The Trump-Musk ‘War of the Roses’
It certainly makes for entertaining political theatre, at least for Democrats. First came Mr Musk’s broadside against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as an “abomination”. Mr Trump replied that he was disappointed but that his buddy Elon knew what was in the bill all along.
Mr Musk raised the bidding with a demand sent to his followers on X.com to “KILL the BILL.” The President suggested Mr Musk suffered from “Trump derangement syndrome,” to which Mr Musk replied that the President wouldn’t have won without him.
Since these guys only know how to escalate, Mr Trump then posted on Truth Social that “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” Tesla shares plunged. Defcon 2.
Mr Musk responded by going to Defcon 1, with a post declaring that the President “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” Oh, and, “Have a nice day, DJT!” He then endorsed another user’s tweet that “Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.”
Where this stops nobody knows, but we’ll lay odds that Mr Musk isn’t going to have his electric-vehicle subsidies restored in the big, beautiful bill. We hope he doesn’t lose his space and other contracts that have forced NASA and the Pentagon to raise their game on rockets and much more.
The shame is that Mr Musk tried to shake up a government that needs it. His methods were mercurial, and the results disappointing, but no one wins a divorce as nasty as this one.
The Wall Street Journal
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Too bad we didn’t set up an office pool in January. Someone could have cleaned up choosing the closest date for the inevitable divorce between President Trump and Elon Musk. This pair of modest egos were never a good match for the long haul, and on Thursday their breakup turned into “The War of the Roses”.