The Hindenburg that was President Donald Trump feuding with former red right hand Elon Musk provided, for many, a great spectacle of schadenfreude.
The two most powerful men perhaps in the world getting into an ugly, metaphorical slap fight over the course of several days, taking shots at each other not just in interviews but on social media platforms both men each own was bizarre and great fodder for political gossip. Unfortunately, this juvenile hissy fit has very real consequences.
It began when Musk made some fairly light comments criticizing the president’s budget bill, which will add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit by extending tax cuts for the wealthy. Musk argued it undercut the work he had done as Trump’s hatchet man at the Department of Government Efficiency. The original task was to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. The end result was a disaster that saved very little and undermined the operations of several vital federal agencies. But it makes sense that Musk would want to save face.
Trump fired back that Musk had no problem with the budget bill until finding out it cut electric vehicle credits (Musk is CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla). The president then upped the ante by suggesting that he should cut the billions of dollars Musk’s companies get in federal government contracts. Musk went to his nuclear option, posting that the reason Trump’s administration hasn’t released the files on New York city financier and child sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein (who killed himself in prison shortly after his arrest) is because Trump is in said files.
Exactly why Musk thought this was a “bombshell†is a bit confusing. Trump and Epstein were friends for years. There are photos and videos galore of the two spending time together. It’s expected that Trump would be in Epstein’s black book and private jet flight logs, likely along with many other important politicians and celebrities. That’s not a defense of Trump, but the real question is whether he had any involvement with the girls Epstein trafficked or knew about it and did nothing.
Now, there are many ardent Trump supporters who also don’t think Epstein killed himself but was murdered because he had dirt on so many important people. Two of those individuals, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, are now running the FBI and seem to have lost their fire for releasing the files. Both said in an interview that Epstein killed himself and that’s that. Their sudden turn seems suspicious, but it doesn’t prove anything.
Before the feud kicked off, The New York Times published a story about Musk’s recreational drug use. Musk has been fairly open about his habits in this arena, and just about anyone who has watched Musk over the past year or so can tell he’s high on something, the report suggested things had gotten much worse and that Musk was spiraling.
While cable and internet news channels were gawking at the spectacle and trying to decide what the beef between Trump and Musk means or who won, fewer noted why this public meltdown on behalf of these two individuals was important.
There’s the obvious stuff. Trump is president of the United States during a time when the presidency’s power has been significantly expanded. Obviously, he shouldn’t be spending time engaging in a middle-school food fight. But that’s who Trump is and has always been.
As for Musk, his companies, especially SpaceX and Starlink, do a lot of work for the federal government, even entering into the realm of defense. He’s the world’s richest man and essentially bought his way into the White House after pumping $250 million into Trump’s campaign. Having so much ride on one individual, especially if he’s been strung out while gutting federal agencies and gobbling up private data, is a problem. Consider that Musk is also involved with other governments and was recently offered asylum by Vladimir Putin, and the problem becomes more obvious. Trump has his own complications with Russia.
And who hasn’t been mentioned during any of this? The American people or what’s best for them. This ego clash between two megalomaniacs completely ignores who Trump and, to some extent, Musk are supposed to be working for. And the fallout for ordinary Americans could be devastating. Not to mention this also serves as something of a distraction while immigrants continue to be swept off the street without due process and the National Guard is deployed in California to crush protests.
No one wins in this feud; Americans least of all.
