Trump and Musk enter bitter feud

What happens when the richest person and the most powerful politician have a battle and drag fight?

The world may be about to discover it.

A disagreement between Elon Musk and Donald Trump started to simmer last week, started to boil on Wednesday and is now full of boom. And like all that these two men do, the implosion of their relationships spreads into the public. Trump and Musk have two of the biggest megaphones in the world, and they have now turned them.

In the remarks of the oval office Thursday afternoon, Trump looked a bit like a repelled lover.

He expressed his surprise in the face of Musk’s criticism with regard to his tax legislation and “large and beautiful” expenses. He rejected the idea that he would have lost the presidential election from last year without hundreds of millions of Musk dollars in support. And he said Musk only changed his melody now because his car agency Tesla will be injured by the Republican push to end the electric vehicle tax credits.

Musk went to his social media site, X, with a very generation X response for his 220 million followers: “Whatever”. He said he did not care about the car subsidies, he wanted to reduce national debt, which, according to him, is an existential threat to the nation. He insisted that the Democrats would have prevailed in last year’s elections without his help. “Such ingratitude,” he told Trump.

The billionaire launched a series of extraordinary attacks throughout the afternoon, in particular suggesting without proof that Trump appears in new files linked to the late sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein. The BBC contacted the White House to comment.

Musk and Trump had formed a powerful but improbable alliance, culminating in the technological billionaire with a key position of the budgeting authority in the Trump administration. The Musk government’s effectiveness department, or DOGE, has become one of the largest stories of Trump’s first 100 days, while he was closing entire agencies and rejected thousands of officials.

It did not take long, however, before the start of speculation, and how – the two disproportionate personalities would eventually fall.

For a while, it seemed that these predictions were out of the brand. Trump stood next to Musk even when the latter’s popularity fell, while he was arguing with administration officials and has become a passive in several key elections earlier this year. Whenever he appeared, there would be a break, Musk appeared in the oval office, or in the cabinet room or on the air force flight of the president towards Mar-A-Lago.

When the 130 days of Musk as a “special government employee” ended last week, the two had a co -gelled oval office sending, with a golden key to the White House and clues that Musk could one day come back.

It is sure to say that any invitation has been canceled and that the locks have been changed.

“Elon and I had an excellent relationship,” said Trump on Thursday – a notable comment for his use of the past.

We thought that Trump’s surprise announcement on Wednesday evening of a new travel ban, additional sanctions in Harvard and an administrative investigation on the conspiracy on former president Joe Biden were all efforts to change the subject of Musk’s criticism. The White House and its allies in Congress seemed prudent not to antagonize it more after its previous comments.

So Trump spoke and … so much for that.

Now the question is where the dispute is going. Congress Republicans may have a hard time keeping their members behind Trump’s bill with Musk, providing rhetorical – and perhaps financial – for those who break the ranks.

Trump, who is proud to be a devastating designer, will have a lot of opportunities to lie in musk. What will happen to the Doge of Musk’s allies in the Trump administration or government contracts to companies related to Musk or to the Biden era investigations on Musk’s commercial transactions?

“The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s grants and government contracts,” Trump’s threatening manner on his own website on social networks.

If Trump turns government machinery against Musk, the technological billionaire will feel pain. Thursday, Tesla’s equity price plunged 14%.

But Musk also offers almost unlimited resources to respond, in particular by funding disorders to the Republicans in the elections and primaries of next year. He may not win a fight against Trump’s entire government, but he could demand a high political price.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are on the sidelines, wondering how to react. Few seem ready to welcome Musk, a former donor of their party, back in the fold. But there is also the old adage that the enemy of an enemy is a friend.

“It’s a zero -sum game,” said Liam Kerr, a democratic strategist in Politico. “Everything he does that moves more to the Democrats hurts the Republicans.”

At the very least, the Democrats seem happy to step back and let the two men exchange shots. And until they abandon this fight, DIN is likely to drown everything else in American politics.

But do not expect this spit to end soon.

“Trump is still 3.5 years old as president,” wrote Musk on X, “but I will be there for more than 40 years.”