Putin, Kim Dotcom and Julian Assange didn't want Hillary to win - they got their wish

A new dawn has broken in American politics with the election of business entrepreneur Donald Trump as US president, and while countless people around the world and in the US are devastated by the news, several controversial figures are happy with the result, like Vladimir Putin, Kim Dotcom and Julian Assange.

Russian president Putin announced on Twitter at 10.53am GMT that he had sent congratulations to Trump for winning the US presidential elections: "In his message, Mr Putin said he hopes for work together to lift Russian-US relations out of the current crisis, resolve issues on the international agenda, look for effective responses to global security challenges.

"The President said he is confident that Moscow and Washington can establish a constructive dialogue based on the principles of equality, mutual respect, and genuine consideration for each other's positions. This would be in the interests of both peoples and of the entire international community.

"Mr Putin wished Mr Trump success in the high office and responsibility of head of state."

Putin and Trump already have mutual respect and admiration for each other, with Trump already having promised to "re-set" relations with Russia if he were to be elected. Meanwhile, Putin and Hillary Clinton remain at loggerheads, particularly since Clinton accused the Kremlin of fixing the 2011 Russian Parliamentary elections, which Putin says incited unrest in the country.

If Clinton had been elected, she would likely have continued her predecessor's harsh stance against Russia, whereas with Trump, Putin likely feels he has a way forward to hopefully have sanctions dropped, to have a more mutually-beneficial relationship between Russia and the US (the way China and Russia cooperate), and perhaps, even be given free reign in Syria.

Kim Dotcom sees Trump as his ticket out of trouble

Then there's Kim Dotcom, a business entrepreneur who is presently fighting extradition to the US to stand trial for a host of offences relating to copyright infringement and money laundering for running the Megaupload online locker file-hosting website.

Dotcom staunchly believes that he has done nothing wrong and that copyright infringement is a civil offence, not a criminal offence. In the lead up to the US elections, he publicly announced on Twitter that if Trump were to be elected, he would settle his extradition case, get a green card, move his new business Megaupload 2.0 to the US, pay his taxes, create thousands of jobs and "enjoy life".

Dotcom claims that Clinton's beef with him started way before the Megaupload copyright infringement row, and is due to the fact that he has historically donated a lot of money to WikiLeaks and supported them in exposing US war crimes.

In his posts over the last few days, he has called Clinton "evil" and "psycho" for convincing the US government to support Libyan rebels in the 2011 military intervention in Libya, which led to civilian deaths and the political and economic collapse of Libya, and in turn has enabled the growth of Islamic State in North Africa.

He has reinforced support for WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign are corrupt, and he has asked Bernie Sanders publicly to look at the Podesta emails leaked by WikiLeaks, which imply that Sanders was cheated out of becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

But let's not forget Julian Assange

Then there's Julian Assange, who has released an official statement stating that WikiLeaks did not deliberately try to wreck Clinton's campaign or influence the elections, and that the emails were published because the US public had the right to know about the data before voting.

He claims that WikiLeaks published material relating to the DNC Leaks and the Podesta emails about the Clinton political campaign because this was the information WikiLeaks was sent, and that the foundation has to date not been sent any information about Donald Trump, Jilly Stein or Gary Johnson's campaigns that fits WikiLeaks editorial criteria.

This may well be true, but Assange has never really been a big fan of Hillary Clinton. In February 2016, he posted a blog post on WikiLeaks entitled, "A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war", essentially encouraging the Democrats not to pick her as their presidential nominee.

"I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. Her personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of Isis," Assange wrote.

"Hillary's problem is not just that she's a war hawk. She's a war hawk with bad judgement who gets an unseemly emotional rush out of killing people. She shouldn't be let near a gun shop, let alone an army. And she certainly should not become president of the United States."