order with himself standing above nation states, according to an expert analysis.

The tech mogul and the world's richest man injected hundreds of millions of dollars into Donald Trump's re-election campaign and is said to be sitting by his side as something like an unelected co-president, and political commentator Elad Nehorai published a column for MSNBC analyzing the billionaire's authoritarian ambitions.

During an appearance on MSNBC on Wednesday morning, Professor Scott Galloway of NYU's Stern School of Business ripped into Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's decision to pull the plug on fact-checking and moderation on Facebook. He then included Donald Trump and Elon Musk as he raised red flags over the country's direction.

Speaking with the co-hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Galloway described in detail how much billionaire Zuckerberg will personally profit from shutting down the vital Facebook department, before pointing out billionaires are rushing to jump on the Trump train which is barreling towards turning the U.S. into a kleptocracy much like Russia.

"With this decision, the CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg gets kind of a two-fer," he began. "He gets to placate, at least temporarily, the president who threatened to put him in jail the rest of his life, and he gets to save maybe upwards of $5 billion, which is how much they spend on their [Facebook's] safety and security department –– and a price/earnings ratio of 30, that's potentially $150 billion increase in market capitalization."

ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'

"Mark Zuckerberg owns 15 percent of the company, so you have what is effectively a get-out-of jail-card potentially from someone who appears to be an oligarch threatening to put people in jail, and add $15 to $20 billion to his net worth," he added.

"The greatest trade of 2024 –– it wasn't Bitcoin, it wasn't Nvidia -- it was Elon Musk investing a quarter of a billion dollars directly into the Trump campaign," he explained. "And when Trump won, since the election, Elon Musk's worth has gone up $140 billion. So that's effectively, I believe, about a 56,000 percent return on investment."

"So we've gone full kleptocracy," he bluntly stated. 'We can never, in my opinion, wave our finger at Russia again when the president, the elected president is taking public trust and public authority and weaponizing government and doling out capital and market share and contracts and threatening to use regulatory action against the competitors who don't give money to his inaugural committee or don't kind of bend the knee; we are effectively in a kleptocracy."

"This is –– Russia is the role model. We are becoming more like Russia every day, that's where we are," he added to the stunned hosts.

Watch below or at the link.

Several major wildfires burned out of control in California's Los Angeles County on Wednesday as roaring winds fueled the rapid spread of the blazes, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate as state, local, and federal officials mobilized resources to confront the emergency.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on social media late Tuesday that the city is "working aggressively" to stem the wildfires, which scientists and government officials characterized as uniquely devastating.

Donald Trump is doing everything to remove a "scarlet letter off of his chest," but it looks like he'll be unsuccessful, a legal expert said.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance raised the subject in a Substack post dated Wednesday, saying that the President-elect is trying to avoid being permanently labeled as a convicted felon. In that effort, Trump has tried to stay an upcoming sentencing, but has had no luck.

Donald Trump's press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday provided plenty of fodder for the entire panel of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday morning.

With the president-elect touching on subjects like possibly using the military to take control of Greenland and Panama, using "economic pressure" on Canada to become part of the U.S., and rambling about renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, most panelists agreed the incoming president was likely trolling for attention.

However, as host Joe Scarborough noted, one moment stood out when Trump mentioned Meta CEO head Mark Zuckerberg's early morning announcement the Facebook would abandon moderators fact-checking claims –– which has been considered by many to be a gift to Trump.

ALSO READ: Trump intel advisor Devin Nunes still dismisses Russian election meddling as a 'hoax'

As part of the announcement, Republican party-aligned Joel Kaplan, recently hired as Meta’s chief global affairs officer stated, "We went to independent, third-party fact-checkers. It has become clear there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform."

That led MSNBC's Scarborough to offer, "You know, this is one of those moments where there's, you know, you've always got to separate the signal from the ground noise, as a great admiral once told me."

"This is one of those moments where we may look back and actually, you know, see Gulf of America, Greenland, all this other stuff, and we may realize that actually the most important part of yesterday's press conference that may have the biggest impact on American politics may be what he said about Meta and Mark Zuckerberg's total and absolute collapse on all fronts in that horrific video that he put out yesterday."

"That actually is something that may more dramatically change the landscape of American politics, at least over the next two to four years, until somebody else gets in control and Mark Zuckerberg decides, 'Yes, yes, yes, sir, overlord, I will now do what you want me to do.' This is going to have a sweeping impact."

Watch below or at the link here.

Panelists on "CNN This Morning" tried to make sense of Donald Trump's imperialist threats against Canada, Greenland and Panama.

The president-elect refused to rule out military or economic actions to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, which he has mused about doing since his Nov. 5 re-election, and he has suggested a merger between Canada and the U.S., saying that all of those territorial expansions would be necessary for national security.

"Some Texas business leaders are apprehensive about Trump’s pledged deportations" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

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U.S. lawmakers voted Tuesday to expand pre-trial incarceration for foreign criminal suspects as a new Congress unified under Republican control works to deliver on Donald Trump's vow to crack down on illegal immigration.

The Laken Riley Act -- which calls for the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes -- is named for a 22-year-old student murdered by a Venezuelan man with no papers who was wanted for shoplifting.

The body of late U.S. president Jimmy Carter was transferred Tuesday in a grand and solemn military ceremony to the US Capitol, where it will lie in state until a national funeral later this week.

Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, served a single term from 1977-1981 and was widely praised for his post-presidential humanitarian efforts, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

by Huw GRIFFITH

Firefighters on Wednesday battled a ferocious wildfire in Los Angeles suburbs, home to many Hollywood celebrities, which devoured buildings and sparked panicked evacuations as hurricane-force winds fueled rapid blaze growth.

In a provocative and headline-grabbing Tuesday speech on his territorial ambitions for the United States, incoming US leader Donald Trump was heavy on intimidation but light on details -- leaving many wondering how seriously the comments should be taken.

In a rambling press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump said he would not rule out using military or economic coercion to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal, and vowed to bring Canada to heel.

A heated debate unfolded Tuesday night on CNN over President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion that the U.S. obtain Greenland, either through economic or military force.

Trump has said the U.S. needs the massive island for "economic security." When asked Tuesday if he would consider using military or economic coercion to make the acquisition proceed, Trump replied: “I can’t assure you — you’re talking about Panama and Greenland — no, I can’t assure you on either of those two."

U.S. Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT) is blasting Donald Trump, after the President-elect held a rambling 70-minute press conference aired live by cable news stations on Tuesday, during which he declared he will rename the Gulf of Mexico, threatened the possible taking of Greenland and the Panama Canal by military force, threatened annexing Canada as the 51st state via "economic coercion" if necessary, suggested Hezbollah was part of the January 6 insurrection, criticized the late U.S. President Jimmy Carter on the day his body is set to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol before his funeral Thursday, declared rain comes "down from heaven" while ranting about states trying to conserve the precious commodity, claimed windmills are "driving the whales crazy" while threatening to ban them, and threatened if the Gaza hostages are not released by the time he is sworn in to office, "all hell is going to break out."

Congressman Himes railed against Trump's remarks, noting that, "Mexico is really, really important to us in stopping fentanyl, and helping us with the migration problems we have that at the southern border. Canada's really important to us, another NATO ally. We should not be gratuitously pissing these people off."