Pity the poor office junior shuffling around the White House, shaking a brown envelope and pleading for signatures for the “Sorry You’re Leaving” card. For there will be few signatories – and even fewer donors – for Elon Musk’s send-off after he told Tesla investors this week he will be scaling back time in Washington to focus on his ailing car company.
Musk has repeatedly gone head to head with other key figures within Donald Trump’s administration. And now, the US news website Axios has reported he actually went chest to chest with the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a furious, expletive-laden dispute over the appointment of a new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) boss.
“It was two billionaire, middle-aged men thinking it was WWE in the hall of the West Wing,” one onlooker said. Technically, Bessent may only be half a billionaire with a fortune estimated at around $520m (£391m), but you get the vibe.
As for the wrestling undertones? Well, what else can be expected in a machismo-drenched administration, where it’s all about showmanship, nothing is as it seems, the world is simplistically divided between good guys and bad guys, and there is way too much fake tan.
Musk, a man who craves power, has been an all-too-willing participant in this new era of White House Wrestling Entertainment.
Last week’s bust-up followed Trump naming Gary Shapley as acting commissioner of the IRS after lobbying by Musk. Bessent felt Musk had gone behind his back and was agitating for the decision to be overturned.
He apparently criticised Musk for overpromising $1trn of Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) cuts, with Musk responding in classic X pile-on style by calling Bessent a “Soros agent”. He also accused him of having run “a failed hedge fund”.
It was unclear who was winning the clash before an aide pulled the two men apart, but Bessent can surely claim a victory with Shapley being removed from post the following day.
Certainly it appears to have had all the sound and fury of a WWE bout – with even the President and visiting Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, overhearing the fracas. The onlooker said: “They were not physical in the Oval, but the President saw it and they carried it down the hall and that’s when they did it again.”
After the clash, wrestling commentator (or “White House spokesperson” to give her proper title) Karoline Leavitt said: “It’s no secret President Trump has put together a team of people who are incredibly passionate about the issues impacting our country.”
Musk has previously clashed with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, taking him to task in cabinet for not firing anyone as part of government efficiencies. A dispute broke out in which Rubio said Musk was lying and the Doge boss responded by saying Rubio was “good on TV”, inferring he wasn’t good at much else. Again, Trump reportedly simply sat back and watched as the fight unfolded.
There was also Musk’s clash with the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, who said Doge was laying off air controllers while he was trying to deal with a string of air crashes. Musk said he was lying.
Musk even managed to poke Robert F Kennedy Jnr with a Christmas post on X boasting of his fat-jab weight loss – no doubt knowing the Health Secretary’s avowed opposition to drug-supported dieting.
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There is a weird love-in going on between Donald Trump and WWE
Read MoreAnd then, most publicly, was his spat with the Senior Trade Adviser Peter Navarro whom he labelled “a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” after he referred to Musk as a “car assembler” in an interview.
Tariff guru Navarro is probably a moron, but Musk’s outpouring on X was perhaps not the best way to tackle internal administration differences on launching a global trade war. But it did make for a great show – which is after all what White House Wrestling Entertainment is all about. That time, commentator Leavitt observed: “Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue.”
One colleague Musk hasn’t fought with is the Education Secretary. But then, Linda McMahon was president of the actual WWE.
The frequency of clashes and chaos has led observers to ask if the Trump team is falling apart and whether this could be wounding for Trump. Surely this is no way for a functional government to work?
Which of course it isn’t – but this isn’t a functional government. It’s a dysfunctional dump-truck fire that is increasingly characterised not only by internal wranglings but external incompetence such as disaster-prone Pete Hegseth as Defence Secretary.
Despite all that, what it is expert at is attracting attention – the President’s first and only imperative. Yes, the team may well be falling apart. But rather than wounding the President it will only embolden him.
In each of the clashes, he has reportedly sat back and allowed the drama to unfold, almost as an amused observer. Or perhaps a Roman emperor watching his gladiators slug it out for his entertainment. Each fighting for their survival – against their opponent but in proving their strength to the boss.
The Romans understood the power of divide et impera and the show of circuses. Trump does, too.
In the early 80s Trump hosted two Wrestlemania events – the annual showcase of WWE. In the 2020s he is hosting another in the Oval Office. It may be ridiculous, over the top and chaotic with a darkness beneath the bright lights, but it is a spectacle. And one in which this President thrives.
Alison Phillips was editor of the ‘Daily Mirror’ from 2018 to 2024; she won Columnist of the Year at the 2018 National Press Awards
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