All the ways Trump and Musk could tear each other apart

Yahoo

15 hours ago

The fallout from Elon Musk's bitter public spat with Donald Trump struck an immediate blow, sending shares in the billionaire's company Tesla tumbling.
But the damage risks spreading much further as two of the world's most powerful men squabble over policy, politics and personal behaviour.
As US president, Mr Trump has the powers of the federal government at his fingertips – giving him a variety of ways to make Mr Musk's life difficult through investigations, regulatory actions and even scrutiny of his immigration status.
Yet at the same time, the world's richest man has leverage too: his billions may hold the key to maintaining Republican control of Congress, with crucial midterm elections coming up next year.
Both men have fiercely loyal followings, ready to trash their rival's reputation. And both have a burn-it-down mentality that pushes them to keep going until they have won… or lost it all.
Here's how the pair could go to war against each other:
Mr Musk is already fighting off multiple probes into his business empire. America's stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is investigating whether he violated trading rules when he first began investing in Twitter, now called X.
When investors hold 5 per cent or more of a company's stock, they are supposed to declare it publicly. But the SEC accuses Mr Musk of waiting at least 10 days too long, only making a disclosure when he already owned 9.2 per cent of Twitter.
He went on to buy the entire business in a $44 billion deal.
At the same time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating accidents involving Tesla cars when their full-self driving mode is activated.
Shareholders assumed these probes would be dropped by a Musk-friendly administration.
Now they might only be the beginning.
Another bombshell investigation by the New York Times claimed Mr Musk, who has publicly admitted taking small doses of ketamine, was given advance notice of drug tests at SpaceX.
As a government-contractor, the rocket company is required to maintain a zero-tolerance environment. It wouldn't take much to dig deeper.
And did Mr Musk overstep a national security line when he famously tried to get a briefing on US plans for war with China?
Both Mr Trump and Mr Musk have their own social media platforms, Truth Social and X (formerly known as Twitter) respectively.
But as bully pulpits go, X is by far the bigger beast.
While Truth Social reportedly has around six million monthly active users, Twitter boasts more than 600 million.
Throughout last year's presidential election campaign, Mr Musk used his platform to boost Mr Trump's chances, amplifying his messages and even hosting a live video interview on X. He may now use these same tactics to attack the president.
Critics have also previously accused the businessman of changing X's algorithms to suit his whims, as well as repeating unverified claims that later turn out to be false.
This week Mr Musk demonstrated how he can also quickly turn X against his former ally with posts attacking Mr Trump, which appeared prominently on the feeds of many users.
In one particular jibe, he reached for what he described as 'the really big bomb'. He wrote:
This was a reference to the unproven conspiracy theory that the Trump administration is dragging its feet in releasing all the details of the investigation into the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died in 2019, because of alleged revelations about his links to the president.
'The truth will come out,' Mr Musk added in a follow-up post. His claim has already been viewed by more than 185 million people, according to X.
Even if Mr Musk has no evidence to back up his claims, the allegations underscore the power of his platform.
The US president has already threatened to use his constitutional power to kneecap Mr Musk's SpaceX programme by cancelling his government contract worth billions of dollars.
'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it,' the president wrote on Truth Social.
SpaceX has secured $16 billion worth of contracts from Nasa alone since 2006, including $5 billion for research and development, according to analysis by research firm Eurospace.
Still, Mr Musk holds some cards too. At present, Nasa is completely reliant on SpaceX to send both cargo and astronauts into space – and at one stage on Thursday Mr Musk suggested he could 'decommission' the Dragon craft used by the agency.
Although potential alternatives to Dragon exist, SpaceX's Falcon 9 reusable rocket is currently the only booster cleared for sending humans into space in the US.
'The alternative, of course, would be to do what they did before Falcon and Dragon were available – which is to use the systems provided by the Russians,' says Pierre Lionnet, managing director of Eurospace.
Because of this, Steve Bannon, a former adviser and long-time ally of Mr Trump, has suggested the president should use the Defense Production Act to nationalise SpaceX, citing national security.
Mr Bannon is a longstanding opponent of Mr Musk, and took huge delight in the very public breakdown of his relationship with the president. He also called for the immediate nationalisation of SpaceX and Starlink because of their importance to national security.
Tesla, Mr Musk's electric car company, has made substantial amounts of money from government green energy programmes.
This includes more than $11 billion it has made selling clean air 'credits' to rival car makers under a carbon emissions scheme, which have accounted for about one third of the company's profits since 2012, according to analysis by Axios.
Under Joe Biden, federal grants worth up to $7,500 were also introduced for drivers who buy electric vehicle purchases.
Both of these money-spinning schemes are threatened by Mr Trump's tax and spending bill and the president has suggested this is why Mr Musk has turned on him.
Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!'
Analysts at JPMorgan have suggested Tesla could lose $3.2 billion in profits as a result of Mr Trump's tax and spending bill, which axes the subsidies and targets carbon trading schemes.
White House aides at first insisted that the dispute between the two men came down to differences over Mr Trump's flagship piece of legislation, the 'big, beautiful bill', rather than a deeper divide.
Mr Musk has claimed the bill will cause the US national debt to balloon, condemning Americans to 'debt slavery'.
His public comments have emboldened some Republicans in the House and Senate to also change their minds and voice opposition.
The billionaire previously made life difficult for Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, in December when he rallied opposition against a bipartisan spending bill to avert a government shutdown.
Now, his attacks on Mr Trump's signature policy could create serious headaches. The president and his Republican allies are grappling with wafer-thin majorities in Congress, meaning a careful balance of promises and threats will be needed to keep enough law makers on board.
Insiders have also spelt out the bill's importance. If the first 100 days of his presidency was about shock and awe, pushing through hundreds of executive orders, the second 100 days is supposed to be about working the phones and mobilising support in Congress to pass this legislation.
Mr Musk's intervention has put the entire project, and a chunk of Mr Trump's tax-cutting legacy, on the brink of collapse.
Mr Musk's origin story has a wrinkle. The South African arrived in the US to pursue graduate studies at Stanford University during the 1990s.
But he ditched classes and instead used his time to launch the first of his companies, Zip2, which he later sold for $300 million.
That put him in breach of his visa and meant that he worked illegally, according to documents and legal experts cited by the Washington Post.
His enemies have long used those details to call him an illegal alien.
As the row accelerates, Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, has reportedly advised Mr Trump to launch a formal investigation into Mr Musk's immigration status – and have him 'deported'.
'I am of the strong belief that Musk is an illegal alien and should be deported from the country immediately,' Mr Bannon told the New York Times.
It seems unlikely that Mr Musk will end up on a plane to El Salvador with other illegal immigrants – but the threats are a sign of just how much hostility he now faces within Trumpland.
Mr Musk and Mr Trump made for odd ideological bedfellows.
Mr Musk, from the tech right, is a libertarian, intent on reducing the federal government to dust … all the better to allow his business empire to thrive. Mr Trump wants to use all the agencies at his disposal to promote the interests of the blue-collar voters who back him and to crush his opponents.
Their alliance meant Mr Musk could pump more than $200 million into the 2024 election, helping Mr Trump win battleground states and Republicans to win the Senate and House.
'Without me, Trump would have lost the election,' Mr Musk declared on Thursday. 'Such ingratitude,' he added in a follow-up post.
Mr Musk had already signalled he might not have more time or money for politics. And, without his largesse, the rupture with the president could spell doom for Republicans in tight districts.
Mr Trump is no stranger to the impeachment process: in fact he is the only president to be impeached twice, both of the trials occurring in his first term.
On both occasions he was saved by a Republican firewall in the Senate, with members of his own party circling the waggons to protect him, paving the way for his political comeback and election win last year.
On Thursday, their relationship breaking down while the world watched on in real time, Mr Musk suggested the president should be impeached, convicted and replaced with JD Vance, the vice-president.
So far, that looks unlikely: Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and it's unlikely the Tesla billionaire has enough support among senators to reach the two-thirds threshold to boot him out of office.
But it's a damaging intervention, nonetheless, because Mr Musk has declared his former ally unfit for office.
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