Editorial: No winner to declare in Trump-Musk feud
The bitter feud that broke out this past week between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump is more than bravado gone bad. It highlighted the ugly, juvenile tendencies of both as they aired a personal grudge on a global scale.
As bizarre and, admittedly, entertaining in a sort of WWE way, it proved, there were no winners to declare. Not Musk, not Trump, not their supporters, investors nor perhaps even bystanders.
Ego can bring down the powerful — as Shakespeare observed long ago with Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. Achieving common goals and maintaining stability requires unity and collaboration. But that was quickly lost as they traded punches on social media.
For Musk, it only further erodes his current and future customer base for everything from Tesla cars to The Boring Company tunnel contracts to SpaceX rockets and satellites. It also suggests that maybe he isn't cut out for leadership no matter how many billions of dollars he still has. Lost trust is difficult to recapture.
For Trump, the world sees again that if you upset him enough, you can get under his skin. Get close to him, play to his ego and you can win him over without any authenticity. Neither quality is ideal for a global leader at a time when America needs to reassert itself.
Oh, it was quite the bromance for a time. Remember when in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Trump, Musk tweeted unequivocally, 'I fully endorse Trump.' What followed was a prolonged political alliance that saw Musk sporting MAGA hats of nearly every variety, standing beside Trump at rallies across the country, addressing tens of thousands of Republicans at each stop, helping to raise millions for Trump and the GOP, and frequently, if awkwardly, appearing in the background of Oval Office meetings.
Now, we suspect, Musk (and his son) won't be invited back to the Oval Office for some time.
Some of the more prescient among us saw this coming. Cracks were already apparent as Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' was vetted. Claims that it would both jumpstart the economy and reduce the deficit proved too difficult a pill for Musk to swallow.
'Shame on those who voted for (the bill),' Musk now famously observed. Trump and many of his supporters alleged Musk only took issue with the bill because of the loss of electric vehicle subsidies. Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump reelected, then reminded the president of his game-changing political contributions. Oh, and he used the word 'ingratitude.'
Trump then threatened to cut all of Musk's government contracts, to which Musk quickly replied that SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon Spacecraft (a spacecraft that the government heavily relies on for deliveries and trips to the International Space Station). Musk also dropped his 'big bomb,' accusing Trump of being in the government's unreleased Epstein files meaning he was associated with the late Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier convicted of sex offenses.
In a Shakespeare play, this would now be the third act and one or more of the antagonists would express some remorse. They might even recognize their faults. Whatever offers of rapprochement we hear from the world's richest man and the world's most powerful man, we see little chance of such self-awareness. Musk crossed the Rubicon given how Trump values loyalty above all else. Perhaps a marriage of convenience is still possible but trust? Never again.
The takeaway for the rest of us? How embarrassing and truly awful that the president of the United States would engage in this juvenile, public dispute with his most valued supporter simply because they have differing views on deficit spending. And perhaps there's also a lesson in not airing your dirty laundry in front of tens of millions on a social media account.
In a better functioning democracy, disputes among political allies are resolved through negotiation and compromise, not through public accusations and threats. We are better than that.
Whatever comes next, Musk and Trump might try having a private conversation. Without the public tweets and attempts to humiliate the other. It's a lesson most of us pick up in middle school or thereabouts.
_____
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How viral images are shaping views of L.A.'s immigration showdown
As protesters and police officers clashed in the streets of Los Angeles, a parallel conflict raged on social media, as immigration advocates and President Donald Trump's allies raced to shape public opinion on the impacts of mass deportations on American life. The sprawling protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were captured from all angles by cellphones and body cameras and streamed in real time, giving a visceral immediacy to a conflict that led to more than 50 arrests and orders from the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Amateur videographers and online creators shared some of the mayhem's most-talked-about videos and images, often devoid of context and aimed at different audiences. Clips showing officers firing less-lethal rounds at an Australian journalist or mounted police directing their horses to stride over a sitting man fueled outrage on one side, while those of self-driving Waymo cars on fire and protesters holding Mexican flags stoked the other. The protests have become the biggest spectacle yet of the months-long online war over deportations, as Trump allies work to convince Americans that the issue of undocumented immigration demands aggressive action. But immigrant families and advocates have also been winning attention, and seeking public support, through emotional clips of crying families grappling with removal orders, anti-ICE gatherings and young children in federal custody. The messaging war comes at a time of polarized public sentiment over Trump's immigration policies. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in April found that roughly half the country believed Trump's deportations had gone too far, while the other half thought his actions were about right or hadn't gone far enough. 'To advance your side of the story, you need a piece of content that the algorithm likes. You need something that really grabs people's attention by the throat and doesn't let it go,' said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor at Northeastern University's Khoury College of Computer Sciences. 'If you're on the pro-ICE side of this, you need to find visual images of these protests that look really scary, look really dangerous because that's what's going to draw human attention,' she added. But if 'you don't think that ICE should be taking moms away from their families and kids, you're going to have a video that starts with a crying child's face.' A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said Trump's digital strategists were following the president's lead by spotlighting images of destruction while insisting that he would always intervene in moments of unrest. The White House, which has said the ICE deportations are necessary to solve a national crisis, on Sunday posted an Instagram photo of Trump and a warning that looters and rioters would be given 'no mercy.' 'We're obviously following the president's direction. He is driving the message through his posts and his comments to the press,' the official said. 'We are definitely playing offense here. We are once again boxing the Democrats into the corner of defending criminal illegal aliens.' The unrest and its online propagation also heightened activity around projects like People Over Papers, a crowdsourced map for tracking the locations of ICE officers. Reports flooded in as the clashes continued, said Celeste, a project organizer in L.A. who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of government retribution. 'I haven't slept all weekend,' she said. She added, however, that she worried violent imagery from the ground could hurt the protesters' cause. She said she planned to start making Spanish-language videos for her 51,000 TikTok followers, explaining to skeptics that the violence isn't reflective of the protests, which she sees as necessary to counter ICE's agenda. The L.A. unrest followed weeks of online skirmishes over deportations, some of which have been touched off by the White House's strategy to lean into policy fights with bold and aggressive messaging. The White House last month posted a video that it said showed an 'EPIC takedown of 5 illegal aliens' outside a home improvement store and included an ICE hotline to solicit more tips. The clip, recorded by ICE agents' cameras, was liked 68,000 times but also drew criticism from commenters, who called it 'disturbing' and said this 'isn't a reality show.' After a similar ICE raid on Saturday outside a Home Depot in Paramount, a predominantly Latino suburb of L.A., witnesses sent out alerts on social media, and protesters raced to the scene. Within hours, the Trump administration called for the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to neutralize the unrest. On his Truth Social account a week earlier, Trump celebrated the Supreme Court clearing the way for the removal of some immigrants' legal protections by posting a photo of a jet-filled sky with the phrase, 'Let the Deportations Begin!' The White House has also posted stylized mug shots of unnamed immigrants it said were charged with heinous crimes. 'I love this version of the white house,' one commenter said, with a cry-laugh emoji. 'It feels like a movie every day with President Trump.' During the protests, the administration has worked with new-media figures and online influencers to promote its political points. Phil McGraw, the TV personality known as Dr. Phil who now runs the conservative media network Merit Street, posted an exclusive interview with border czar Tom Homan and embedded with ICE officers last week during L.A. raids, as the company's spokesperson first told CNN. Some top administration officials have worked to frame the protests in militaristic terms, with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Saturday sharing a video of the protest and calling it 'an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.' Others, like Vice President JD Vance, have treated it as a chance for dark jokes. When posters on X said Vance could do the 'funniest thing ever' by deporting Derek Guy, a prominent menswear commentator who discussed how his family had been undocumented after fleeing Vietnam, the vice president on Monday posted a brief clip of Jack Nicholson nodding with a sinister grin. Some far-right influencers urged their followers to identify people caught on camera during the civil unrest. In one X post with more than 29,000 likes, the account End Wokeness shared a video of masked figures throwing rocks at police from an overpass and said, 'These are insurrectionists trying to kill cops. Make them famous.' In more left-leaning online spaces, some posters watching from the sidelines offered advice on how protesters could best position their cause to the rest of the world. On the r/ICE_raids subreddit, some posters urged L.A. protesters to stop carrying non-American flags. It's 'adding ammo to ICE's justification,' one poster said, attaching a screenshot of a Homeland Security post showing masked protesters with Mexican flags. Many accounts, knowingly or unknowingly, shared images that warped the reality of what was happening on the ground. An X account with 388,000 followers called US Homeland Security News, which is not affiliated with DHS but paid for one of X's 'verified' blue check marks, posted a photo of bricks that it said had been ordered to be 'used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It's Civil War!!' The photo actually originated on the website of a Malaysian construction-supply company. The post has nevertheless been viewed more than 800,000 times. On Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's X account tried to combat some of the misinformation directly, saying a viral video post being passed around as evidence of the day's chaos was actually five years old. Even before the L.A. protests, the increased attention on ICE activity had driven a rush of online organizing and real-world information gathering, with some people opposed to mass deportations tracking the movements of ICE officers with plans to foil or disrupt raids. In one viral TikTok post last week, a Minneapolis protester marching in a crowd outside the site of a rumored ICE raid said he had learned of it from Reddit, where a photo had been posted of Homeland Security Investigations officers outside a Mexican restaurant. The local sheriff's office later told news crews that the operation was not an immigration-enforcement case and that no arrests had been made. Some online creators treated the L.A. clashes as a prized opportunity for viral content. On Reddit, accounts with names like LiveNews_24H posted 'crazy footage' compilations of the unrest and said it looked like a 'war zone.' On YouTube, Damon Heller, who comments on police helicopter footage and scanner calls under the name Smoke N' Scan, streamed the clashes on Sunday for nearly 12 hours. Jeremy Lee Quinn, a photographer who shares protest footage to his social media followers, posted to Instagram on Saturday a video of protesters cheering from a bridge as officers tried to extinguish a burning police vehicle. Quinn, who also documented Black Lives Matter marches and the U.S. Capitol riots, said viewers on the left and right treat viral videos like weapons in their arsenal. Far-left viewers might take away from the videos ideas for militant tactics to use in future protests, he said, while far-right viewers will promote the videos to suggest the other side craves more violent crime. Either way, his material gets seen - including through reposts by groups such as the LibsOfReddit subreddit, which shares screenshots mocking liberal views on undocumented immigrants and transgender people. 'You end up with a far-right ecosystem that thrives on these viral moments,' Quinn said. As short-form video and social media platforms increasingly become many Americans' news sources of choice, experts worry they could also amp up the fear and outrage engendered by polarizing events. The fragmentation of social media and the attention-chasing machinery of its recommendation algorithms helps ensure that 'there are a lot of people talking past each other,' said Northeastern's Edelson, not seeing one another's content or 'even aware of the facts that are relevant to the other side.' Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said videos can play a uniquely forceful role in shaping people's reactions to current events because they 'encapsulate the emotion of the moment.' 'There's a heavy dose of misinformation,' he added. 'And, you know, people just end up getting angrier and angrier.' Related Content 'He's waging a war on us': As Trump escalates, Angelenos defend their city To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation
CNN
30 minutes ago
- CNN
Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests
Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized people who are vandalizing the city amid widespread protests. CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam gets a closer look at some of the looting and vandalism in downtown LA. 01:08 - Source: CNN Vertical Top News 14 videos Los Angeles mayor slams vandalism during protests Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized people who are vandalizing the city amid widespread protests. CNN correspondent Stephanie Elam gets a closer look at some of the looting and vandalism in downtown LA. 01:08 - Source: CNN Tanks arrive in DC ahead of US Army parade As the 250th anniversary celebration for the US Army approaches, a freight train of tanks was seen making its way into the nation's capital. The long-planned celebration in Washington will coincide with Trump's 79th birthday and include thousands of troops. The Army had said it has no plans to recognize the president's birthday. 00:40 - Source: CNN Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe shot in Bogota A Colombian senator and presidential hopeful is in a critical condition after being shot twice at an event in Bogota, according to national police and prosecutors. Police arrested a 15-year-old carrying a Glock pistol, according to the Attorney General's Office. Miguel Uribe expressed intentions to run in the 2026 presidential election for the country's largest opposition party, the center-right Centro Democrático, or Democratic Center. 01:05 - Source: CNN Immigration protests break out in Los Angeles President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to disperse the protests that began in the Los Angeles area in response to immigration raids. Law enforcement authorities and demonstrators have clashed for two days. CNN's Julia Vargas Jones reports. 01:34 - Source: CNN Coco Gauff reacts to winning the French Open Coco Gauff claimed her second career grand slam singles title, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the French Open women's final. 00:46 - Source: CNN Protesters confront authorities following ICE raids in Los Angeles Federal immigration operations in Los Angeles were met by protests. ICE declined to discuss the details of its operations. 00:43 - Source: CNN Attorney for mistakenly deported man talks to Erin Burnett CNN's Erin Burnett talks with Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, who has been returned to the United States to face federal criminal charges. 02:37 - Source: CNN Trump Admin targets LGBTQ+ community during Pride Month CNN's Ben Hunte breaks down how the Trump Administration has targeted the LGBTQ+ community with its policies in just the first few days of Pride Month. 02:09 - Source: CNN Former 'Diddy' girlfriend reveals 'love contract' A former romantic partner for Sean 'Diddy' Combs using the pseudonym 'Jane' described feeling financially coerced and revealed Combs is still paying for her rent, even as she testified against him at trial. Prosecutors hope the testimony by 'Jane' will drive home charges that include sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges. 01:30 - Source: CNN Trump's border czar on 3 US children leaving the country with their deported mothers White House border czar Tom Homan defended the Trump administration's move to deport three US citizen children last week. Homan told CNN's Priscilla Alvarez the children's parents, who were in the US illegally, made a "parental decision" to leave the country together. Gracie Willis, an attorney with the National Immigration Project, denies that the mothers were given a choice whether their children could remain in the US. 01:07 - Source: CNN Trump on Musk: 'The poor guy's got a problem' In a phone call with CNN's Dana Bash, President Donald Trump said he is 'not even thinking about' billionaire Elon Musk and won't be speaking to him in the near future. The comments come a day after Trump and Musk traded barbs on social media as their relationship deteriorated in spectacular public fashion. 00:43 - Source: CNN No aliens here: Research disputes possible 'signs of life' on another planet In response to hints of "biosignatures" found on a world called K2-18b, new research suggests there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the exoplanet. CNN's Ashley Strickland reports on the ongoing scientific discourse around the search for extraterrestrial life. 00:43 - Source: CNN Reporter: Trump made $1 billion in crypto in 9 months CNN's Erin Burnett talks with Forbes Magazine's Dan Alexander about President Donald Trump's stunning ownership of billions of dollars worth of crypto. 02:19 - Source: CNN Russia launches strikes across Ukraine Russia launched waves of drones and ballistic missiles at multiple targets across a broad swath of Ukraine overnight killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv and wounding around 40 across the country. 00:32 - Source: CNN
Bloomberg
30 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Uncertainty May Lead to 'Pothole' for Stocks: Seema Shah
"This is a tough environment for investors," Seema Shah, Principal Asset Management chief global strategist, says. Speaking on "Bloomberg Open Interest," Shah also says the Federal Reserve won't cut rates until at least the fourth quarter. (Source: Bloomberg)
