No one doubted that the political romance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk would end not only in a divorce but in a fierce and explosive clash between two men with exorbitant egos. Few anticipated that it would occur so vertiginous and with such a radical explosion.
A fair week ago, an act of the two in the Oval Office marked the departure with Musk honors of its role as a special government employee. Trump called him “one of the greatest business and innovative leaders that the world has ever produced” and gave him a golden key with the White House badge. Musk promised to remain “friend and advisor” of the president.
This Thursday, the honeymoon that had already giving rise to a distancing has become the total rupture and in a mud descent. In an epic public fight through statements and messages in their own social networks everything has jumped through the air. And enters a phase full of risks for both of a relationship that has been marked by intensity.
The romance, the campaign and doge
He July 13, 2024, Shortly after the attack on a butler rally Support to the then Republican candidate.
The titan of Silicon Valley, which in the past had supported Democrats and progressive causes, culminated the turn not only towards Trump but towards the ultra -rightthat he had been manifest especially since his Twitter purchase.
Just a month later Trump suggested for the first time that Musk could have a role in his White House. And every day that passed the relationship gained strength.
Musk, which established a political action supercommittee and ended up donating a record of about 280 million dollars to support Trump’s candidacy, participated in October for the first time in a rally, precisely back in Butler, with a magic cap (the Movement Mad Eeuu Grande again).
The Night of the Republican’s electoral victory passed it with Trump in Mar-a-Lago.
A week after the Trump election announced the creation of what he baptized as Government Efficiency Department (Doge for its acronym in English) to whose front would be Musk and Vivek Ramasswamy (which soon falls from the plans).
That entity within the government (not in itself an agency, because it can only be created by Congress) Musk was supposed to Identify useless expenditure and government corruption y Cut agencies, programs and personnel.
On January 20, the first day of the presidency and day in which Musk made a Nazi greeting In one of the acts of the inauguration, the president signed the executive order of creation of Doge (an acronym that is also a wink to a memecoin).
The Presidency
Musk’s power from the first moment was unusual. With status of “Government and special employee”, Which as such was not subject to the same obligations and controls as formal administration members, began to weakens programs and agencies (in many cases involved in the regulation of their businesses).
Was Shocks with Departments Secretaries and demands for their mass actions and dismissals, or for the Access to sensitive information of the Americans that their young people who could feed tools artificial intelligence, But Trump remained firm in his support for Musk, and even continued to increase his power.
On February 11, the businessman appeared in the first joint press conference with the president in the Oval Office and, a week later, the two gave a television interview (something that, today, Trump has not yet done with the vice president, JD Vance). That same month Musk came to write in X: “I love @realdonaldtrump everything a hetero man can love another man.”
The president, in addition, publicly supported not only Musk but one of his large companies, Tesla, when he became the object of attacks and boycots as punishment for Musk’s policies, and came to make an indescribable promotional act announcing a purchase of one of his cars in the White House.
The problems grow
Despite the effusive hug of the conservative Musk movement that was evidenced at the CPAC summit (where the chainsaw that Milei gave it), or the public support that Trump continued to give him, in the president, in the president they had begun to penetrate the complaints of other cabinet members about the actions of the businessman. In addition, Trump verified the political ballast That he could represent in April when, in an election for the Supreme of Wisconsin, the candidate that Musk had supported with millions of dollars fell strongly defeated.
That same month, after presenting results where it was seen that Tesla’s benefit had fallen 71%, and under enormous pressure of his shareholders, Musk announced that he would reduce his time in Doge, a step that became an announcement of definitive exit of the work for the government at the end of May.
The debacle
Musk had already been doing some time criticism of Trump’s economic policies. First he made them to the commercial war and the tariffs, To those who attributed to having caused significant losses to Tesla, then raised the hardness to refer to the megaproject of the budget and fiscal law that Trump tries to move forward. And on Tuesday he climbed them significantly when he calls that proposal as a “disgusting abomination” law.
That day he also suggested that in the legislative of 2026 he could support campaigns to try to demolish the Republican congressmen who vote for the law. Previously, he had promised to donate 100 million dollars to groups controlled by the Trump team for those elections, in which the lower house and one third of the Senate are renewed.
This Thursday, when Trump has been asked about Musk’s criticism during his appearance in the Oval Office with German Foreign Minister Friedrich Merz, the president has responded by showing his “disappointment”Musk has begun to answer in real time at X. Trump has then continued to respond with messages in Truth Social. And In the eyes of the public the nuclear explosion has occurred: Threats to punish Musk companies withdrawing contracts and subsidies from the government To the announcement of Musk of the “bomb”: the accusation (without offering evidence) that Trump appears in the archives on the sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein (which the government had promised to make completely public but that it has not yet declassified).
