‘We Are Taking Away Elon's Friends'
The MAGA right has responded to the explosive feud between Donald Trump and Elon Musk largely with pleas for the American president and world's richest man to reconcile, if only for the greater good of Republican Party dominance.
That doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon considering the attacks Musk leveled against Trump on Thursday, Trump's media tour bashing Musk on Friday, and the fact that White House staff and the president's proxies are actively pressuring people who've been allies to both to pick a side in MAGAland's ongoing divorce proceedings.
'We are taking away Elon's friends,' a senior Trump administration official bluntly tells Rolling Stone. 'If he wants them back, he will need to kiss Donald Trump's ass harder than he's ever kissed anybody's ass before in his entire life.'
This official adds: 'Even then, it's not a given he gets to come back from this.'
On Thursday, another source with knowledge of the matter told this magazine that Trump White House staff had already started making phone calls and sending messages to certain high-profile allies (big donors in the party, conservative luminaries, and so forth) of both Trump and Musk, demanding they choose pick sides in this melodrama — adding that it would likely be the easiest choice they'd ever make.
'Nobody even has to ask me; it's no choice at all: I am Team Trump all the way. He is my friend and he's my president,' says Darrell Scott, a Cleveland, Ohio-area pastor who has advised Trump on different matters and initiatives ever since 2016. 'What some people don't understand about Trump is that he is a very gregarious person. But when he needs to be the boss, he can switch to that mode pretty quickly. And I don't think Elon was able to deal with that … Now, he's probably got a lot of people in his ear about this right now. All I've done since this all blew up on Thursday so far is send him a text, telling him: 'Be encouraged.''
It appears that the administration's high-school-cafeteria-style pressure campaign and popularity contest is — even at its very infancy — working out for them. Another Trump official notes that since this all exploded into full public display on Thursday, members of Trump's government and inner sanctum have been inundated with messages from outside allies and collaborators in the business, media, and political elite stressing their allegiance to the 45th and 47th U.S. president.
The onrush of fealty is getting so intense that some of the messages, according to this administration official, include lines like: 'In case the president didn't see my text…' and 'Elon is dead to us.'
But the Trump administration's response may ultimately involve more than just a pressure campaign for the duo's mutuals to choose a side. The president personally threatened on Thursday to cancel Musk's government contracts, and MAGA diehards like Trump's former top strategist Steve Bannon have called for Musk's immigration status to be investigated, and even for the government to seize control of Musk's company. The Trump team at least seems open to the idea of reopening federal probes into Musk's empire. 'THIS ADMINISTRATION COULD ALWAYS START THE INVESTIGATIONS AGAIN,' one senior Trump appointee messaged Rolling Stone after the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, who ruffled (to say the least…) his share of feathers while serving as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), turned on the president.
It is unclear how many of these important 'friends' the world's richest person will be able to hold on to in the near and long term — but so far, it's not looking too great for him. (On Friday night, Musk started deleting his posts criticizing Trump.)
Right-wing influencers, meanwhile, have been divided in their response to the breakup. Most of them have lamented that Trump and Musk are fighting while urging them to figure out a way to reconcile, while some have dug in on one side of the feud or the other.
'Broooos please noooooo. We love you both so much,' rapper, outspoken Hitler fan, and on-and-off Trump ally Kanye West posted to Musk's social media site X.
Bannon, for his part, told Politico that he's 'going to fucking war' against Musk. The former Trump official is not showing Musk a hint of empathy, despite the fact that Bannon once went through his own (albeit temporary) excommunication from Trumpworld's upper crust.
Furthermore, influential MAGA commentator @catturd2 has been lashing out at commentators sympathetic to Musk, as well as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said Trump must respond to Musk's allegation that the president's name appears in the government's files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Pro-Musk X user Ian Miles Cheong, meanwhile, wrote in a post that Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President J.D. Vance, who has been sympathetic to tech industry figures like Musk. Musk replied, 'Yes,' to the post calling for Trump's removal.
Vance and other top Trump administration figures are, of course, making clear where their allegiance lies.
'President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads,' the vice president wrote. 'I'm proud to stand beside him.'
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