Male friendship isn't easy. Just ask Trump and Musk

The Guardian

07-06-2025

I have a hard time maintaining male friendships these days. The older I get, the less time I have for the sorts of activities stereotypical American males enjoy: sporting events, competitive binge drinking and collecting rare coins in a dark basement. OK, maybe that last thing isn't nearly as common anymore, but what is common (if you believe various trend pieces in newspapers and magazines) is the increasing rarity of long-lasting male friendships. Most of my guy friends keep in touch with me through group chats or the occasional solo check-in text. I have, by my count, at least 10 group chats with different circles of friends. All of them are organized around a unifying theme – Star Trek, movie industry gossip, the Los Angeles Dodgers, hating that one guy who wore flip-flops to my wedding. My whole social life revolves around screens now. I watch a show or a baseball game and then immediately retreat into my other, smaller screen to discuss what I just witnessed with people I almost never see in real life. I will give myself credit for at least trying to be social in between working and taking my son to karate lessons, but it is, in fact, the bare minimum effort that I'm exerting. It's almost like a welfare check, these text messages: 'He responded, therefore he is not dead or in a Salvadorian supermax prison awaiting a trial that will never happen.'
Maybe this is a superior way of maintaining relationships, though. By only seeing my friends on very rare occasions, I can't get sick of their personality quirks, their peculiar habits or their need to wear flip-flops to black-tie events. Seriously, no one wants to see your toes at a wedding, man. Cut it out.
Friendship might be a social concoction that is best served sparingly. A healthy distance from someone you like makes it more unlikely you'll start absolutely hating the sheer sight of them. Sometimes, a good friend can smother you, stifle your own identity or lack boundaries. I don't need to know every little thing about a date you've been on or your trip to the podiatrist. Give me the highlights and move on. We might be seeing some of this in the rapid dissolution of the friendship (if one could call giving someone a ton of money in exchange for a job blowing up the government a 'friendship') of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. It might have been too much of a good thing for those two old scamps. It was only a couple months ago that Trump and Elon were fawning over a Tesla on the White House lawn like two car salesmen during a particularly riveting Toyotathon. Both of them looked so happy then – beaming with pride as they extolled the virtues of owning an electric car. As we know, Trump is an expert salesman, so he was clearly having a great time. And Musk is very proficient at standing, as he has demonstrated time and time again. It all seemed so perfect, but as is the case with any relationship, the reality is often a lot more complicated.
Perhaps this is just another case of 'boys will be boys', but in this case, the boys in question are accusing each other of deranged behavior. Trump and Musk seemed outwardly to be as close as two incredibly rich, famously grumpy people can be. Musk campaigned for Trump in 2024, donated millions of his personal dollars to the Maga cause and took a position in the Trump administration during the first few months of the GOP victory lap. The arrangement allowed them to indulge in some of their favorite hobbies: flying in expensive planes, posting invectives on social media and firing people. It all looked quite cozy.
The Dear John letter in this breakup came in the form of a series of increasingly unhinged posts from both men. Trump says Musk went 'crazy' over the removal of electric vehicle subsidies in his budget bill. Musk tweeted the Epstein thing, claimed Trump would cause a recession later this year and accused him of lying about how the whole breakup went down. Trump threatened to kill Musk's government contracts. Steve Bannon, a Trump adviser that the president still seems to like, for some reason, suggested Musk should be investigated and possibly deported. A couples counselor would say these guys need to do less talking and a whole lot more listening.
Some friendships aren't meant to last. In this case, it's pretty clear there was a bit of a 'marriage of convenience' flavor to it all. Trump needed money. Musk … also needed money. An ideal partnership. The only thing that could get in the way of that is, of course, also money. The death of the EV subsidies is existentially terrifying for a man whose fortune rests in the stock value of his automobile company. Trump, ever eager to look fiscally responsible, went after a budget item that most of his supporters either don't care about or actively hate. This really isn't that different from when a friend promises to Venmo me for their share of a dinner tab and takes a week to do it (and has to be reminded multiple times, naturally via text). In the case of Trump and Musk, the Venmo tab is in the millions.
I still think the Musk-Trump alliance could be salvaged, though the deportation threats and the pedophile island accusation probably aren't helping. Unlike most of my friendships, Trump and Musk's partnership is highly transactional. They have and will likely continue to need each other in some way. I need you to pay me back for dinner, but I don't need it. Some of my male friendships fall away just out of mutual lack of interest. We both made a choice, consciously or unconsciously, to give up on a relationship. Trump and Musk will always need each other in one form or another. Their shared grift of the American government is simply more powerful and effective when the two of them are working together as the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of corruption. They might just need a little break from each other. When they're ready, maybe they could take it slow and try a group chat.
Well. Maybe not.
Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist