Elon Musk’s attempt to achieve clout in politics has backfired spectacularly.
He has damaged Tesla’s brand with his venture into President Trump’s orbit of confidants.
Musk’s version of cost-cutting, called DOGE, is now considered by many to be a failure and is no longer seen as an asset for the Republican Party and President Trump.
Is the cozy alliance between Musk and Trump about to fracture?
There is a silence between Donald Trump and Elon Musk that has everyone wondering what has happened between the two. Musk spent more than $300 million on Trump’s campaign and promoted candidate Trump on his powerful social media site X, formerly Twitter. It could be said that Trump would not have won last November without Musk’s help.
At one time the two were inseparable. Musk and his son X AE were seen several times near the President. Musk was shown on video lecturing the cabinet and speaking from the Oval Office, taking the limelight from Trump:
In March Trump promoted Teslas on the White House lawn in an infomercial for Musk’s electric vehicle company.
At Trump’s request Elon Musk ran the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, and his drastic budget cuts have ruffled some feathers.
And this week Musk mocked Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”, Trump’s name for legislation under consideration that will cut government spending and extend tax cuts. On CBS Sunday Morning Musk stated: “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it. And it undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing. I think a bill can be big or it could be beautiful. But I don’t know if it could be both.”
Trump has a long history of falling out with people close to him. On the other hand, Trump loves people with massive wealth, and no person has more money than Elon Musk. But Musk’s criticism of this most important piece of legislation could be too much for Trump to ignore.
This bill makes tax cuts for the wealthy permanent while cutting spending on programs like Medicaid. On the right, including billionaires like Musk, there is enormous disappointment that the bill will make the current annual deficit of $2 trillion even larger. A few Republicans opposed the House version of the bill, before it passed with a margin of one vote. It now goes to the Senate for approval.
Opinion polling has revealed that Musk is a political liability, and politicians no longer wish to be seen with him. The mid-term elections are in November 2026, and all members of the House of Representatives must stand for re-election.
Tesla’s sales are slipping in Europe because of damage to the Musk brand, and in China where price competition for electric vehicles is fierce. In the U.S. sales are down 4 percent year-to-date.
Both Trump and Musk have a lot to lose when their bromance ends, but their friendship has become too costly to continue.
Hilliard MacBeth
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