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THE TRUMP-MUSK FEUD: WE CAN’T RELY ON OUTSIZED EGOS TO END
OLIGOPOLY  
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Guardian Editorial
June 6, 2025
The Guardian

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_ The row between the US president and his billionaire ex-buddy may
seem entertaining, but wealth and power are still dangerously merged.
Politics remains in thrall to money. Democracy requires better
safeguards than rampant egos. _

The New York Post front cover on Friday, June 6,

 

t would have taken a heart of stone to watch the death of the
Trump-Musk bromance
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laughing. Democrats passed the popcorn on Thursday night as the
alliance between the world’s most powerful man and the world’s
richest imploded via posts on their respective social media platforms.

Less than a week ago they attempted a conscious uncoupling in the
Oval Office
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Then Elon Musk’s attacks on Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful”
tax and spending plan escalated to full-scale denunciation
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a “disgusting abomination” – objecting to its effect on the
deficit, not the fact it snatches essential support from the poor and
hands $1.1tn in tax cuts to the rich.

The president said that Mr Musk had “gone crazy” and was angry
that electric vehicle subsidies were being removed, claimed he had
fired him, threatened to terminate his government contracts, and
mocked the billionaire’s recent black eye. Steve Bannon
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suggesting that Mr Musk should be deported.

Mr Musk said Mr Trump should be impeached and alleged the government
had not released files on the late paedophile financier Jeffrey
Epstein because the president was in them. He threatened to
immediately start decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft
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now key to Nasa’s programme – and suggested it was time for a new
political party. The ultimate insult: “Without me, Trump would have
lost the election,” he wrote.

Mr Musk later appeared minded to limit the damage
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backing away from the spacecraft threat – not surprising, perhaps,
when he had just watched $152bn wiped off Tesla’s value
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Each man knows that the other could hurt him
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via government fiat or political war chest. Yet both are so
unpredictable that the row could still reignite.

Two narcissists used to imposing their will were never likely to
coexist happily for long, despite the advantages of doing so: this was
less a marriage of convenience than of naked self-interest. Mr Trump
loathes sharing the limelight; the Tesla boss frequently grabbed it.
The president is surely as resentful of as he is dazzled by Mr
Musk’s spectacular wealth. He was angered to discover that Mr
Musk had arranged private briefings
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the Pentagon’s plans for any potential war with China – not only a
blatant conflict of interest, but perhaps more upsettingly, a sign of
his growing power. Mr Musk’s behaviour has also appeared
increasingly erratic. A recent New York Times report alleged he took
large amounts of drugs including ketamine
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advising Mr Trump prior to the election. Mr Musk has described
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“bs”.

His departure from the president’s orbit is good news. Mr Musk
implausibly claimed he would save $2tn annually – approaching a
third of the federal budget – by taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy.
Wild decisions by the so-called department of government efficiency
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mired in the courts. But he has nonetheless caused real damage which
will not easily be remedied, gutting agencies and departments which
took decades to build. People are dying
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of his demolition of USAID.

Yet while the bond between the peak of power and the peak of wealth
has been severed, politics remains in thrall to money. Mr Trump’s
approach is particularly noxious, turning wealth directly into
political favours and power, and power into further wealth. This is
the new oligopoly. He oversees a cabinet of billionaires, and has
directed his real estate tycoon friend Steve Witkoff, a man with no
diplomatic experience, to bring peace in the Middle East and Ukraine.
But though megadonors are heavily skewed
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the Republicans, Democrats too depend on 
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Mr Musk is a symptom of the underlying malaise. Democracy requires
better safeguards against the unhealthy marriage of wealth and power
than the rampant egos of those who command them.

 

* Donald Trump
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* Elon Musk
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* Oligarchy
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