The most powerful man in the world and the richest man in the world squared off again this week as the One Big Boondoggle finally made its way through the senate where, as with the House, it passed with only one vote. After Elon Musk posted a number of provocative posts, Trump finally weighed in on Truth Social threatening to destroy Musk’s businesses, later telling the press that his former bestie “shouldn’t be playing that game with me.” And then he went even further.
As everyone knows by now, Musk has been apoplectic about the deficit and raising the debt ceiling for months now. The first big blow up between the two came just a few days after Musk’s rather tepid send-off in the oval office when he exploded on X calling Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill “a disgusting abomination” and telling the House Republicans “shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” Trump said Musk was just mad because the bill repeals the EV mandate and subsidies and it escalated from there, culminating with Musk accusing Trump of hiding the Epstein Files because he is in them and Trump accused Musk of being a “big time drug addict.” It was glorious.
The two former BFFs decided to call a ceasefire but apparently Musk just can’t get past his dismay over this legislation. He blasted off another post this past week decrying all the “insane spending” and declaring America “the PORKY PIG PARTY.” He called for “a new political party that actually cares about the people” and vowed to back primary challengers against every Republican who voted for it saying “they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Having found that cutting spending is easier said than done Musk apparently thought the GOP congress would rebel and refuse to raise the debt ceiling and slash spending even more than they did in this budget. It just goes to show how very naive he is about American politics.
Trump finally responded, claiming that Musk is only upset about the EV mandate and threatened to end his government contracts:
Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”
This all just sounds like more childish tantrums from two very spoiled, rich and powerful men with poor impulse control and it is. It’s possible but highly unlikely that Musk will spend the kind of money it will take to start a third party and he’s certainly not going to primary every Republican who voted for the bill. But it’s quite interesting that this rift seems to have made him start to question some of his assumptions about politics.
For instance, he seems to have belatedly realized that the Republicans have decided to Make America Great Again by reliving the past instead of looking to the future:
In the last few days he’s indicated some surprise at the regressiveness of the tax cuts and he asserted that a provision of the bill (later removed by the parliamentarian) that rescinded funding for enforcement of contempt of court orders was actually done to pave the way for more presidential abuses of power. He pointed out that all the conspiracy theories insisting that undocumented workers are getting health care that’s denied to citizens is not true and he even admitted that he shouldn’t have waved that chainsaw around because it lacked empathy. (There’s no word on whether his actual destruction of USAID and the possible deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, most of them children, “lacks empathy”)
I would not assume that Musk has suddenly become enlightened, however. One might have thought that as an immigrant himself, Musk would have some of that empathy for the immigrants who are being terrorized by Trump’s draconian mass deportation policy too. But as far as we know he’s still a big believer in The Great Replacement Theory which holds that Democrats are importing foreigners to replace the Real (white) Americans, destroy the culture and seize permanent political power. He might want to rethink that one too.
This week it was reported that the Department of Justice issued a memo announcing that it is planning to revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens — at the discretion of U.S Attorneys — in order to “advance the Administration’s policy objectives.” They claim that they will “prioritize” those who “pose a potential danger to national security” which they will apparently define on a case by case basis.
Elon Musk is very much involved in U.S. national security so he might want to watch his back. Donald Trump said on Tuesday that they ought to take a look at deporting him:
Trump also threatened to deport Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York as well:
This talk of revoking birthright citizenship and deporting naturalized citizens is going to have an effect on the way Americans think about this. It’s quite clear that citizenship is no longer any guarantee of being free from the threat of deportation. In fact, Trump himself said this just yesterday at the Florida prison camp (which he said he would like to replicate in states all over the country.)
He’s now threatening to deport anyone he doesn’t like, basically.
Trump is not going to deport the richest man in the world, of course. He wants him to keep his money here even if he personally can’t stand him anymore. (And if he tried, Musk could just buy himself an island somewhere and relocate his businesses to a friendlier country.) But it’s telling that he feels free to openly threaten him with it anyway.
It’s always tempting to assume that Trump is just popping off like that proverbial old guy at the end of the bar ranting about what he’d do if he were in charge. But Trump actually is in charge and it pays to remember that as he celebrates the possibility of immigrants being eaten alive if they try to escape the new “Alligator Alcatraz” he proposed building an alligator-filled moat beneath his border wall during his first term. At this point I wouldn’t bet on Trump not following through with any of his ruthless, inhumane policies, even if I were Elon Musk. When it comes to that sort of thing, it’s promises made, promises kept.
Salon