Musk from rants to regrets

Tech billionaire Elon Musk may have just learnt a lesson most moneymen already imbibed. In a tiff between deep purse and political power, it is the latter that prevails. And that is because it is political power that fosters the policy environment in which moneymen make their money. You do not by reason of your enormous resource endowment trade tackles with political power that oils the wheels of your fortune and hope to remain fortunate. Wealth is power, but political power is greater power.

Musk, the world’s richest man, backed down from tantrums in an ego duel with United States President Donald Trump over the last couple of weeks into humbled regrets. He lost billions of dollars in net worth from that voyage of impulse. Even though he is far from being ruined – he remains the world’s richest with a $334.5billion fortune – he came up against a bluff by Trump that he couldn’t call. Rather, he softened up and sought a make-up that the American leader was in no mood to readily oblige. There’s relative calm now, but that is largely because Musk ate the humble pie and pulled back from the battle line.

Trump and Musk have a long history of friendship. Reports said during his first term in office, Trump extended significant federal support to Musk’s companies, most notably SpaceX and Tesla, often bypassing traditional regulatory hurdles to give the tech mogul a direct pipeline to Washington’s purse. They’ve been an item since the 2024 presidential electioneering in the U.S. when Musk deployed his vast wealth and penetrating influence – he’s the owner of X (formerly Twitter) – in support of Trump’s campaign. As a Republican donor, he spent close to $300million to get 78-year-old Trump elected back into power. They were near-constant companions in the president’s early months back at the White House, such that Musk proclaimed himself the “first buddy.” Not that he was making an empty boast. Upon returning to power, Trump appointed him special advisor and put him in charge of a so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) where he oversaw mass layoffs of federal workers and the shuttering or partial closure of several agencies, including  the arrowhead of U.S. soft power, the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID). The pair often showered each other with praise, and Trump used to invite Musk to attend cabinet meetings.  Observers, however, said while Musk ostensibly led the battle charge to save costs for the Trump administration, he championed regulatory changes as would favour his companies. 

Like most ties in Trump universe, the political marriage has unraveled. The fall-out between the duo came with Trump’s signature tax cut and deficit spending legislation that he calls the “big, beautiful bill,” but which Musk opposed. The bill is already voted in by the American House of Representatives and is awaiting passage by the Senate, with the president projecting it would clear the Congress before the July 4th American independence anniversary. Musk argued that the bill, which the congressional budget office projects would raise U.S. deficit by $2.42trillion over the next decade, promises to bloat government debt load and he called it a “disgusting abomination.” The catch is, the legislation provides for eliminating electric vehicle tax credits, and Trump says this is the root cause of Musk’s frustration. Financial analysts estimated that provisions in the bill would cut some $1.2billion from Tesla’s full-year profit.

Musk left his job as a special government employee at the end of May. Trump marked that event with an Oval Office send-off for “The Dogefather” (Musk’s T-shirt imprint for the day) that featured mutual congratulations and at which he handed the Tesla founder a symbolic golden key. But the bonhomie didn’t last. No relationship has room for more than one narcissist, and the Trump-Musk alliance effectively had two. Neither did it help that the two men – both billionaires – share similar traits like large egos and bellicose social media conduct. Days after leaving government, Musk took to X to lampoon Trump’s agenda: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore, This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it,” he posted. 

“Trump-Musk spat: There’s relative calm… because Musk ate the humble pie and pulled back from the battle line”

Trump isn’t known to take criticism supinely and on his own platform, Truth Social, he described Musk as a spent force. He accused the entrepreneur of feeding at the government trough and threatened to cut off his plunder. “Elon was wearing thin, I asked him to leave. I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” the president wrote. 

It didn’t take long for the former allies to descend into a dirty war of recriminations.  Musk escalated the feud with a flurry of posts that were obviously impulsive and which he pulled down shortly after making them. Among the most nuclear was the allegation that the president’s name featured in files on disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, which he said was why they were yet to be declassified. Epstein killed himself in his jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex-trafficking minors. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk said and doubled down in a follow-up post: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.” He gave no evidence for the claim that, within a few days, disappeared from his handle. X users who clicked on the message were greeted with: “Hmm...this page doesn’t exist. Try searching for something else.” In another post that he also deleted, Musk called for Trump to be impeached.

Meanwhile, the president wasn’t silent. He rebutted the allegation about Epstein, saying: “That’s called ‘old news,’ that’s been old news that has been talked about for years.” He added: “Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it. It’s old news.” In the Oval Office, Trump deplored Musk’s criticisms, telling reporters: “I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill. I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.” He also dismissed a widespread notion that he couldn’t have won the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania in the 2024 election without Musk’s help; to which Musk shot back on X: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” He added in a separate post: “Such ingratitude.”

The back-and-forth featured threats of policy ruptures. The president hinted at possible termination of Musk’s contractual ties with the government, posting on social media: “The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts,” referring to federal contracts with SpaceX. “I was always surprised that (former President Joe) Biden didn’t do it!” Musk momentarily dared the president to do it: “Go ahead, make my day,” he said. He even pressed in his own threat, saying SpaceX would begin to decommission its Dragon spacecraft – a critical link to space for the U.S. National Aeronautic Space Agency (NASA) that depends on Musk’s company to ferry cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. Roughly five hours later, though, he withdrew the threat.

Musk’s reconsideration notwithstanding, the markets reacted swiftly and harshly. The mogul’s personal net worth slumped by $33.9billion in one day, while Tesla reportedly lost $152billion from its market capitalization, its biggest hit ever, though its stock price has since shed some of those losses. And Trump threatened him with greater ruination if he funds Democratic candidates against Republicans who vote for the bill. “If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” the president told American media in a phone interview, but declined to share what the consequences would be. “He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” he added. 

By mid-last week, Musk was back with regrets over his social media activity in the spat. “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” he said in a post on X. But it isn’t yet reunion time with Trump. Asked about reports a phone call was scheduled between him and Musk in the wake of the spat, the president told journalists: “You mean the man who has lost his mind?”