Are Donald Trump and Elon Musk Breaking Up?

Bad dad and crazy dad are fighting.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Last week Elon Musk officially departed from his position in the Trump administration battered, bruised, desperately in need of therapy and the perfect plaything for comedians. To be perfectly honest, the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World was surprised he lasted as long as he did, given the toxic brew of egos, drugs, junk food, and blinkered ideologies that exists whenever Musk and Trump are in a room together. It is less surprising that on the day of Musk’s official departure the Wall Street Journal ran a story in which Trump asked his aides “was it all bullshit?” about the significance of the DOGE budget cuts.

Still, as late as Sunday Musk was ducking awkward interview questions about Trump, acting like he was trying to keep his head down and get back to managing his faltering business.

Over the past 72 hours, however, things have definitely taken a turn for the worse in their relationship.

Freed from his government job, Musk began venting privately to his friends about his myriad frustrations with the Trump administration, including but not limited to: Trump’s trade policies, the proposed end of the electric vehicle tax credit, Trump’s AI initiatives with firms competing with Musk, and Trump rebuffing Musk’s preferred pick for NASA administrator.

Then Musk went public, blasting Trump’s signature piece of legislation in all sorts of ways. After calling it a “disgusting abomination” earlier in the week, Elon went nuclear on Wednesday, according to ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Will Steakin:

Elon Musk is continuing his attacks on President Donald Trump's signature bill on Wednesday with a barrage of posts on X slamming the megabill, saying in one that no one "should be able to stomach it," while another instructed his more than 200 million followers to call members of Congress to "KILL the BILL."

Musk, who until recently had largely scaled back posting about politics, on Wednesday alone has already posted or helped amplify posts on X criticizing the bill more than 25 times.

"Mammoth spending bills are bankrupting America! ENOUGH," Musk wrote in one post.

In another, Musk was more forceful, writing, "Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL."

Needless to say this has roiled congressional Republicans, who are still trying to pass an amended bill in the Senate and then push that bill through the House again. Axios’ Andrew Solender reports that Musk’s heel turn has enabled House Republicans to bravely talk to the press without attribution to trash Musk’s time inside the Beltway:

House Republicans' longstanding frustrations with Elon Musk are spilling out in an unprecedented way behind closed doors after he criticized them for supporting President Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill."

In some lawmakers' telling, the internal GOP frustration didn't come about overnight. It's been stewing for months — and Musk has now opened the floodgates.

"He's a complete joke. He had no idea what the f*** he was doing, whatsoever," said one House Republican, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the billionaire Tesla owner.

The lawmaker added: "Nobody really wanted him here. We couldn't wait to get rid of him."

So does any of this matter? On the one hand, Musk is way less popular than Trump. Paul Krugman might agree with Musk that the bill is horrible, but Krugman also writes, “Few men have done as much damage out of sheer arrogance, ignorance and pettiness as Elon Musk. He has thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of deaths on his hands…. The OBBBA is terrible, but not at all for the reasons Musk claims.” If Musk thought his opposition to this bill would make him more popular, I have bad news for him.

On the other hand, given the narrow margins in Congress, Musk’s opposition matters. House Republicans passed the megabill by a single vote. His complaints about exploding deficits — which this bill would undeniably produce if enacted into law — will play well with fiscal conservatives in both chambers looking for political cover. Musk’s criticisms also make it easier for Democrats to highlight the bill’s many, many, many flaws.

Of course, Musk’s tweets have yet to provoke a public response from Donald Trump — and therein lies a fascinating question. What does Trump think about all of this? It depends on which outlet one reads and which Trump lackey is leaking to them.

Politico’s Adam Cancryn and Jake Traylor suggest that so far, Trump is taking Musk’s critiques seriously but not personally:

President Donald Trump is frustrated with Elon Musk for slamming the administration’s chief legislative priority, but isn’t taking it personally — a distinction that’s helped keep a lid on the White House’s response so far….

Musk’s ambush of the GOP’s megabill via social media represents perhaps the stiffest test yet of a Trump-Musk relationship that has survived far longer than many in the president’s orbit anticipated, even if it now appears to be ending the way most of them predicted….

While it has irritated Trump aides who are trying to maintain fragile support for the legislation in the Senate, Musk’s targeting of the bill and not the president himself has helped keep things relatively civil, according to the two administration officials and one of the advisers.

Trump has kept silent on the matter despite Musk’s continued broadsides on X. Within the West Wing, his aides dismissed Musk’s complaints about the bill’s size and deficit spending, arguing instead that Musk is upset primarily because it eliminates tax credits that stood to benefit his electric car company Tesla.

At the same time, Axios’ Solender reported that, “House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told House Republicans in a closed-door conference meeting on Wednesday that Trump himself is ‘pissed off’ at Musk, according to a person familiar with the matter. Johnson said at a press conference after the meeting that he talks to Trump ‘multiple times a day’ and that the president is ‘not delighted that Elon did a 180.’" Sounds bad!

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting falls into the “Trump is pissed” category:

A senior White House official said Trump wasn’t happy about Musk’s decision to lambaste his signature legislation, describing the president as confused as to why the Tesla chief executive decided to ratchet up his criticism after working so closely with the president for four months. The official said senior Trump advisers were caught off guard by Musk’s latest offensive….

Asked whether Trump and Musk continue to have a strong relationship, a White House official said it was too soon to tell. The official said that Trump could be forgiving, but that he doesn’t forget slights like this….

Just six months ago, Musk’s barrage of social-media posts triggered a mutiny of Republicans to kill a government spending bill right before Christmas, forcing hasty rewrites by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.). But that doesn’t appear to be happening in this case—at least not yet. Trump and GOP leaders have stuck with their plan, subject to some adjustments, while cognizant of the difficult math that means even a handful of Republican defectors in the House or Senate could sink the bill, given united Democratic opposition.

So what is going to happen next? I suspect longtime readers of Drezner’s World will react to this new imbroglio in some manner akin to this clip below:

My hunch is that despite Musk’s vast wealth and monomaniacal fury at this legislation, Trump retains the upper hand between the two of them. This is for five reasons:

1. Again, Musk is less popular than Trump — and attacking the president now is likely to make him even less popular. Sure, he’s rich, but that matters less than most people think compared to political popularity in terms of getting high-profile legislation passed;

2. Elon Musk might be the first Trump antagonist who possesses even poorer impulse control and an even shorter attention span than Trump! The very fact that, as of this writing, Trump has yet to respond highlights his relative strategic patience;

3. Trump has already gotten elected; he doesn’t need Musk in the same way that he needed him in 2024. That gives him license to piss off Musk even more;

4. A lot of Musk’s wealth is tied up in government subsidies and government contracts and a federal government that is no longer investigating him. One wonders how long that will continue if Musk continues to pop off. Eventually Trump may tire of fighting Harvard and pivot to Musk;

5. Finally, Musk has already alienated most of Trump’s advisors, staffers, subordinates, and cabinet officers. These people are all going to continue to whisper nasty things in Trump’s ear.

Developing….