There Bromance Politics will have ended in a very public divorce. After several months of an intense alliance, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been torn in public, by the social networks filed, this Thursday, June 5, accusing “madness” for an “ingratitude” on the other.
From Elon Musk’s thunderous entry in Donald Trump’s campaign last year, doubts arose about the longevity of the relationship between these two impulsive men. Finally it will have taken less than a year to explode.
Idyllic beginnings
In July 2024, Elon Musk declared to support Donald Trump’s candidacy for the presidential elections, after the attempt of murder in the Republican during a meeting. The Chief of Tesla played a key role in the Republican campaign in 2024, bringing to the A total of more than $ 270 million, which makes it the best donor in American history.
On October 5, 2024, Donald Trump returned to the meeting in Butler, three months after the attack he was subject to in this same town in Pennsylvania. Elon Musk appears by his side, jumping for joy and asking to vote for the candidate and former republican president.
Then he declared “First Friend” (“First friend “) Donald Trump and floods his social network X of the candidate’s support messages. One of the grandchildren Trump, Kai Trump, comes to photograph him in a golf course in Florida by nicking him “Uncle Elon”.
The two men do not spare in the fulfillment and sometimes use the lexicon in love to talk about the other. In his victory speech after the elections of November 5, Donald Trump describes his ally as “Super genius” and “New Star”. Elon Musk will deliver it on the day of the nomination on January 20, welcoming the “return of the king.” Then, at the beginning of February, he will make this statement about X: “I like Donald Trump as much as a heterosexual man can love another.”
Elon Musk integrates the government
Elon Musk officially joined Donald Trump’s team in January, when he was placed to the head of a government efficiency commission (Doge), responsible for cutting American public spending. In three months, the Dux eliminated the jobs of federal officials for thousands and forged in federal subsidies.
Several US government agencies have been dismantled or deprived of most of its capacity for action, including the USAID humanitarian aid agency. During the night, humanitarian programs are suspended, employees find a closed door in Washington and their expatriate colleagues are without resources at the other end of the world.
These cuts in federal services lead to tensions within the government: in March, the US media reported clashes between the Chief of Spacex and Secretary of State Framework Rubio and the Minister of Transportation Sean Duffy.
They are also far from reaching the amounts announced. Elon Musk recognized in early May that, until now, the commission had reduced federal expenses by $ 160 billion, a much lower figure than the initial objective, established at $ 2,000 billion, then to 1,000 billion. Several American experts and media also believe that real savings are much less important than those declared.
And in parallel, Tesla’s sales fell when their boss became one of the most divisive personalities in the world. Elon Musk, therefore, announced at the end of April that he was delayed to take care of more of his businesses. The Duxt experience was not “very fun,” he gave the billionaire in early May.
Disagreement about an economic law
For a long time, Donald Trump continued to declare his support for him, getting to buy a Tesla car in front of the cameras to support his ally’s brand. Elon Musk “approached his macho brand of Silicon Valley, in a destructive way, and that has established a public opinion against him”, analysis with the AFP Elaine Kamarck of the reflection center of the Brookings Institute.
For this expert, the former advisor of Democratic President Bill Clinton, the “coup de grace” came from the defeat on April 1, a conservative candidate in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, for whom Elon Musk had campaigned. The billionaire is now seen by Donald Trump as a “political ball,” Elaine Kamarck estimates, although according to her “the two men really appreciate.”
At the end of May, the Chief of Tesla began issuing criticism to the US president. “I was disappointed to see this bill for mass spending, frankly, which increases the budget deficit,” Elon Musk said in an interview with CBS, referring to a great economic law of the Republican President.
The Chief of Tesla and Spacex also deplored with the Washington Post that Dege is “on the way to become the scapegoat of everything.” But it was during a meeting at the Oval office with German Foreign Minister Friedrich Merz, reduced to the role of the mute figure, which the president acted the break this Thursday.
A decision that will probably lead to Tesla
During journalists, broadcast Donald Trump also said “very disappointed.” “Elon and I had a good relationship. I don’t know if this is the case,” he said about his former “special advisor”, who left the mission of reducing public spending last Friday that led to the White House.
Then, the US president said in his social network that he had finished the budget mission of Elon Musk, according to him “went crazy” due to an unfavorable decision for electric vehicles. “The simplest to save billions and billions of dollars in our budget would be to cancel the subsidies and contracts of the government” of Tesla and Spacex, threatened in another message.
On his network X, Elon Musk said in response that Spacex “will begin immediately to leave its Dragon spacecraft out of service” used in particular by NASA to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). It seemed, a few hours later, back, write: “Well, we are not going to put Dragon out of service.”
The billionaire also assured that “Trump would have lost the elections” without him and accused him of “ingratitude.” It was so far to affirm, without providing evidence that the president’s name was in the archive of Jeffrey Epstein, this US financial in the heart of a vast scandal of sexual crimes and exploitation that committed suicide in prison before being tried. In response, the White House was content to qualify these attacks as “unfortunate.” The game is largely dropping the action of Tesla, which has lost tens of billions of dollars in capitalization on Wall Street, closing at -14.26%.
Given the unpredictable nature of these two personalities, the US media wonder about the continuation of the events. Questioned by the media about this dispute, Donald Trump replied: “Oh, it’s fine.” “Let me know if you need rupture advice,” wrote Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children in X.
Source: BFM TV
