The Trump reality show delivered great content in recent days as Donald Trump and Elon Musk staged a mixed martial arts-style cage match. The verbal pummeling was not shocking to spectators. Musk is a loose cannon who has been on his way out for many reasons: He opposed Trump’s tariffs, and his DOGE failed to cut government costs as promised. But, on June 4, Musk went public, posting a withering attack against “Trump’s big beautiful bill” and called it a “disgusting abomination.” Dozens more nasty remarks were exchanged as the two clashed over their corrupt practices. Musk, a Democrat for years, paid $277 million to buy into the White House to protect his pork barrel contracts, and Trump exploited him on the campaign trail to attract young male voters, then lost interest. Musk demanded that Trump be impeached, threatened to decommission SpaceX capsules used to transport NASA astronauts, and smeared the President online. Eventually, Musk's arch-rival Steven Bannon waded in and said SpaceX should be seized, Elon’s drug use should be investigated, and he should be deported “because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien.”
How far the high and mighty tech bro has fallen. But few insiders were surprised. His drug-addled manic episodes, stage antics, Nazi salute, chainsaw prancing, name-calling of White House colleagues, and serial postings garnered embarrassing attention. Even so, his meltdown has been shocking and will prove costly, given the $38 billion in “pork” contracts that Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, and other Elon companies have secured in the past decade. Trump said on June 8 that he was “going to take a look at Elon Musk’s contracts” because of the blowup, and some speculate that the deportation threat is possible. (Musk came to the US from South Africa via Canada on a student visa and has been working here since. He became a U.S. citizen in 2002 after completing the naturalization process, but such citizenship can be revoked if it was "procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.")
Sources say that Musk blew up after Trump withdrew the nomination of Musk's friend, billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman, as head of NASA. The first, in a flurry, stated: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate” and then suggested Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President JD Vance. But his coup de grace was an accusation that Trump was hiding records about late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein because he is implicated — a statement made without evidence. Unless abated, their word war may cost Musk billions in contracts and result in Trump being removed from Musk’s enormous “X” online platform.
(It was telling that, lest anyone think that Vice President JD Vance was entertaining the motion of replacing Trump, he issued a two-sentence tweet on June 5: “President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I’m proud to stand beside him.”
The spat is spicey and has entertained the world. But the ramifications are concerning. The judgment, impulsiveness, and rancor of these two — the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man — represent a menace to mankind, not merely to Musk’s shareholders or Trump’s voters. Both are smart, but they are also geopolitical menaces. His spaceflight company, SpaceX, has exclusive contracts with the U.S. government worth billions and controls Starlink, a constellation of thousands of satellites that provide global internet access. This has become an essential planetary infrastructure upon which millions of people depend, and an incident in 2022 illustrates why this company should be regulated and not be in the hands of a single individual like Musk. That year, Musk sabotaged a drone attack by Ukraine against Russian ships in Crimea (urged to do so by Russian operatives) by denying the use of his Starlink access. A Pentagon official encapsulated the unacceptable nature of this. "Elon Musk hasn't been elected. No one decided to give him that power. He has it because of the technology and company he built."
Musk also has enormous influence through his “X” platform and has harnessed this politically to promote Trump, denounce him, and meddle in the politics of several countries by criticizing policies, backing extreme candidates, and spreading disinformation. Trump’s power-sharing with a donor and government contractor is also unacceptable and underscores how corrupt the American political system has become. Worse, Musk’s entry into the Trump inner circle has provided access to all the country’s Silicon Valley aristocracy — a coupling that has reaped untold personal wealth for the Trump family. His sons, Eric and Donald Jr., have been embraced by the “tech bros” and become immersed in the world of cryptocurrency. Within months, the family had made untold billions in digital currencies and digital platforms, a reality that has drawn geopolitical implications: The Presidency is for sale in cryptocurrency.
It’s also clear that this battle will have a significant impact on American politics. Musk proposes to create another political party to represent the “80% in the middle”. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban and other American oligarchs have endorsed this notion. Even former Independent Presidential candidate Andrew Yang suggested an “Independent ’28 presidential primary” with participants including Mark Cuban, Jamie Dimon, and actor Matthew McConaughey. Whatever happens, the situation will fragment the general electorate as Ross Perot did in the 1990s (another technology tycoon) when he attempted to halt federal overspending.
Economically, the dust-up could damage Silicon Valley’s Musk, Peter Thiel, and the rest of the tech bros who feed off government business. Most face anti-trust actions that could bust up their gigantic conglomerates; they also face immigration restrictions that halt the flow of tech talent, and, finally, most are caught in the middle of Trump’s tariff war. Another significant issue is Trump’s “Golden Dome,” a replication of Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system, which Silicon Valley hopes to wrest from established defense contractors.
Wrote a newspaper: “The Trump administration’s explicit call for `non-traditional’ contractors has fired up competition to create the experimental defense system, pitting established giants such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman against tech groups trying to claim a bigger share of Pentagon funds.” The Dome’s current estimated price tag is as hefty as NASA’s Project Apollo to reach the Moon, which would cost $280 billion in today’s dollars. The missile shield would rely on swarms of satellites, making Musk’s SpaceX its largest beneficiary. A consortium has been formed, which includes Palantir and Anduril, run by friends and billionaires of Musk, Peter Thiel, and Palmer Luckey.
Trump writes off Musk as too greedy. “I took away his EV [electric vehicle] Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Then the fur flew. Commentator, former Democratic US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich observed that the rancor between Trump and Musk was likely rooted in the fact that an abusive father raised each man. The Wall Street Journal noted that “they only know how to escalate” and that “Musk went to Defcon 1 [the highest state of military alert when faced with nuclear war] declaring that the President `is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public”. Followed by “Have a nice day, DJT!”
Musk, who called himself the “First Buddy,” once said he loved Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man.” He made a quarter of a billion-dollar bet on Trump and expected to be consulted and treated as a partner, but wasn’t. Instead, he was allowed access but given the subordinate title of “special government employee,” which entitled him to a contract for 130 days of work. It was demeaning, not a cabinet position, and Musk's execution was poor. DOGE's cost-cutting numbers fell short of Musk’s estimates, and he targeted easy targets that upset the public, such as US aid. Tesla dealerships began being targeted by protesters, and then his 130-day period expired and wasn’t renewed.
Geopolitically, the fall-out has been minimal. On June 5, Trump met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the midst of the melee in the Oval Office for the first time, and the two discussed how to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. But, at a press conference with reporters, Trump used an analogy to describe his attitude toward the war that applies to his bust-up with Elon. “Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” Trump said as Friedrich Merz looked on silently. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes, you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
A reporter shifted to domestic politics and asked Trump about Musk's criticism of his bill, and he responded publicly for the first time, with Merz present. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,” Trump told reporters. “He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left.”
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This was a really useful summary of the Elon-Donald 'tussle in the park.' Both men have nothing much to gain by pursuing their fight to the death, and much to lose, so watch for the coming, if not reconciliation, at least damping down of the flames. On the other hand, this whole thing has been a demonstration of why 'character counts.' During my life as a therapist it's been a constant effort, most often thwarted, to point out that psychological health is a worthy and necessary goal for any and all human beings, that the so-called unconscious and its unsettled 'demons' (Trump, Musk and Hitler ALL had abusive fathers) is a back-seat driver of behavior, and that we need, as individuals and members of society to take this into account when we marry, when we parent, when we choose who to work for, when we vote. You get a lot of eye rolls in making this effort. And yet, it's the plain and perhaps increasingly obvious truth. We celebrate the amassing of wealth, enterprise, invention--all of which can happen without requiring that a person be well-rounded, mature, or free of narcissistic/compensatory compulsions. Let's take a moment to just look at the facts on the ground, and consider not only Elon and Donald, but Stephen, Kristy, Pam, Kash, Dan, Russ, Pete, RFK and all the rest of the manifestly unwell in this administration. I mean really, truly, open our eyes to what we've allowed to happen on our watch.
Sometimes the best way to end a lousy reality show on TV is to change the channel. That will deflate the cast and kill the deal.