Forget the Tony Awards on Sunday night. This is real theater.
In fact, it’s like the NBA Finals, the World Cup and WrestleMania all rolled up into one.
Where’s the popcorn?
The nuclear fallout last week between President Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk wasn’t just a car wreck. This was a presidential limo smashing into a hulking Tesla cybertruck.
It wasn’t pretty.
In one corner was Musk lobbing bombs linking Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
In the other corner was Trump threatening to terminate contracts the government holds with Musk’s companies.
It was only a matter of time.
You knew the split would come. But did you expect it to come so soon?
The fallout appears to be over Trump’s latest budget plan, what the president calls his “big beautiful bill.”
The $3 trillion tax and spending plan includes tax cuts for the rich and more money for the military and border patrols.
The bill narrowly won approval in the House of Representatives, even as the Congressional Budget Office said it would add almost $2.5 trillion to the federal deficit, while depriving more than 11 million Americans of health care coverage in the next decade.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it a “reckless, regressive and reprehensible GOP tax scam.”
Musk, a multi-billionaire who ran the president’s new Department of Government Efficiency says the budget plan is too expensive.
“It more than defeats all the cost savings achieved by the @DOGE team at great personal cost and risk,” Musk said on X, the social media platform he owns.
What Musk meant was cost and risk to himself.
In the months after Musk agreed to become Trump’s personal budget cutter, profits at his once-popular Tesla company plunged more than 70%, according to analysts.
Things got so bad for a while that Trump himself even bought a candy-apple red Tesla from Musk and parked it outside the White House in a bid to help his then-buddy boost sales.
“Here’s the bad news,” Trump said in March after the purchase. “I’m not allowed to drive. I haven’t driven a car in a long time, and I love to drive cars. I’m going to let my staff use it. I’m going to let people at the place use it, and they are all excited about that.”
Now Trump wants to sell it.
Buyer’s remorse. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
But the Tesla profit plunge was not Musk’s only sacrifice.
The world’s richest man also spent about $275 million to help get Trump elected last year. In return, the tech mogul got sleepovers at the White House, authority to slash thousands of federal jobs and full access to East Wing treats.
”He’ll actually call at night and say like, ‘By the way, make sure you get some ice cream from the kitchen,’” Musk said. “I ate a whole tub of ice cream … It was epic.”
But now, he’s been cut off.
No more ice cream for you.
Yes, those were the good ol’ days. But as Billy Joel used to say, “The good ol’ days weren’t always good.”
According to the New York Times, the split may have earlier roots in Trump’s NASA administrator nominee. Trump withdrew Jared Isaacman’s nomination after learning that Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, had made donations to Democrats.
Musk, who also owns SpaceX, had backed Isaacman, and felt betrayed and humiliated when Trump changed his mind, according to the report.
“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk tweeted. “Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.
Boys will be boys.
Billionaires will be billionaires.
