Donald and Elon are breaking up.
The big question isn’t why. It’s … what took so long?
Donald Trump and Elon Musk struck up what appeared to be a symbiotic relationship last year. Trump needed Musk’s money and social media influence during his presidential campaign. Musk, meanwhile, couldn’t become president himself, so he used his money and influence to get Trump elected and stand right alongside him in the White House.
Between the time Trump was elected and the time he took office, he and Musk were practically inseparable, with reports that Musk even had a place to stay in Mar-a-Lago. Musk was Trump’s “first buddy.” Also, Musk was picked to run the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, which was meant to cut waste in the federal government.
While it appeared to be all smiles and ice cream, Washington and tech insiders were taking bets on how long these two could coexist. Even after Musk stood close by, proudly watching Trump take the oath of office, the general feeling was that these two massive egos and the men’s overwhelming need to be the most important person in the room would eventually drive a wedge between them. The general consensus was that Musk would, at some point sooner rather than later, wear so heavily on Trump’s nerves that he would be shoved aside.
So when Musk recently stepped back from his role with DOGE, many were stunned that the two seemed to have survived working together.
But that all came crashing down Thursday as a nasty public breakup, like you might see on one of those Bravo reality shows, played out on social media. Call it “Summer White House” or “DC Charm.”
It all exploded as Musk criticized Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill in a social media post on Wednesday. Trump responded Thursday in an Oval Office press conference, telling reporters he was “very disappointed” in Musk. “Elon and I had a great relationship,” he said. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
Trump added, “I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. Better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars.”
Musk quickly responded on X, writing, “False, this bill was never shown to me even once.”
Then the digs got personal.
At one point, Musk tweeted, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. … Such ingratitude.”
That surely was in reference to Musk donating nearly $300 million to help Trump and other Republicans in the 2024 election. Most of that money, reportedly more than $250 million, went to the Trump campaign.
And then, it got worse. Trump, at one point threatened to cut billions of dollars in federal contracts and tax subsidies to Musk’s companies. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Afterward, Musk dropped a stunner of an allegation, posting on X, “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
He then added, “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Wow.
After Musk’s Epstein allegations, “Pod Save America” podcaster Jon Favreau tweeted, “Only took about 2 hours to reach DEFCON Epstein.”
Musk also claimed that Trump’s tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of the year. And, in the midst of all this, Musk put a poll on X asking, “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”
Trump tried to act like it didn’t bother him, posting later in the day, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago.” He then talked about how great his bill was.
All of this happened within the first few hours of the two men’s public spat, so surely there was even more bickering between the time this was written and the time you are reading it.
What makes this whole thing even weirder is that Trump was posting on his own Truth Social, while Musk was posting on X.
The New York Times’ Shawn McCreesh wrote, “There was a screwball element to their back-and-forth: Because Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk are each the masters of their own social media platform, neither one was directly replying to the other. Anyone following along at home (which is to say, everyone) had to toggle between platforms to keep up with these keyboard cowboys as they aimed shots at each other.”
So how did this all happen and what does it mean?
One unidentified Musk ally told The Washington Post’s Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui and Elizabeth Dwoskin that the unraveling “happened faster than I thought. … What Elon really wanted is to be president, I think.”
The Post wrote, “Several friends of Musk, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid getting dragged into a public fight, noted that the war of words taking place between the two men represented not just a personal falling out, but the public surfacing of a fight between the tech right and the populist MAGA movement, which share some goals, but disagree deeply on several issues.”
Meanwhile, former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon told The New York Times’ Tyler Pager that he advised Trump to cancel all of Musk’s contracts and to investigate him, adding, “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”
Meanwhile, shares in Musk’s company, Tesla, dropped 14.3%. The New York Times’ Danielle Kaye wrote, “The tumble — the company’s worst day since March and its second worst since 2020 — wiped out about $150 billion from Tesla’s market valuation.”
However, McCreesh wrote in his piece for the Times, “Usually, when Mr. Trump has a big, messy falling-out in public, it is with someone who needs him, a lesser being who lives in fear of a primary challenge or somehow being ruined. But now he was beefing with the rare person who has leverage over him — political and financial leverage and perhaps even some emotional leverage. When Mr. Trump said on Thursday that he was ‘very disappointed in Elon,’ he sounded as if he meant it.”
Yikes, this is just Day One. Stay tuned from much, much more, I’m guessing.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes put a funny — or maybe not so funny, when you think about it — spin on all of this when he posted on Bluesky: “I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.”
Media news, tidbits and interesting links for your weekend review
- A reminder: CNN will air George Clooney’s Broadway show “Good Night and Good Luck” on Saturday night at 7 p.m. Eastern. It also will air on CNN International, as well as Max and the CNN website. And here’s The Hollywood Reporter’s Caitlin Huston with “How George Clooney’s ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Is Preparing to Go Live on CNN.”
- Variety’s Todd Spangler reports that Spotify has laid off 15 employees in its podcast division, spanning The Ringer and Spotify Studios. That’s about 5% of the staff. Spangler wrote, “The roles that were eliminated will be reallocated to support Spotify’s video podcast push, a source familiar with the company said. Spotify is not canceling any podcast shows with the staff cuts.” Spotify bought The Ringer, which was founded by Bill Simmons, in 2020 for $250 million. Among those laid off was The Ringer’s talented Claire McNear, who wrote extensively (and entertainingly) in the past about the show “Jeopardy.”
- Los Angeles Times’ senior entertainment writer Meg James with “Why Paramount’s efforts to settle Trump’s lawsuit has drawn mounting political heat.”
- My Poynter colleague, Nicole Slaughter Graham, with “ASU is launching a $14.5 million center to speed up journalism’s transformation.”
- Deadline’s Peter White with “Warner Bros Discovery Initiates More Layoffs In Cable TV Divisions.”
- ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor Jay Harris announced on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that he is battling prostate cancer. Harris said, “My doctor is quite optimistic. Per my last scan, nothing has spread, so once we, you know, take out the prostate, hopefully that will be it. That's the goal.” Harris will have surgery on June 10 and hopes to only be out only a month or so. Harris has been with ESPN since 2003.
- AL.com’s William Thornton with “This Alabama newspaper has gone out of business after almost 120 years.”
- The always-great Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins with “ChatGPT couldn’t answer my questions about tennis, so it made things up.”
- Cllct’s Darren Rovell with “Finding Ferris Bueller's seat at Wrigley Field 40 years later
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