Elon Musk was no match for Donald Trump – but his humiliation might only just be beginning
Was he right? A few days ago, Elon Musk declared of his war of words with Donald Trump that 'the most entertaining outcome is the most likely'. Does a capitulation count?
Surely not. The world found a kind of grim solace in the great Trump-Musk falling out, and was greatly looking forward to further shocking developments in social media's first soap opera. Would Elon tell us more about why, he alleged before he deleted his post, Trump was in the Epstein files? What did Musk see going on in the Trump White House? Is Trump as deranged as he seems, or, as Donald alleges, is Elon suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome?
More important, would Elon block access to his rockets and satellite network (apparently installed in the White House), and fund Democrats to 'crush' Maga candidates in next year's midterm elections, as has been rumoured? Or would Donald cancel the lucrative government contracts and deport Elon to South Africa, where he would surely face a mixed reception? Would Trump use the tanks on his birthday parade to crush his new Tesla?
That lot would certainly have been entertaining, if possibly dangerous to the stability of the world. Like so many disappointments from this pair, it seems likely we'll be deprived of what we expected. Instead, we have a highly ironic lesson in the power and inevitability of cooperation, even between the richest person on the planet, and the most powerful politician on earth.
Turns out that two men who think they don't need anyone else actually do really rely very much on one another, much more than they thought, and, in the end, found their civil war was doing them more harm than good. The fear of mutually assured destruction was sufficiently strong to prompt a truce.
In fairness to Musk, it has to be said that it was Trump who started to ease the tensions in recent days, playing down the threats and muting the insults; but it's Musk who stared commercial ruin in the face and publicly backed down: '"I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far."
In the end, the brilliant techbro was no match for the old school New York real estate bully. Without the US government contracts and support for his electric-autonomous car business, Musk would soon be a much diminished figure, if not ruined. While the loss of paper wealth has never bothered him that much – his bravado is part of the reason why he is where he is today – his sincere, if batty, desire to colonise Mars on behalf of humanity must have been the ambition that he simply could not sacrifice for the sake of a feud with a mad orange old bloke. Musk's second biggest motivation in life, war on the 'woke mind virus', would also be best served by keeping Trump in the White House?
How will Trump react? As ever, hard to predict, but the signs are he won't restart hostilities. Things will just go quiet.
It will never be bold, confident morning again for this pair, unless Musk commits certain acts of obeisance, in which case a reconciliation would be in play. After all, JD Vance once called the now-president Trump 'America's Hitler', Marco Rubio bitterly resented and resisted the 'con man' winning the White House, and Robert Kennedy Junior called the guy a 'sociopath'.
They have all since renounced their own posts, become sycophants and been richly rewarded. So, it may well turn out, will Musk. Which would, as he predicted, be an entertaining, if humiliating, outcome.
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