As expected, the much-anticipated public break-up of the world’s highest profile bromance has been a spectacular display of brattishness, churlishness and teenage anger. And that’s only how the US president, Donald Trump, has behaved.
For his part, Elon Musk blew up any remnants of his reputation with a mean-spirited, real-time tweet feud with Trump — first after Trump’s nasty comments about Musk’s black eye to shell-shocked German chancellor Friedrich Merz, and then on Truth Social, his own social platform.
There is a lot of Schadenfreude in the world after this anticipated implosion as the two biggest narcissists in the world had the world’s biggest social media catfight.
“Without me Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk tweeted, adding: “Such ingratitude.”
Trump replied — do we just give in and call it “truthed” as an ironic label, given who owns the platform — that “the easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts.” For extra niggle, he “truthed”: “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
That wiped $152bn off Tesla’s share price (about 15%) and $8.73bn off Musk’s own net worth, down to $335bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Musk hit back with an underhanded insinuation about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in 2019 before he could be tried. “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk tweeted, adding: “Have a nice day, DJT!”
So, Musk knew about the Epstein connection but still befriended the convicted fraudster and got him elected?
So, Musk knew about the Epstein connection but still befriended the convicted fraudster and got him elected? We’ll probably never know — even as it emerged the Epstein estate will benefit from an investment into Musk’s PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel’s, fund, but not any of Epstein’s victims.
Thursday’s blow-up was just six days after Trump bade Musk a fond farewell in the Oval Office, calling him “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,” and Musk said he’d remain a “friend and adviser to the president”.
Now the president says Musk is suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” after being ejected from his inner circle, like so many of the reality TV star’s former advisers he’s fallen out with.
For five very destructive months Musk ran the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), his “chainsaw” for bureaucracy that shut down the amazing USAID and other agencies doing good work, and has set America’s global standing back.
Millions of Africans will likely die as a result of the man born in Pretoria and that chainsaw. The withdrawal of funding for fighting HIV/Aids and other dread diseases in SA alone will wreak havoc, while the impact in the rest of the developing world will be catastrophic. Musk did that when he dismantled USAID at Trump’s behest. That will be his legacy.
The expected fallout came when Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” was passed, but will add about $5-trillion in debt over the coming years. Musk — who liked to call himself the “first buddy” in the year-long billionaire bromance that saw him spend $275m to get Trump elected — slammed it as a “disgusting abomination”.
The “bro-oligarchy” had started crumbling. Nobody could’ve predicted how swift and bitter the acrimony would become. Or how petty. By far the best — and most ironic — comment came from one of Musk’s ex-lovers, with whom he has a child. Ashley St Clair tweeted: “Hey @realDonaldTrump lmk if u need any break-up advice.”
NYU Stern professor Scott Galloway has emerged as a voice of reason, saying Musk’s wealth and “genius” should not excuse “depravity”.
“We’ve decided in America that innovation and money replaces or obviates or excuses depravity,” Galloway told Piers Morgan on his show. “Cutting off aid to HIV-positive mothers, deciding what veterans should get benefits, cutting off Snap [food] payments.”
We’ve decided in America that innovation and money replaces or obviates or excuses depravity.
— Scott Galloway
NYU Stern professor
In a blistering criticism before Thursday’s meltdown, he said: “I think if somebody is making Nazi salutes; if somebody is being sued concurrently by two women for sole custody of their child, who, because that person has not spent any time with that child; when someone is so severely addicted to drugs they can’t get their shit together to show up to the White House without looking exceptionally high; I don’t think that’s the right role model for young men.”
The New York Times reported on May 30 that Musk was taking drugs, including ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, during his brief sting as a special government employee, “Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anaesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use,” it wrote.
Galloway took no prisoners, telling Morgan: “I think this is an individual who has literally come off the tracks, who is rabidly addicted to drugs and is using his immense power to get people elected. And that too many of us excuse what is abhorrent behaviour.
“I think his legacy is not going to be an [electric vehicle] or putting rockets into space. I think it’s going to be unnecessary death, disease and disability of the world’s most vulnerable. That is not what it means to be an innovator. It’s not what it means to be an American. It’s not what it means to be a man.”
Let that be the last word on this subject.
• Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff.co.za.
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