The Death of Bromance
A few assorted thoughts on the Musk/Trump breakup
As you are probably already aware, Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s mutual admiration society has just dissolved in spectacular fashion—as, indeed, it was probably always doomed to sooner or later given the Brobdingnagian egos involved. An assortment of quick thoughts on the breakup, in no particular order:
Though Trump has trained his criticism on Musk personally rather than the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, this has to put a pretty big question mark over the future of DOGE—not just the formal organization but the network of DOGE staffers now embedded at agencies throughout the federal government. DOGE drew heavily from Musk’s personal and professional Silicon Valley circles rather than more traditional Republican policy types: Most of them are Musk people first, and Trump supporters secondarily. That’s suddenly a huge liability for them under an executive who constantly demonstrates that he demands absolute personal fealty above all else—and some are apparently already telling reporters that they’re concerned for their professional futures and beginning to eye the doors. Unless they very quickly kiss and make up—which, though it’s pretty clearly in both their interests, seems like a tall order given that Musk tacitly called Trump a pedophile—it’s hard to imagine that Trump would allow a coterie of those Musk people to remain ensconced at the highest levels of the federal bureaucracy.
The initial causus belli here before things turned personal was Trump’s big bloated budget bill, which makes the blowup a kind of synecdoche for the simmering tension between the populist MAGA base and the Trumpy-come-lately Silicon Valley techbros. The MAGA base, as Trump himself has described it, is “socially conservative and fiscally liberal”—they’re opposed to big government spending to the extent that it’s seen as primarily benefitting unworthy non-whites. The techbros are mostly the opposite: They were never really onboard with Trump’s immigration or tariff agenda, and one suspects many viewed Trump as a useful idiot who could be used to push through tax cuts and deregulation. Musk’s imprimatur was no small part of why they threw in with Trump, and their personal falling out risks exposing the preexisting seams in that Frankenstein coalition.
Not that we really needed further evidence, but the speed with which the conflict went thermonuclear is a stunning illustration of how immature and emotionally incontinent both of these terrifyingly powerful men are. It makes no real sense for Trump to alienate the world’s richest man, who is also incidentally a major defense contractor and owner of a large social media platform. It makes no real sense for Musk to make an enemy of the president of the United States. It’s not in either of their interests to have permitted a policy disagreement, however fierce, to spill out into a sordid public pissing match, but these are not ultimately men governed by reason: Neither could resist escalating the fight on a national stage.
On Twitter, Musk decided to “drop the really big bomb” that Trump is “in the [Jeffrey] Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” This was not a particularly big bomb for anyone who’s been paying attention: It has been well known for years that Trump and Epstein were close friends who “partied together” for decades. Nor can the predator-in-chief claim ignorance of Epstein’s proclivities, given that he once joked of his then-friend: “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” But given that their long friendship didn’t get much airtime on Fox, it may well be news to a lot of Trump supporters. That got me thinking that perhaps the most damaging thing Musk could do—beyond whatever tea he may be in a position to spill by dint of his personal association with Trump—is to pierce MAGA’s media bubble by just resurfacing stories normal news consumers have been aware of all along, with the added oomph of his personal credibility behind them.
All that said, whether or not they ultimately revert to their former BFF status, continuing the public feud is so obviously damaging to both of them that you have to assume their closest advisors are screaming at them to cut it out. Whether they’re capable of deescalating given the aforementioned emotional incontinence is anyone’s guess, but with a day or two to cool down, I’d expect both to at least temporarily go radio silent on the feud rather than providing the protracted punch-up the Internet is clamoring for.
Love that "Big Bloated Bill."