The inevitable has happened. An inconvenient friendship between the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, and the richest man, Elon Musk, lasted for seven months and turned them into bitter foes in a short period. That the relationship lasted this long, in itself, is surprising. They both seem to have believed that they were using the other. A fallout was inevitable at some point in time between these two capricious, erratic, and volatile personalities because it was the business interests and hunger for power that always took precedence over their most touted public display of friendship. The reasons could be several, but the last nail in the coffin was hammered over the disagreement of President Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill. While Trump called it “one Big Beautiful Bill,” Musk referred to it as a “disgusting abomination”. A war of tweets erupted, badmouthing and accusing each other in a language and content that is not very pleasant. Their verbal spat is out in the open as they wash their dirty linen in full public glare, with personal attacks reaching extreme limits like impeachment of President Trump.
Elon Musk has been a Demo supporter since 2008 when he funded Barack Obama’s campaign and again in 2012. Later, he continued his support to Hillary Clinton in 2016, which she lost, and then for Joe Biden in 2020. He fell out soon with Biden when he repeatedly ignored him for blatant political reasons, despite Musk’s support. A few important instances are mentioned that irked Musk, i) Biden did not invite anyone from Tesla to the White House for a celebration of electric vehicle manufacturers, and then publicly announced that General Motors was the largest manufacturer of EVs in a year when not even 50 EVs were sold by them against Tesla selling over 250,000 units, ii) Biden appointed a unqualified retired politician as NASA Administrator. Musk realised that being his golf partner was not enough a qualification for such technologically important post that he was eyeing, iii) Biden kept appointing ignorant lawyers to head regulatory agencies like Federal Aviation Administration which are required to perform unbiased scientific analyses of license applications, iv) Biden refused to permit SpaceX to bid for any Artemis contracts after Artemis IV and rather chose others knowing fully well that SpaceX bid would have been much less.
The are several other incidents that forced Musk to become a Trump supporter that he sheepishly described himself a “half Democrat, half Republican”. During the Nov 5, 2024, elections, Musk was a permanent fixture next to Donald Trump, which raised many eyebrows. People predicted an imminent explosive fallout between them even before Trump openly declared his friendship with him in his winning speech. Their relationship was purely opportunistic. While Trump sought Musk’s money and social media influence to win the 2024 elections, Musk saw it as an opportunity to use Trump’s presidency to get more government contracts and circumvent the laws of corruption without redress being in the inner power circle of the White House. There is enough evidence that suggests neither man has a particular fondness for the other.
The problems started early when Vivek Ramaswamy left the newly created DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) because of their different approaches and Musk’s egoistic persona. Later, the first sign of keeping Musk at an arm’s length was when the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles limited Musk’s access to Trump, relocating his office outside the West Wing to the Eisenhower building, which is across the road from the White House. This meant that any report of DOGE needed to be submitted to her first, and not directly to the President, which Musk took for granted, having supported the President with millions of dollars during his election campaign.
Slowly, Musk started publicly criticizing Trump’s AI projects that were headed by Sam Altman, his nemesis. This didn’t impress President Trump, who kept his gun on Altman’s shoulder and fired his first salvo when Altman advised Musk to “put the U.S. first” in his new role as DOGE top boss instead of favouring his business interests while being employed by the state. To put Musk in his place, his “Roman salute” at Trump’s inauguration, a gesture that is a carbon copy of the Nazi salute, was scandalised by his detractors. Instead of burying the controversy, Musk brushed aside the incident arrogantly and dismissed it as a mere complaint by lesser souls. This infuriated President Trump, and the relationship further inched towards the imminent disaster.
Donald Trump is known for firing a lot of personnel he initially appointed in his first term. So, repeating this in his second term should not come as a surprise when he started a verbal spat, indicating his intentions to fire Musk. But before this happened, Elon Musk announced X, his social media platform, stating that his term as a Special Government Employee had concluded. It would be of interest for people to know that Musk’s tenure as a Special Government employee at DOD has a time limit that was set to end in May 2025. Elon Musk joined Trump with an expiry date, and his role did not include executive powers or long-term involvement.
Politics remain the same everywhere. The central premise that people come to politics to serve the people, well, we all know the answer. Gone are the days when the idea of statesmen wanting to “serve” the people was probably invented centuries ago. Back then, politicians were small-city-state aristocrats who believed that serving the public was among the highest public virtues, acting out of noblesse oblige, meaning privilege entails responsibility. It is no more true today, as the political elite of our society are not men of obligated virtues. Once elected, they all strive to serve the richest demographic and monied interests, both domestic and abroad. This rule probably applies more consistently than General Relativity of Einstein. But the silver lining is that things are changing in India, and hopefully our generations will see a better tomorrow.
