A BROMANCE GOES SOUR

Nick Dazang 

Technology billionaire, Elon Musk, had barely exited the Donald Trump administration, which he served as the Czar of the Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE), for a mere 129 days, when he referred, odiously, to Trump’s signature tax and spendng bill as a “disgusting abomination”.

Referred to grandly by President Trump as the Big Beautiful Bill, it envisions multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and more defense spending while also allowing the U.S. government to borrow more money. The bill is expected to increase the budget deficit by $600 billion in the next fiscal year.

Elon Musk, however, stridently disagrees with this conservative projection. In a series of posts on X, he referred to the bill as not only “outrageous” and “pork-filled”, he insisted that it would “massively increase the already gigantic deficit to $2.5 trillion(!!!) and burden America(sic) citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt”. It would, he also vehemently argued, trigger an economic recession.

This devastating attack not only exploded an alliance forged on the anvil of the presidential election of November last year, in which Musk donated a whopping $250 million to the Trump Campaign, it opened a clangorous floodgate of a tit-for-tat between the two.
It was inevitable that there would be a collision between the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest. Both share similar idiosyncrasies and failings: Both thirst hungrily for power. Both are narcissistic. Both crave the limelight. And both have frail and oversized egos.

What avid observers did not accurately forecast, however, was that the bromance was going to be short lived and that the falling out was going to be of an epic proportion.

Unfortunately, instead of this spat to be predicated on, or restricted to, policy, it has descended to the purely personal. It is also being conducted on their influential social media platforms, X and TRUTH SOCIAL.
Musk has claimed that he was instrumental to President Trump’s re-election, accusing him of not showing gratitude. He said: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude”.
Furthermore, Musk threatened to decommission his Space Dragon from the services of the American government.

For good measure, he alleged that Trump declined to declassify the files of convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, as previously pledged, because he was in them:”Time to drop the really big bomb:@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files”.

Trump who initially attempted to downplay the spat barred his fangs. He threatened on TRUTH SOCIAL:”The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Government Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it”.
Certainly, one of the ways to undo Musk is to terminate his contracts. After all, two of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, are intricately webbed with the U.S. political system and are thought to benefit from subsidies. Tesla manufactures electric vehicles while SpaceX builds rockets, spacecraft and satellites. Additionally, SpaceX is reported to enjoy contracts with the American valued at $89.2 billion.

As a matter of fact, following this spectacular row, not less than $34 billion was erased from Musk’s personal net worth. This is the second-largest loss ever in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the 500 wealthiest people in the world. The only bigger loss was Musk’s wipe out of 2021.

Already hawks in the Republican Party are calling for blood. They are urging Trump to use his awesome powers with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate the propriety or otherwise of Musk’s businesses. Others such as Steve Banon, a Trump ally, are calling for an outright deportation of the South-Africa-born Musk from America.
But there will be consequences should Trump hearken to these vindictive urgings. SpaceX is heavily involved in the National Space Agency’s (NASA’s) moon landing programs and it manages an increasing share of satellite communications for the U.S government.

It was the SpaceDragon capsule which helped return the two NASA astronauts that were stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months when a Boeing vehicle experienced challenges.
Though Trump attempted to link Musk’s grievances to his policy somersault on electric vehicles, his father, Errol Graham Musk, dismissed it in an interview with the BBC on Friday (6/6/2025). And though he claimed the tempest between his son and Trump would “fizzle out”, he presented Elon as “standing on principles”.

Principle or not, this near-volcanic dispute betrays Musk’s naivety. Political life, where differing interests have to be factored and balanced, has far different values from running a business or a factory where merit and the bottom line are of the highest consideration.

However, where two titans clash, it is ordinary folks that bear the brunt. Little wonder, not a few American politicians and business people are calling the two gladiators to bury the hatchet. And not a few are calling for a greater scrutiny of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill.