Research on contemporary incumbent takeovers by elected leaders demonstrates that incumbents often centralize power with the backing of their regime coalition. While canonical theories of authoritarian power-sharing posit that elites should collectively resist moves, a puzzling number of takeovers gain traction with the support of key coalition members, seemingly against their own institutional interests. In this article, we offer a new theoretical account of this variation. We argue that whether regime elites align with or resist incumbent-led power consolidation hinges on their positions within the regime hierarchy. Elite rank influences their assessments of long-term costs and benefits, as well as their exposure to punishment risks and replaceability. To empirically test our claims, we develop a novel measure of elite loyalty and support for presidentialism based on large-scale, automated text analysis of parliamentary speeches by Turkish legislators during a period of political upheaval (2016–2018) coinciding with the rise of a personalist autocracy. Combining our measures of loyalty and support for presidentialism with detailed biographical data on legislators, we show that elites’ positions within the regime hierarchy critically shape their responses to incumbent-led centralization. Higher-ranked elites, with robust networks and resources that insulate them from immediate punishment or removal, and more to lose in terms of agenda-setting power, are less likely to endorse the takeover. In contrast, lower-ranked elites, facing greater vulnerability, are more inclined to support centralization to safeguard their survival and advance their careers within the evolving power-sharing framework. Our findings provide new insights into the micro-foundations of regime personalization.