The Trump-Musk Breakup
The bromance is apparently over.
WSJ (“The Day That Trump and Musk Torched Their Partnership“):
This is exactly what President Trump and his advisers were trying to avoid.
Just six days ago, senior Trump aides swallowed their irritation with Elon Musk and planned a chummy Oval Office send-off for him. They briefed the president on allegations of Musk’s drug use so Trump would be ready to defend the billionaire if reporters raised the issue at his goodbye event, aides said.
As late as Wednesday evening, Trump played down any conflicts with Musk in a meeting with Republican senators, according to people familiar with his remarks, even though the billionaire had spent the past few days disparaging the president’s legislative agenda. Over the weekend, after Trump dumped Musk’s ally as the head of NASA, the president made it clear to associates that he wasn’t planning a high-profile confrontation with his former adviser, according to a person who talked to the president.
That goodwill disappeared on Thursday.
Thirteen minutes into an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump laid out his frustrations with Musk, marking the start of a whirlwind day in which two of the world’s most powerful men went from friends to foes.
By Thursday night, Trump had publicly toyed with cutting off government contracts to Musk’s companies, said the billionaire “went CRAZY” and suggested that he is suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.”
In response, Musk, the world’s richest man, floated starting a new political party, suggested that Trump should be impeached, argued that Trump’s tariffs would trigger a recession and pledged to decommission a valuable piece of space equipment on which the government relies. He also alleged that Trump’s name appears in documents stemming from a federal investigation into convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, insinuating that Trump was in some way linked to his criminal behavior.
The extraordinary fight between Trump and Musk that rippled across the country threatens the new MAGA governing coalition that the president built and Musk funded. It puts a target on Musk’s six companies, many of which are heavily regulated by the federal government. And it gives Democrats a rare moment of reprieve at a low point for the party. Shares of Tesla tumbled 14%, their worst day since 2020.
The Trump-Musk blowup was long predicted. Even people close to both men believed privately that their relationship was destined to implode. But the fast-paced, rat-a-tat escalation still came as a shock to a White House that has grown used to curveballs—and a president who often defended Musk as his aides grew frustrated.
White House officials and other allies of the president spent the day refreshing their social-media feeds, watching as the situation escalated and texting Musk’s posts to each other.
“It was a matter of time before all this started, because two giant egos can’t be there together,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence. “It’s hard to imagine seeing it collapsing as fast as it has, but you can’t be surprised by this.”
AP (“Trump and Musk’s relationship flames out just as intensely and publicly as it started“):
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance took off like one of SpaceX’s rockets. It was supercharged and soared high. And then it blew up.
The spectacular flameout Thursday peaked as Trump threatened to cut Musk’s government contracts and Musk claimed that Trump’s administration hasn’t released all the records related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is mentioned in them.
The tech entrepreneur even shared a post on social media calling for Trump’s impeachment and skewered the president’s signature tariffs, predicting a recession this year.
[…]
Trump had largely remained silent as Musk stewed over the last few days on his social media platform X, condemning the president’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” But Trump clapped back Thursday in the Oval Office, saying he was “very disappointed in Musk.”
Musk responded on social media in real time. Trump, who was supposed to be spending Thursday discussing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, ratcheted up the stakes when he turned to his own social media network, Truth Social, and threatened to use the U.S. government to hurt Musk’s bottom line by going after contracts held by his internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his social media network.
“Go ahead, make my day,” Musk quickly replied on X.
Hours later, Musk announced SpaceX would begin decommissioning the spacecraft it used to carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA.
Musk also said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information, that Trump was “in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
The deepening rift unfurled much like their relationship started — rapidly, intensely and very publicly. And it quickly hit Musk financially.
After Trump started criticizing Musk, shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla plunged more than 14%, knocking about $150 billion off Tesla’s market valuation. Musk lost about $20 billion on his personal holding of Tesla.
Politicians and their donor patrons rarely see eye to eye. But the magnitude of Musk’s support for Trump, spending at least $250 million backing his campaign, and the scope of free rein the president gave him to slash and delve into the government with the Department of Government Efficiency is eclipsed only by the speed of their falling-out.
Musk offered up an especially stinging insult to a president sensitive about his standing among voters: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk retorted. “Such ingratitude,” Musk added in a follow-up post.
You really hate to see it.
Fun, but the drama distracts from underlying issue: Patronage and graft drive this administration. Behind the turmoil, well connected people are getting rich either by trading on inside information or by straight-up extortion.
I don’t. I don’t hate to see it. Chef’s kiss if Musk gets deported. 😉
Big Beautiful Breakup.
So what happens to Big Balls and the boys?
Hopefully it gets the little dogies back in the barn, but something tells me they that if they did, someone left the doors unlocked.
Reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war…two bad actors, nobody to root for. On the one hand, it is karma for two assholes to square off like this. They richly deserve each other. On the other hand, the mutual petulance shows why something as crucial as the space program shouldn’t be privatized (nor – obviously – should the presidency be entrusted to a petty, vindictive ignoramus).
Has anybody, ever, worked for Trump and not ended up on very bad terms with him?
@Jax:
A girl can dream… Of South Africans sent to El Salvador…
@becca:
I saw a headline that Big Balls got a big boy job in the administration.
Your title image when I visited otb was Musk holding his kid. When I clicked on the article it suddenly changed to the hand shaking picture, which created an animation effect of Musk throwing his kid away to shake Trumps hand.
Probably accurate.
@Charley in Cleveland:
I was thinking of the Iran/Iraq war, too. I recall someone saying that both sides were so awful he hoped they’d both lose.
NOT the “brightest guys in the room.”
Remember, both Trump and Musk are showmen. And they are men. This could all be settled in a moment over Diet Cokes. Which will confuse the “mean girl” culture of official DC.
A good way to get real change is to put the topic in the media. Harvard and Columbia may win their court cases, but they are out in the open now with their ugly long histories of antisemitism being documented on the internet.
@Charley in Cleveland:
@CSK:
Also Germany vs USSR in WWII.
Added bonus that the latter helped to enable the former to launch the worldwide conflagration.
Oh, and another meme I ran across: Alien vs Sexual Predator.
@JKB: “And they are men.”
True, but trump is a huge drama queen, and musk is not far behind. They could be the centerpiece (or perhaps prima donnas) of a mean girl culture.
@JKB:
Yeah, when I think of men, I think of two guys shrieking at each other online and then settling over Diet Cokes. True masculinity right there, bro.
There’s something amusing about Trump and weird tech guys defining masculinity in the most queeny/brittle way possible and then you chumps running with it. Real bros aren’t ironic or chill. Nope. They fly into rages at the smallest thing, just like Dad, or offer 5-hour incoherent monologues without making eye contact.
I think Elon is an absolute genius at finding new ways to burn bridges with the customer base to his businesses.
@Eusebio:
@Modulo Myself:
That’s how chimps fight: they make a lot of noise and throw shit around. They’re even doing it in Xitter.
Whether it’s a good thing that such “men” have regressed to a more savage past, would be a stupid question.
@JKB:
What about the MAGA movement leads to this weird sort of homoerotic fantasy about Trump and Musk as men’s men? Here’s more of it from well known MAGA supporters on Twitter:
I don’t think men in the gay rights movement think about balls and phalluses as much as these folks do. (I know, I know, this type of comment “debases” me… and again, I’m ok with that in this case).
Not to mention verbally going back and forth about each other on *separate* social media platforms (Trump/Truth social and Musk/Xitter) and stopping following the other’s supporters is pretty much textbook Mean Girl behavior. And these are the same men say women are too emotional to be good leaders. On that note Vance is telling us to ignore our lying eyes:
Which gets to…
Nice attempt to change the topic.
Like I said yesterday, I really feel for you. It’s hard when daddy and daddy fight.
@JKB:
They are boys.
@Modulo Myself:
This totally reminds me of the time that Elon Musk, while on a bender, challenged Mark Zuckberg to a fight.
In the alt-right and toxic masculinity Tech space, Musk is typically seen as an alpha male. Zuckberg is usually seen as a beta-cuck who is too into his wife.
In the real world, Zuckerberg has been practicing combat sports for a number of years. That includes entering open BJJ competitions and won a medal or two. He recently got his blue belt which–even though it’s the first promotion in BJJ’s five belt system, requires a lot of time and work (for me it was 2+ years).
Musk’s fans were sure he would totally beat up Zuckerberg as he’s the bigger guy and he’s Elon. And yet, each time (and this has happened a few times) Musk has backed out when it was time to put up: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4792452-zuckerberg-musk-fight-invite/
And yet, for some reason, to folks like @JKB Musk is clearly a man’s man. I just don’t get it.
—
Note: This isn’t a “Zuck’s” great post. I do give him respect for training and, more importantly, competing. Speaking from personal experience, that’s not an easy thing to do. Anyone who gets on the mats and keeps coming back on a regular basis deserves recognition.
@Matt Bernius: As the father of three now-grown men, that sounds like a bunch of children to me.
@JKB:
They are both whiny, insecure nepo babies coasting off daddy’s money.
Ha. Do Republicans really believe anyone thinks y’all actually oppose antisemitism?
Republicans are out in the open in supporting Musk through his ugly Nazi salute, the Jan 6 terrorists who carried Nazi insignia into the US Capitol, Marjorie Taylor-Greene through her ugly fearmongering about “Jewish Space Lasers,” and rapist Trump through his:
a) ugly dinners with Jew-bashing freaks Nick Fuentes and Kanye West.
b) ugly praise of those marched in Charlottesville with tiki torch Nazis who shouted “Jews shall not replace us!”
Colombia and Harvard were around long before the white supremacist Trump-Musk bromance. These institutions are still standing now that welfare king drug addict Musk and career criminal Epstein-bestie pedophile Trump are catfighting. And these colleges will still be thriving long after Trump’s fascist, anti-American MAGA cult is recorded in history as an incompetent neo-Nazi disgrace.
@JKB: I get that this comment is supposed to be some kind of jab at DC, but it just shows how little you understand about diplomacy.
Effective governance takes mad skills. You have to know a lot, understand people, and, perhaps most importantly, know when to talk and when to STFU. This bull-in-a-china-shop approach is what happens when a bunch of clueless people who think movies are real life end up in power.
This spat is high drama and makes for a bunch of tabloid-style fodder, but it also makes everyone involved look small and stupid. THIS IS NOT HOW ADULTS BEHAVE.
Our allies and our opponents are watching.
This morning Musk retracted the threat to decommission the Dragon capsule. Rumor has it Gwynne Shotwell, the long-time SpaceX COO who actually built the business into the launch services powerhouse it is, called and screamed at him. Shotwell has been described for years as one of the very few people in the world that Musk will always shut up and listen to.
I will see your quote Dr. Taylor and raise you:
They are children.
Back in the late 70s, I recall a popular poster that read “There are no strangers. Only friends you haven’t met yet.”
I figure El Taco’s version reads “There are no friends. Only enemies you haven’t antagonized yet.”
@Kathy:
Or, “There are no strangers, only people you haven’t exploited and then discarded yet.”
@JKB: Having appeared as a guest celebrity WrestleMania and reality TV–even multiple times–does not make one “a showman.” But keep reassuring yourself…
And drinking the Kool Aid. The Kool Aid is rilly important.
@Matt Bernius: The most interesting feature to me is that Jack Posobiec describes the altercation as a dick swinging contest–almost in those exact words–and praises it as hallmark, masculine interaction.
Un. Fecking. Believable.
@CSK:
That result would be Next Level, maybe even Executive Level, Schadenfreude
Would it then be Schadenfreude Royale?
@Jen:
America still has allies? That’s comforting to know. Thanks!
@JKB:
No, they are NOT men. They’re temper tantrum-throwing toddlers. I would, however, agree that they’re wannabe showmen. Or showbabies.
@just nutha: I just saw that. Here’s the full tweet:
I am a fan of direct communication. And I am a man. (Some of the most direct communicators I know are women, but never mind). There are times when indirect communication is more suited. Everything has a season.
But if Mr. Posobiec thinks that this kind of crap is something to be lauded and held up as an example of how to communicate in conflict, I feel sorry for him. He must have a terrible father to think that. Or perhaps he had no father at all, and he wanted Darth Vader to be his father.
Wait, Vader would never behave so childishly. Maybe Hulk Hogan would be a better choice?
I’m quite serious by the way. We are seeing an avalanche of men who had bad fathers or no fathers. Right now they think certain awful, self-defeating, childish behaviors are “manly” and “alpha”. How did they come to think that? By absorbing “how to be a man” from media or really bad examples.
@JKB: I am going to be a bit contrarian and agree with you that Trump is a showman. So much of his “ridiculous” things that the media covers contains a message. The “ridiculousness” is the delivery system, but there’s a payload.
For instance, the payload (for Trump, I think Steven Miller has a different attitude) of all the terrible news stories about deportations is “Trump is doing everything he can to get rid of illegal aliens”.
That’s probably true here.
I do not think Musk is all that great of a showman, though.
Finally, I do not ever question whether someone “is a man”. I have come to believe that anybody who tells me to “be a man” is trying to get me to do something that’s bad for me, but good for them. It’s bullshit. They can fuck right off.
AND, people can get some pretty strange ideas about what “be a man” means.
That’s from somebody who values courage, forthrightness, and fortitude. Those are good things. I value them in any person I find them in.
However, I do not think this could be settled easily. Musk thought he had bought Trump, and now Trump has booted him out the door in favor of BBB.
This is not a small thing. It’s a billion-dollar thing. It’s a $250 million spent on Trump’s campaign thing.
Not small.
@Michael Cain: @Jay L Gischer:
If the rumor is true, Gwynne Shotwell apparently didn’t get the memo regarding the gynocentric behavior expected of her as a female COO of SpaceX. Trump and Musk, the “high agency males” that they are, are going to be so upset with her defying biologically predetermined behaviors.
@Scott F.: Nice catch.
Look I don’t want to pile on but just kidding I do:
To be clear, posting messages on
the bathroom wallsrespective social media platforms about howSara’s a total slutbagTrump is on the Epstein list and how maybeJenny will be struck from the cheerleader’s squadElon will have his starlink contracts revoked is manly.Engaging in the mean girl culture of, um, talking things out in managerial meetings? That’s something for the
Reagan and GorbachevBecky and Harpers of the world.@Matt Bernius:
As a homo*, I find none of this is erotic, but each to their own I suppose.
Anyway, the alt-right alpha male is a towering giant of a man who doesn’t need to follow any kind of rules because he is just that awesome. He can do the things that beta cucks can’t, and no one dares restrain him.
In other words, a true alpha man is a petulant man-child who escapes the consequences of his actions.
Also, Andrew Tate level manosphere shit has taken over vast swaths of the right wing. Dumbed down Jordan Peterson, despite Peterson starting out pretty dumb.
——
*: bi/pan/whatever, not strictly homo, but close enough for schoolyard taunts and wordplay.
In any discussion of Trump’s alleged manliness, I’m reminded of something he once said about himself ages ago: “I whine and I whine until I get what I want.”
Just as every toddler does.
“NMMNB”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930798791806050496
@Michael Cain:
Maybe she should do it more often, like six-nine times daily.
Decommissioning the Dragon now would have been worse for the crewed space program than retiring the Shuttle was.
Musk is starting cave. It was always going to be that way. Both are vindictive counter-punchers, but Trump has more years of practice. And the power of the Presidency carries more heft.
In the end, Musk exudes an inner insecure child craving acceptance. Trump, on the other hand, has a deep seated meaness and a more entrenched sense of entitlement.
Both are a devotees, pawns, of the instant response social media culture that has overtaken traditional sensibilities and social “circuit breakers” (like time to reflect) —- a perfect storm for “unfiltered” personalities such theirs.
Instead of slashing and whining over social media, Musk could have gone directly to Trump, and had a private session of persuasion/debate over policy.
But no, the default reflex in today’s culture is lashing out publicly even where the means exists for direct conversation over disagreement. Public self-validation has become everything. Our culture, after all, is one of symbiotic exhibitionism and voyeurism.
One would think these “efficiency geniuses” would have an inkling such behavior, as exhibited, is utterly unproductive and a real waste. There is a limit to the degree of personal deficiency, that a pile of money can overcome.
I mean, I think the screaming match is over.
The BBB has to get by on the thinnest of margins. The threat of a primary challenge can be countered by Musk’s big money. All it takes is a couple of Congressmen/Senators who actually don’t like running up big debts. Musk has a whole lot at stake in the BBB, which rolls back all those EV subsidies he’s getting. And maybe a few other things.
Don’t know that it will happen, though.
@Neil Hudelson: I get where you are coming from, but I have seen that behavior in other executives here in Silicon Valley. It was more in private (there was no social media at the time).
This kind of thing is also bog-standard in the WWF.
AND, there are a lot of Silicon Valley executives who don’t do that.
@Neil Hudelson:
See, that’s the kind of graffiti that emotional, excuse me “high agency males” write in bathrooms. Actual graffiti from women’s bathrooms:
Leeland City Club, Detroit, MI
Knockdown Center, New York City, New York
So upthread I posted a NMMNB piece arguing that Musk has already lost, big loser.
Other people here are expressing similar takes.
Not everyone agrees, New Republic:
“TNR”
@charontwo:
Thanks for posting; that was very interesting. And entertaining.
@Matt Bernius:
I’ve mentioned before, I think, that (as was hardly unusual in the UK back then) a large number of my older relatives and their friends and acquaintances, and those my friends, included military veterans of various ranks and types, a senior wartime project engineer, etc.
None of them, that I can recall, were prone to swagger, bluster or public displays of rage.
Or concern about the perceived dimensions of their genitals.
They were, in general, polite, and rather undemonstrative, but with a certain air of quiet self-confidence.
Very diffrent to the rather desperate braggadocio of Musk, Trump, etc.
@JohnSF:
“They were, in general…”
This description reminds me of my late father, a WWII veteran. He was a very good man, like those you knew.
@CSK:
They were indeed good men.
But I suspect the “big testicles” bunch might have regretted the consequences of pushing a KSLI assault infantry corporal, or an RTR tank squadron commander, or a Polish airborne officer, or a Warwickshires Regiment sergeant, or etc etc, past what they might consider tolerable.
Related to this, the social and political consequences of the World Wars in the UK were profound.
It ended the old pattern of generally expected and accepted class hierarchy.
You can’t expect to tell a person of that type to submit and obey, on the basis of “that’s just how it is.”
They maybe polite in telling you to f@ck off, but they will tell you to f@ck off.
Churchill, on the RAF and the RTR:
@Beth: best women’s room graffiti I ever saw was decades ago.
“ my mother made me a lesbian “
“if I give her enough yarn will me make me one, too?”