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If you look at the Pentagon’s organizational chart, President Donald Trump is atop the pecking order, carrying the title and power his predecessors enjoyed as Commander in Chief. But judging from the last 24 hours in Washington, as the world’s most powerful man has gotten into a tit-for-tat schoolyard feud with the world’s richest man, a more apt title comes to mind: Chief Petty Officer.
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Sitting in the Oval Office and on a dueling social media platform of his making, the billionaire President is lobbing threats and invectives at fellow billionaire Elon Musk, who just last week enjoyed the kind of warm sendoff seldom offered to outgoing Cabinet secretaries, who in Trump's first term were summarily fired on Twitter. Now that Musk owns Twitter—renamed X—the tables are turned, and Musk can use the same platform to derail Trump’s agenda from afar.
It’s a breakup that stands to shake up the entire second term of Trump. And it’s all playing out with more drama than a Housewives reunion.
The unscripted unraveling comes as Washington is facing a self-imposed time crunch to finish work on a massive piece of legislation that accomplishes much of the agenda Trump promised as he sought the most unlikely return to power. It carries huge tax breaks, spending to tighten the border and immigration, and drastic cuts to programs promoting clean-energy programs. It’s that last bit that seems to have sparked the shocking split between the two men who, until days ago, seemed to be of a shared mind to trash the federal infrastructure with disregard to its effects. Trump wanted to scale back the size of government and gave Musk a sledgehammer and full access to just about every corner of it.
Read more: Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Stumbles in Senate as Musk Ramps Up Bid to ‘Kill’ It
But when Musk left Trump’s side, he seemed suddenly cleared of any sense of loyalty. He started lobbing his problems with House Republicans’ "One Big Beautiful Bill." He called it an abomination, a debt bomb, a mistake that would cost incumbents their jobs if they didn’t reverse course. He said Trump would never have been elected without his financial help. (That one is probably right, as Musk was the single largest patron of efforts to get Trump back in power.) And, for good measure, in a social media post mid-afternoon Thursday, Musk said Trump is in the unreleased dossier about those involved in a sex trafficking operation of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
As Trump responded in kind, the world was left watching a brawl involving two masters of the universe who, given their power and resources, could better the course of human history if only they would focus. Trump said Musk “went CRAZY!” Trump threatened to take away all contracts from Musk’s companies, including the SpaceX firm that has quickly become a critical player for NASA. (Musk’s orbit benefits from at least $38 billion in loans, subsidies, tax credits, and outright contracts, according to a Washington Post analysis.) And as the spat went into its third day, Trump decided that holding his tongue was no longer working for him: “Suddenly he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to cut the EV mandate that’s billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said, mentioning the electric vehicle provisions that stand to benefit Musk’s Tesla auto brand.
Normally, billionaire spats make for good copy in the business sections of newspapers and the gossip columns of the tabloids. They’re fun, "other people" problems and a form of escapism. But this is not that. Programs like food aid for poor children, health care for seniors, and subsidies for day-to-day needs are in the balance. The security of borders and the safety and well-being of millions of immigrants living in this country stand to change dramatically. A reordering of a domestic agenda for the next three years is on the table. And instead of trying to win the argument on merits, Trump is sinking to Musk’s level and using his favorite tool of governance: transparent transactional threats.
Musk, relishing in his relevance, seemed to be parked on X, hurling whatever he could grab. When one user noted that the U.S. government would be forced to walk away from the International Space Station and its upkeep without Musk’s SpaceX fleet, the tech savant amplified it: “Go ahead, make my day.”
Bravado, maybe. But this is why for a generation the U.S. government kept so much of its core duties in-house, especially when it came to projects with huge barriers to entry. Now, with so much reliance on the billionaires with essential monopolies who can take the government hostage with their expertise, Trump is walking into this spat at a decided imbalance. Sure, he can match the pettiness, but he cannot match the political and technological heft. And that should elevate this well beyond a reality-show skirmish.
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