Donald Trump's rocket man is coming back down to earth with a bump

The National

2 days ago

I'm talking of course about the Trump-Musk bromance, which never flourished more than at the height of the last US presidential election campaign.
In fact, for a while it seemed Elon Musk had become a sort of de facto US vice-president in waiting. He was everywhere, both during the campaign and in the early days of the administration. Be it in the Oval Office, Air Force One or cabinet meetings, there was no Donald Trump without Musk by his side.
But all that it seems has now changed, albeit not with a bang or whimper but with a strange fading away. Musk now is barely referenced by Trump or his White House team. If anything the opposite is true.
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Musk's heavy criticism this week of the administration's latest spending proposal – Trump has dubbed one 'big, beautiful bill' – is a case in point.
But there are other gripes too between the billionaire and the president as well. For example, back in the day of election promises, Trump and Musk promised US taxpayers big savings, maybe even a 'Doge dividend' payoff when the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government with Musk at its helm.
That as we now know has not come to pass and in fact far from achieving its touted $2 trillion savings, Doge looks likely to end up costing the American taxpayer an additional $135 billion this year.
As for actual federal spending, this has risen to $154bn, more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of former president Joe Biden.
As one top Trump ally quoted by Politico magazine recently put it candidly about Musk and Doge: 'We got too close to the fence. We mowed too far ... We just adjust. That's the process that's going on'.
The bottom line here is that in Trump world, there is no time wasting when it comes to dumping overboard anybody who has out-served their usefulness.
As Gideon Lichfield, former editor of the technology and political magazine Wired, recently observed, 'clashing with the president on tariffs, alienating members of the cabinet, and failing to swing a state judicial race despite pouring $25 million into it may have made Musk something of a liability'.
As Lichfield also observed, when viewed from Musk's perspective, getting in tow with Trump and Doge might have seemed like a great way of using an insider position to 'win contracts, gain intel on competitors, and shoulder pesky regulators out of his companies way'.
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But in the end, even though Musk did gain substantially in financial and contractual terms, when offset against the potential losses that might result from sticking with Trump, meant both men would almost certainly come to a crossroads and have different priorities and trajectories.
While Trump's own polls so far are not in themselves good, Musk's have revealed him to be a lightning rod in national politics and deeply unpopular with the public.
During his re-election bid, Trump saw Musk as someone needed to help fill the campaign war chest and used the tech giant's global online platforms to gain influence and shape public opinion.
How interesting now then that Trump is no longer using Musk's name to bring in money. Since early March mentions of Musk in fundraising appeals have stopped abruptly compared with near-daily mentions just a month before.
'He's finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him,' said one GOP operative who was granted anonymity to speak frankly to Politico magazine. 'He'd go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people's votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a nine-year-old ... It doesn't work. It's offensive to people,' the official was quoted as saying, showing just how much Musk appears to have fallen out of favour.
But as Musk sees it however, Doge has simply become the 'whipping boy for everything'.
Then again too there is also the sense that the world's richest man wants to get back to doing what he thinks he does best – making money.
Musk though has always been his own worst enemy, and like many I have little sympathy for the reputational hit his companies took when he has been more than happy to flaunt his neo-Nazi sympathies these past months.
'People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That's really uncool,' poor old Elon bleated recently in an interview with The Washington Post.
But as Edward Luce, US national editor of the Financial Times pointed out, Musk seemed almost oblivious to the fact that the 'London spoof advertising campaign that called Tesla a 'Swasticar – from zero to 1939 in three seconds' – came in reaction to his far-right boosterism, not to his war on bureaucracy'.
No-one doubts then that Musk's public profile has declined, but that by no means suggests he lacks access to or has clout within the Trump administration.
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Just recently for example, he was among the tech CEOs to join Trump on his Saudi Arabia jaunt shaking hands with other rich folk and leaders.
Doubtless also Trump will call on him again should he be needed, and Musk, like the president, will always have one eye on the potential profits.
It's a pretty fair bet for example that Musk will not want to cut off his nose to spite his face given that his SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Trump's 'Golden Dome' missile defence shield as reports suggest.
Musk's net worth is said to have fallen by about $130bn since Trump came back to the White House. But now that the president's feet are well and truly ensconced beneath the 'Resolute Desk' of the Oval Office, Musk for now has put away his chainsaw and gone back to being a 'rocket man'.
But even here things are not going well, given that last Tuesday Musk's SpaceX's Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built came a cropper while coming down during a test flight. Musk then is back down to earth with a bump and the bromance is on hold.
As I said at the start though, I won't deny a certain perverse pleasure in watching the slow breakup of both.