Trump-Musk: The Fallout
It's ugly out there, folks.
“I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man.”— Elon Musk, February 7, 2025
A reminder, my friends, that things change quickly. Especially when we are dealing with the world’s most toxic schmucks.
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Let’s catch up with the ongoing Trump-Musk bromance implosion — which Matt Labash has aptly dubbed the “Assholocaust”.
Because it’s the weekend, and I’m on vacation, we’ll stick to the highlights:
There were random rumors of a rapprochement in the works, but the reports seem implausible. Trump is describing his former best buddy as “crazy,” and has hinted that drugs melted his brain even while he was letting Musk vandalize the government. Musk, who accused Trump of having dark sex-trafficking secrets and hints he should be impeached, is also reminding folks that Trump will probably die before the X mogul. And Musk actually retweeted this image:
Trump is so pissed that he’s dumping his Tesla — the one he was pimping for at the White House.
On Thursday, Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s lucrative government contracts, which lead to this counter-threat:
Musk has since backed away from that threat (and cut down on his manic Xeeting), but this thing isn’t going to end well. Both men are openly wondering whether the whole extraordinary saga was “bullshit”; and we’re starting to get leaks about all of the national security risks that Musk posed. (Surprise! Surprise!)
As this all plays out, the ever-savvy Kara Swisher observes:
Next up, a faux make-up. But the die is cast as the loathsome tech right and the heinous MAGA right eat themselves alive. In ways you will not see for a bit, it’s over for an aging Trump and his tiresome reality show which inevitably led to this orgy of idiocy.
Indeed, both Trump and Musk seem to be assessing their positions and risks. State of play: Trump can make Musk less rich; it’s not clear that Musk can make Trump less powerful.
But Musk can certainly be a pain in the ass and he’s going to be around a lot longer.
Matt Labash reminds us that despite the huge stakes here, rational human beings have no real rooting interest in the Trump-Musk merde-fest: “No matter who loses, we win!”
The Trump/Elon spat, however, has me feeling the same way I felt during the Iran-Iraq War. Which is one of the reasons I was reticent about America throwing over Saddam Hussein, even if Saddam was an utter monster who deserved throwing over. The strategic-rivalry theory being that sometimes, when two evil powers collide, they have less energy to inflict their evil on the rest of us, since they are too busy trying to destroy each other. Maybe, just maybe, if Trump and Elon keep it up, a few more hundred thousand federal workers won’t be fired, and we won’t see everything from medical research to food-aid-to-the-starving to our own weather prediction further decimated.
Oliver Darcy puts the imbroglio into context:
It goes without saying, the attacks follow a well-worn MAGA Media pattern: once someone has the nerve to step out of line, no matter how loyal they may have been to Trump or the conservative movement, the machine turns on them. Musk may have thought his money, platform, and cultural influence gave him immunity from that reality. He’s about to learn otherwise.
But, writes Darcy, “this feud is different from the many Trump has trash-talked his way through.” Musk will be harder to scrape off his shoes than others in his orbit.
Musk isn’t a former cabinet official or political rival. He’s a tech billionaire who, by sheer force of the algorithm, sits atop one of the most influential platforms in the world. He doesn’t need to beg for airtime—he controls the app millions use for news and information. And he has endless resources to cause problems for Trump and the GOP—particularly if he decides to tweak the X algorithm or spend big in the midterms.
That makes this conflict more than just a run-of-the-mill feud. It’s a crack in the foundation of MAGA's information environment. Trump has long enjoyed a near-monopoly on right-wing media, with a compliant ecosystem that boosted him without question. Musk helped to reinforce that system on X. Now, he’s working to dismantle it on the very platform much of MAGA Media calls home.
This is right, but any reality check will also acknowledge that the ever-vengeful Trump has a vast armory of options he can use to crush Musk. Via the NYT: “8 Ways Musk and Trump Could Inflict Pain on Each Other.”
Trump can cut Musk’s contracts, launch investigations into his drug use and immigration status, revoke his security clearance, and use any other cudgel of presidential power to bludgeon the billionaire.
But Musk is not without his own cards. Consider this:
These two have always known the worst about each other. They’ve only decided to speak up when their own fortunes and livelihoods were at risk….
Both of these men are treating national secrets, trafficking allegations, and multi-billion dollar infrastructure as bargaining chips in a power struggle.
And neither one is bluffing….
**
So what does Musk know? And how does he know it?
While online incels were laughing at Dogecoin memes, Musk was quietly building something far more consequential: the infrastructure of the modern surveillance state under his own brand.
It wasn’t just vibe shift—it was sleight of hand.
During Musk’s public chaos era, when he was shit-posting journalists and renaming Twitter, there were reports of multiple internal security failures, shadow access to governments, and data vulnerabilities so serious that the government became alarmed. But no one really paid attention. Because Musk had successfully convinced the public—and a large portion of the media—that he was just an eccentric billionaire troll.
Except he was running a live, unregulated, behavioral data operation across three vectors…
He has X, “the largest social media influence engine for American political discourse’; Starlink: Musk’s satellite-based internet system “with influence over battlefield communications, rural American broadband, and national security infrastructure”; and, of course, DOGE which has “funneled Musk and his team into the heart of the federal government”.
In other words: “Musk isn’t just a CEO—he’s the custodian of national secrets no private citizen should be allowed to hold.”
And there is Jeffrey Epstein
No, MAGA won’t care. And the cynical amongst us suggest there’s nothing new here. But this could get messy, awkward, and embarrassing. Democrats have seemingly awakened from their slumber:
House Democrats are asking the Department of Justice and FBI whether it is true, as Elon Musk now claims, that President Trump is in the Epstein files, Axios has learned….
In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel first obtained by Axios, Reps. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked that they "immediately clarify whether this allegation is true."
The lawmakers asked for a timeline of the DOJ's declassification and publication of the Epstein files, an explanation for why they haven't turned over any new documents since February.
And they requested a description of Trump's role in reviewing the files, a list of personnel involved in their release and an answer for why files previously released to Congress contained "significant redactions."
Exit take: Why did this take so long?
Finally…
Yascha Mounk wonders whether the Trump-Musk breakup also marks the “End of Silicon Politics”.
But the big beautiful break between Trump and Musk is more significant for what it reveals about failed aspirations that now are very much in the past than for what it predicts about events that are yet to come. When romances fail, it is often because each partner projected their hopes onto the other, only to discover belatedly that these had all along been misplaced. That is the true meaning lurking behind the political breakup of the century.
Musk thought that he could use Trump as a vehicle for refashioning the federal government in keeping with the values and the ethos of the Silicon Valley elite. Trump thought that he could use his alliance with Musk to broaden his appeal beyond his traditional pitch. Both of these hopes were destined to be disappointed before the wedding vows had even been pronounced.
Saturday dog
Three years ago today we lost my best buddy, Pete, who led a wonderful life for 17 1/2 years. Right until the very end.
As someone among your former colleagues at The Bulwark wrote, Musk vs. Trump is like a battle between King Kong and Godzilla. While you may enjoy watching the fight, never forget that they're both monsters.
Bless Pete. Enjoy your vacation. Trump and Elon will be fine while you relax a little. Thanks for posting. ♥️