The Trump-Musk bromance is over. So what comes next?
Happy Friday! What do you get when you mix Pokémon-like trading cards with K-pop? A collectible that's big business. BI's Cheryl Teh describes the photo trading cards, known as "boy paper," as " a blood sport that's equal parts lottery and enterprise."
In today's big story, the historic relationship between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk dramatically imploded.
What's on deck
Markets: JPMorgan just put its foot down against its new junior bankers hunting for PE jobs.
But first, no love lost.
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The big story
Bad Blood (Trump and Musk's version)
Like a toddler determined to pour their own milk, the Trump-Musk relationship seemed destined to crash. On Thursday, the proverbial glass finally spilled.
President Donald Trump responded to Elon Musk's ongoing attacks on his "Big Beautiful Bill," saying he had a "great relationship" with the billionaire but that, " I don't know if we will anymore."
Trump suggested to reporters that Musk's motivation was self-interest, citing the bill's phase-out of the electric vehicle tax credit that could negatively impact Tesla. The billionaire quickly fired back on X that his focus was the bill fueling the country's growing deficit.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Both men's attacks grew increasingly hostile. Musk, who spent almost $300 million on the 2024 election, took credit for Trump's win. Trump threatened to cancel Musk's government contracts, describing it as the "easiest way to save money in our budget."
Not to be outdone, Musk said SpaceX would decommission its Dragon spacecraft. Five hours later, he appeared to walk back the decision in response to an X user. Musk also went after Trump's tariffs, saying they will cause a recession later this year.
As BI's Peter Kafka pointed out, much of the fight took place between the two combatants' social platforms of choice: X (Musk) and Truth Social (Trump).
Regardless of what's fueling Musk (we had some theories earlier this week), the impact on at least one of his businesses is already clear. Tesla gave back much of the gains accumulated in May. On Thursday alone, the stock fell 14%.
Still, there's no point crying over spilled milk.
Despite the split, both men remain two of the world's most powerful people. Which raises the question: Where do we go from here?
Here are three big questions in the aftermath of the Trump-Musk breakup.
Who gets the "kids" in the divorce? Both men have deep fan bases whose devotion rivals just about anyone's supporters. (Yes, that includes the Swifties and the BeyHive.) But there is also plenty of overlap between Team MAGA and the Elon acolytes. If things remain contentious between the two sides, will fans of both feel forced to pick a side? And if they do, who will come out on top?
Is a reconciliation still on the table? White House aides have scheduled a call on Friday with Musk, Politico reported. Bill Ackman and Ye took to X to urge the duo to end their public feud. As brutal as the attacks have been, both men have traded barbs before. Back in 2022, Trump called Musk a " bullshit artist" while Musk said the then-former president shouldn't run for reelection and instead " hang up his hat & sail into the sunset." Fighting with Trump doesn't mean the person is on the outs forever, though. Just look at Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
What happens to Musk's political allegiance? If Trump and Musk can't mend their relationship, the Tesla CEO could be without a political home. The GOP remains firmly in Trump's grasp, and Democrats seem highly unlikely to welcome Musk into their ranks. (And who's to say Musk would want to join them.) Perhaps sensing his potential future as a political nomad, Musk asked his X followers if it's time for a new party " that actually represents the 80% in the middle." It appears he already has one constituent: Mark Cuban. Here's what other business leaders had to say about the fallout.
3 things in markets
1. JPMorgan's stern warning for junior bankers. Analysts who accept a "future-dated job offer" within their first 18 months of employment will be terminated if discovered, the firm said in a memo sent on Wednesday. It's an escalation of CEO Jamie Dimon's ongoing criticism of private equity's "on-cycle" recruitment process that continues to creep earlier and earlier.
2. Three reasons to bet on Palantir. Shares of Alex Karp's software giant have soared 74% year-to-date, outpacing the broader index and tech stocks to make it the second-best-performing S&P 500 stock of the year. Government deals, AI hype, and retail bullishness have propelled it to new heights.
3. Ken Griffin doesn't get Trump's MO. At the Forbes Iconoclast conference, the Citadel founder and GOP megadonor said he didn't understand why Trump wants to bring manufacturing " jobs that'll never pay much" back to the US. "It's one thing to make Nikes, it's another thing to make F-35 fighters," he said.
3 things in tech
1. Meta's AI-driven hiring plan revealed. The company is planning to automate key parts of its job recruitment process, like testing coding skills and assisting interviewers with question prompts, per an internal document obtained by BI. It'll also use AI to evaluate its human interviewers.
2. Googlers behind NotebookLM launch their own AI startup. Last year, NotebookLM went viral with its AI-generated podcasts. Some of the team have since split from Google to work on Huxe, which released an app that leverages users' data to generate daily audio briefings. BI got a sneak peek.
3. New York Tech Week is NYC's pitch to be the new SF. Startup culture may have found a home in the Bay Area, but AI is picking up steam in the Big Apple. For techies, the city's Tech Week happy hours were a far cry from pulling a coding all-nighter. Spicy marg, anyone?
3 things in business
David Becker for BI
1. Three days at the world's biggest bitcoin party. Some 35,000 attendees gathered in Las Vegas for the Bitcoin Conference, complete with free Zyn, MAGA pride, and an awkward closing keynote. Here's what it was like.
2. How creators make Patreon their podcasting goldmine. Patreon helps creators turn audiences into paying subscribers, and podcasting is the platform's biggest category. Three creators told BI how they use the platform that makes one of them six figures a month.
3. For top business executives' pay, timing is money. Some corporate leaders could be enriching themselves by timing big, market-moving announcements around their scheduled stock options grant days. BI analyzed more than a decade's worth of executive compensation data and found some eye-opening patterns.
In other news
Amazon cuts jobs in its Books business, internal email shows.
Leaked Microsoft org chart shows the team Jay Parikh assembled to lead CoreAI, full of fellow ex-Meta execs.
Meet the 'reclusive' tech billionaire making an audacious bid to buy TikTok.
Inside Citadel's most selective intern class ever, from where they go to school to what they study.
' We live in a terrarium ': Larry Fink on why today's leaders should be 'more guarded.'
Content karma catches up to Reddit in its fight with Anthropic.
A top consulting firm rips up its traditional billing playbook for the AI era.
A US Navy sailor walked BI through what it was like shooting down a small drone with a .50 caliber machine gun.
Nine cocktails that will be everywhere this summer, according to bartenders and mixologists.
What's happening today
Bureau of Labor Statistics releases monthly employment report.
The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York (on parental leave). Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Lina Batarags, bureau chief, in Singapore. Ella Hopkins, associate editor, in London. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.
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