Elon Musk is many issues: billionaire, natalist, aspiring gamer. He runs gigantic companies and dreams of colonizing Mars. However above all, Elon Musk is a poster. And as his storied relationship with President Donald Trump dissolves in actual time, by god, he’s posting via it.
The ensuing timeline—a chaotic, catty, incendiary voyage into the grievances of the world’s richest man with the president of the US—ought to be enshrined as a historic artifact, a front-row seat to the obvious finish of an extraordinarily consequential partnership.
Tensions between Musk and Trump had been steadily constructing, however they spilled into the open on Thursday. After Musk took repeated photographs on the president’s “Large Stunning Invoice” and the trillions of {dollars} it would add to the deficit, Trump accused Musk of caring solely concerning the elimination of an electrical car credit score that helps Tesla and advised their relationship had frayed.
Then got here Musk’s many, many posts on X. Between 12:19 pm ET and three:20 pm ET, Musk fired off 49 posts, reposts, or replies. That’s a mean of 1 new missive each 3.5 minutes, over a three-hour stretch.
It began merely sufficient. “No matter,” Musk posted to X at 12:19 pm ET. “Hold the EV/photo voltaic incentive cuts within the invoice, despite the fact that no oil & gasoline subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), however ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK within the invoice. In your complete historical past of civilization, there has by no means been laws that [sic] each large and exquisite. Everybody is aware of this! Both you get a giant and ugly invoice or a slim and exquisite invoice. Slim and exquisite is the best way.”
Lower than half an hour later, after a number of extra innocuous posts and in response to a video of Trump saying he would have received Pennsylvania no matter Musk’s assist, Musk went nuclear. “With out me, Trump would have misplaced the election, Dems would management the Home and the Republicans could be 51-49 within the Senate,” he posted.
From there, Musk performed the hits: A foul pun (“Kill Invoice”). A number of “crying laughing” emojis. A nugatory quiz. Sympathetic retweets. The previous few hours have been a dash via Musk’s posting playbook, well-honed via years of being X’s proprietor and one in every of its most dedicated customers.
Trump posted too: “The best approach to save cash in our Price range, Billions and Billions of {Dollars}, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” he wrote on Reality Social throughout Musk’s meltdown. “Elon was ‘sporting skinny,’ I requested him to go away, I took away his EV Mandate that compelled everybody to purchase Electrical Vehicles that no one else needed (that he knew for months I used to be going to do!), and he simply went CRAZY!”
Musk responded by accusing Trump of being within the Epstein Information. (As of this writing, he’s nonetheless following that thread.) He additionally claimed that “@SpaceX will start decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft instantly,” which might deprive NASA of its most well-liked shuttle to the Worldwide Area Station.
“I don’t thoughts Elon turning towards me,” wrote Trump on Reality Social, “however he ought to have accomplished so months in the past. This is without doubt one of the Biggest Payments ever offered to Congress.”
“Trump ought to be impeached and JD Vance ought to exchange him,” wrote far-right X poster Ian Miles Cheong. “Sure,” Musk responded.
The very public spat between the world’s richest man and its strongest chief reveals no signal of slowing. The results of the falling-out may be astronomical: Musk is value lots of of billions of {dollars} and has confirmed that he’s pleased to deploy it to attain his personal political and private ends. Trump has energy to choke off lots of Musk’s corporations from profitable authorities contracts.
It’s an unprecedented second that appears more likely to result in unpredictable locations. However no matter twists it takes, there’s at the very least some assurance that they’ll occur out within the open.
