This week’s cover | Nov 23rd 2024 Edition

This week we had two covers. Our cover in most of the world focuses on Elon Musk. In 2017 Mr Musk called Donald Trump a “con man” and “one of the world’s best bullshitters”. Now he is the president-elect’s right-hand man. The alliance of the world’s leading politician and its richest man creates a concentration of power both want to use to explosive effect: to slash bureaucracy, detonate liberal orthodoxies and deregulate in the name of growth. Mr Musk has already begun speaking to foreign leaders and has been appointed to lead an advisory body, called DOGE, tasked with cutting government spending. America may have much to gain from reforming the government. But there are big risks that cronyism and graft, as well as Mr Musk’s own erratic judgment, could cause harm. If he mounts a half-baked programme that ends in spectacular failure, the ambition to tackle spending will be set back for years.