Trump vs Musk: Call the breakup poetic justice. Call it karmic crypto-collapse. Just don't call it surprising
When two men believe the world revolves around them, it's only a matter of time before their orbits collide. And when they do, the explosion isn't quiet. Rather, it's a full-blown Twitter meltdown with echoes loud enough to rattle both Wall Street and Mar-a-Lago. And boy, we are watching the best cosmic collision since Pluto got downgraded.
Welcome to the spectacular implosion of the Trump–Musk bromance. What began as a mutual admiration society of billionaire chest-thumping and red-hat flirting has now devolved into the kind of public breakup even the Real Housewives would find a bit too messy.
Let's rewind.
Once upon a time, in the golden age of post-truth politics, Elon Musk, the tech messiah, meme lord, and part-time Mars enthusiast, decided to dip his toes into political kingmaking. A neat little $277 million was funnelled into the Donald Trump campaign machinery. In any other part of the world, this would be called oligarchic meddling. In the United States, it's called 'Super Tuesday'.
Trump, ever the transactional romantic, reciprocated by giving Musk a cosy seat at the regulatory table named DOGE, where he could quietly dismantle watchdogs, neuter climate policies, and make capitalism great again (for Tesla stock). Love was in the air. Or maybe, it was just the fumes from Musk's Boring Company flamethrowers.
But like all ill-fated love stories, this one came with red flags. Musk's reputation, once burnished with visions of space colonies and clean energy, began to crumble under the weight of layoffs, lawsuits, and livestreamed tantrums. Turns out, being the adult in the room is hard when you're too busy rebranding Twitter into an unpronounceable algebra problem.
Enter phase two: Reputation rehab.
Suddenly, Musk was 'distancing' himself from the Trump administration. He quit councils, tweeted vaguely progressive things, and flirted with the idea of centrism, all while pretending he hadn't spent the past four years quietly enjoying deregulation like a raccoon in a trash buffet.
But this Thursday? The façade shattered.
In a tweet that will one day be studied in both communications courses and FBI depositions, Musk posted: 'Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.'
He even had the gall to add: 'Have a nice day, DJT!'
That wasn't a mic drop. That was a nuke in 280 characters.
And let's be honest: If anyone was going to try to cancel someone else using Jeffrey Epstein, it was always likely to be Musk.
Trump, unsurprisingly, didn't take it well. His reply was less subtle than a red tie in a wind tunnel: Musk is 'crazy,' and perhaps more worryingly for SpaceX investors, he threatened to cut off government contracts.
Suddenly, two men who once shared bromantic photo ops and mutual disdain for accountability were hurling legal threats across a billion-dollar battlefield. Kanye West (of course) tried to play counsellor, tweeting something along the lines of 'bros don't fight, we love you both'. Unfortunately, love is dead and so is Kanye's credibility.
And yet… are we really witnessing the final act?
Let's not forget: Trump has made up with worse. Just ask Marco 'sweaty little man' Rubio or Ted 'your wife is ugly' Cruz. With Trump, personal insults are just foreplay. It's politics as WWE: Everyone's bleeding, but it's still part of the script.
Still, there's something deliciously different this time. This feud doesn't feel like kayfabe. It feels real. Real messy. Real vindictive. Real stupid. And that makes it… kind of beautiful?
Because if 2025 is going to be yet another parade of rich men yelling into microphones about how oppressed they are, the least we can ask for is a little entertainment. Preferably the kind that ends in lawsuits and meme wars.
So, grab your popcorn. Watch the world's richest man implode on the platform he owns, while being roasted by the guy he helped elect. Call it poetic justice. Call it karmic crypto-collapse. Call it what you will.
Just don't call it surprising.
After all, in the immortal words of the internet, 'This you?'
sudhanshu.mishra@indianexpress.com
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