There are many more important things than the violent end — if it is actually the end, and I’m guessing it probably won’t be — of the Trump-Elon bromance, but I can’t think of any that are nearly as funny.
This is government-adjacent farce at a level that even Monty Python couldn’t have matched, although I have to admit that the Ministry of Silly Walks comes awfully close.
And in the nightmare that is the Trump Restoration, those of us looking to be part of the resistance can’t afford to pass on any opportunity to laugh ourselves sick, even with, admittedly, a sickish brand of joy.
I mean, if you’re not laughing, you’d have to be crying about Trump’s latest bit of cruelty — bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. from the El Salvador gulag, only to charge him with what looks like a baseless case of human smuggling. Meaning, if successful, the administration can deport him somewhere else.
Look, we must enjoy this while we can before it sinks in, as one pundit put it, that we are at the mercy of two powerful, and yet emotionally unstable, men who are not just flaming each other, but also proposing various forms of blackmail to use against the other. And if you want to guess who wins that fight, let’s just say it’s not us.
And so, if you watched any of the late-night shows — or, like I did, just watched the clips — it was Christmas morning all around as we were being treated to what the Daily Show’s Michael Kosta called “World War Douche.” Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, said Trump has never been more relatable than “as a Tesla owner who hates Elon Musk.”
(Yes, we remember all those weeks ago when Trump was hawking Teslas on the White House lawn in a tribute to corruption at its most shameless — that is, if you don’t count any of Trump’s crypto-meme schemes or his gifted flying palace or a million other double dealings, both large and small.)
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SUBSCRIBEFor a poor column writer, it’s a day when you wake up knowing that you get to take on former besties who once worked hand in hand to destroy what’s left of democracy in America — and are now trying to destroy each other. What’s more fun than to see their bromance-in-crime come crashing down like one of Elon’s rockets, or his Tesla stock, or like Trump’s approval ratings, or his loss of Elon’s next $270 million campaign check?
It’s the day we learned that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend — not if one of them, or both, is a malignant narcissist who believes the sun orbits around him and only him.
Colbert called the whole mess schadenfreude. I’m more of a strict Freudian, and I call it just plain nutso.
But what actually happened?
Everyone knew that their platonic love affair — Musk once said he loved Trump as much as any straight man could — had to flame out. And everyone had to know that when it did, a flame war would follow between the world’s richest person and the world’s most powerful person, both with rockets at their disposal and, more dangerously, both with their own social media sites.
(Fun fact: As they flamed each other on their respective sites Thursdays, with millions of delighted and/or distressed followers going back and forth between the sites, Truth Social crashed because it wasn’t prepared to handle that volume of traffic. So, Musk wins?)
But who knew the split would come over the fact that Musk’s time heading DOGE, when he promised to find $2 trillion in governmental waste and fraud, was a complete failure, unless you count the vicious cuts to Medicaid that will rob millions of their health insurance as a victory. Some are suggesting that Musk’s disappointment was based on Trump’s withdrawal of Musk’s choice to head NASA. Who knows?
But the split accelerated with Musk’s charge that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill was actually quite grotesque. He called it a “disgusting abomination” and warned the GOP congresspeople who regularly prostrate themselves before Musk’s checkbook that he would work against anyone voting for the bill.
In some of the flaming highlights: Trump said Musk had gone crazy and that he could easily cut billions from the budget by cutting government funding to SpaceX and whatever other of Musk’s X-brand products benefit from government largesse.
Musk then said he would decommission his Dragon spaceship, which just happens to be the rocket employed to take astronauts and supplies back and forth to the International Space Station. It should be noted that Musk, in what could be a sign, backed down from that threat, because, like, how’s he going to get funding to go to Mars — and, yes, he wanted to move to Mars long before he even knew about ketamine — if he divorces his space program from NASA’s?
Trump says the split came because the budget bill cut out government subsidies for EVs, like Tesla.
Musk, denying that charge, blames the split on Trump’s bill that would add — according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — more than $2 trillion to the deficit.
And then, in a coup de grace, Musk said the reason the Justice Department won’t actually release the unredacted Jeffrey Epstein files is because Trump would appear in them. Of course, Musk, like the QAnoners before him, routinely calls any enemy a pedophile. That insult used to be reserved for Democrats, but when Musk crossed over to a suggestion that Trump might have shared Epstein’s taste for underaged women, well, wasn’t that a Rubicon too far?
Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who has always hated Musk, is telling Trump that Musk, who once overstayed his student visa, is an “illegal alien” and should be deported.
Musk is saying Trump should be impeached and that, without his support, Trump would have never been elected again.
One of the most interesting things about this spat is that Trump, the ultimate bully, was losing the flame war with Musk, who has been firing from both hips while Trump was, for the most part, trying to calm things down. It was bully vs. bully, and for the first time in a while, the schoolyard belonged to someone other than Trump, who enjoys humiliating his enemies, or even his friends.
But so does Musk, of course, and, in this case, Musk was blowharding harder. He said Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession. He said Trump was a hypocrite. And he said these things to his 200-milllion-plus followers on X, formerly known as Twitter and now known as the space where Musk has the power to make Trump’s life miserable.
Trump, on the other hand, has the power to make Musk’s life harder. As the Economist writes, it’s unlikely that Trump actually dismisses SpaceX or Starlink, but cites a Senate subcommittee report saying that, as Musk entered government, he and his companies were facing 65 potential or actual regulatory actions by 11 federal agencies.
It doesn’t matter to me why they’re splitsville, only that they are. I mean a week ago, Trump was giving Musk an oversized — and gilded, of course — key to the White House and praising his co-conspirator for all they’d accomplished together. And Musk looked thrilled, although it should be noted he didn’t jump into the air, baring his midriff to the world, so maybe he wasn’t completely thrilled.
And reporters are now writing stories saying that the breakup was some time in the making. And that most Republican officials will stick with Trump, even when they say they feel like the kids asked to choose between parents in a divorce. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was saying — whining? — plaintively, “But I really like both of them.”
The truth is that Musk and Trump were too much alike ever to remain besties. But it’s also true that Trump needs Musk’s billions and must fear how Musk could use social media against him.
And it’s also true that, beyond the rest of oligarchs, most of whom don’t actually like him, there’s no place for Musk to go. He’s threatening to form an independent party, representing, he says, the middle 80% of American voters. Was that the ketamine talking? One side effect of the drug, I read, was a complete divorce from reality.
Musk gave Trump the $280 million so he had complete access to Trump and to much of the power he holds. Do we think Musk really wants to give that up?
And though Trump doesn’t want to share the spotlight with Musk, who spews lies with the same kind of regularity as Trump, he also knows that, according to X, Musk’s accusation about him and Epstein drew 132 million views.
They can’t afford to break up. They need each other. They fear each other. And, even though I’m not sure that either always recognizes, or even cares, what’s in their best interest, one thing is starting to seem clear:
Sometime in the near future, they will both attest to the fact — or, more likely to the pretense — that they have reconciled. Because neither is afraid to lie in any circumstance. And — my layman’s guess here — neither has the ability to feel shame.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Littwin: Let’s enjoy the Trump-Elon breakup while we can. In these times, we definitely need the laugh. )
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