‘What’s he doing here?’ Trump-Musk bromance feels the strain

Relationship experts say that three of the top reasons behind couples breaking up are money, trust and narcissism. So, the appearance of emerging cracks in the world’s most famous bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk had an inevitability to it.

This week’s reports that Trump intervened to stop Musk from attending a top secret China briefing at the Pentagon, and questioning “What the f--- is Elon doing here?” is the latest in a series of encounters that suggest this Trump-Musk love affair is waning – or at least has boundaries.

Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Peter Navarro. Differences of opinion on trade tariffs have led to vicious online abuse from Musk.

One big source of tension is that Trump’s trade war is applying enormous pressure on Musk’s main source of wealth – Tesla.

In stopping Musk from attending the briefing, Trump was correct in his assessment of this situation – labelling it a conflict of interest for Musk, given Tesla has extensive operations in and reliance on China.

To date this year, Tesla’s share price has plummeted 36 per cent, a slump that was triggered initially by Musk’s inability to take a hands-on approach to managing the company when the lion’s share of his time was devoted to slashing the government’s expenditure by running DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).

Like so many of his technology entrepreneur brethren, Musk has found that Trump has a curious take on quid pro quo.

(And there is the clear potential for Trump to feel a little let down by Musk’s government cost-cutting endeavours. The New York Times is reporting Musk is falling well short of the savings goals he had claimed. Musk’s latest reported plan to sell special gold US visas for $US5 million [$7.8 million] a pop won’t move the needle.)

But like so many of his technology entrepreneur brethren, Musk has found that Trump has a curious take on quid pro quo.

Tesla both makes vehicles in China and imports componentry from there and cannot be a fan of the escalating tensions between the two countries.

It provides context for Musk’s lashing of Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro last week, labelling him “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”.

Trump’s trade war with China has produced plenty of corporate casualties – Musk’s Tesla is only one.

They are rapidly discovering that contributing to Trump’s campaign – or becoming public fanboys – has not provided the insurance policy they had anticipated for their organisations.

Trump’s trade war is applying enormous pressure on Elon Musk’s main source of wealth – Tesla.Credit: Bloomberg

AI hotshot Nvidia has just found out the hard way that cosying up to Trump doesn’t guarantee safety.

Nvidia boss Jensen Huang recently dined with Trump and days later declared he would build $US500 billion in artificial intelligence infrastructure on US soil. Yet, he was hit overnight with a US government decision to restrict the sale of certain AI chips to China.

That decision cost Nvidia $US5.5 billion, and investors are now worried about the world’s hottest company becoming collateral damage in Trump’s tariff war.

Amazon founder and shareholder Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, is having to contend with the fact that the company’s goods are becoming more expensive – creating enormous dislocation and uncertainty for its army of third-party sellers. Just how much prices will rise depends on which country they are selling in.

And if Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg had thought his support for Trump would have rewarded him with government support for the antitrust case Meta is facing, he will now have experienced a dose of reality.

And the appearance last week that the tech bros got a reprieve when Trump announced a tariff exclusion for smartphones, computer chips, hard drives, memory chips and other selected electronics was short-lived.

Trump took to social media soon after to declare that “NOBODY is getting off the hook”.

Cosying up to the US president has not helped Jensen Huang’s Nvidia.Credit: Bloomberg

So consumers will need to wait to see, for example, where the price of an iPhone will land.

Even if tech is ultimately dealt with more favourably than other sectors, the shares in these stocks have been savaged as investors factor in the re-emergence of inflation and a slowdown or even a recession in the US economy, on the back of Trump’s trade agenda.

You would have to wonder about the return on investment the rich tech supporters have received on their contributions to Trump’s campaign.

Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg have collectively lost more than $US80 billion since “Liberation Day”.

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