The Trump vs Musk feud will prove a historic turning point

Lovers’ spat – or acrimonious divorce? With two individuals so volatile as Donald Trump and Elon Musk, it is impossible to tell where their “relationship”, such as it now is, will go.

We know they were once close – a bromance, indeed, where Mr Musk declared he loved Mr Trump “as much as any straight man can love another man”. The president was never quite so gushing about his friend in return, but only a few days ago, during a farewell in the Oval Office, during which Mr Musk was gifted an outsize golden key, he described Mr Musk as “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced. He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it.”

Now? Not so much.

Mr Musk has called Mr Trump’s signature “Big, Beautiful Bill” an “abomination”, made lurid reference to the president appearing in as-yet unreleased Epstein files, and backed replacing him with JD Vance.

The president, never the most resilient or easy-going of men, responded in kind, threatening to cancel contracts with Mr Musk’s companies, scrapping the electric vehicle mandate (important for Mr Musk’s Tesla operations) and accusing the former “First Buddy” of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome”.

There are a few signs, glimpsed, naturally, on Mr Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that these two giant egos might be persuaded to kiss and make up, metaphorically, and Mr Musk is sounding a little more emollient than on Thursday. But Mr Trump, who’s been through a couple of actual divorces, may need more wooing.

Even if the personal insults stop, Mr Musk is unlikely to change his mind about the Big, Beautiful Bill, and President Trump will continue to press for it and the tax cuts it contains for vital electoral reasons as much as any (spurious) economic justification.

Much the same may be said for their now open differences on tariffs, where Mr Musk rightly warns they spell recession for America – if not the world – later in the year. One thing seems certain, though: it will never be glad, confident morning in America for Maga again.

What it means for the Trump administration is, very simply, that it can no longer be sure of the kind of generous and unconditional financial and media support Mr Musk provided in the 2024 presidential campaign. At best, from the point of view of the White House, Mr Musk will attend to his business interests – including the urgent task of reviving Tesla, whose share price has slumped in line with Mr Musk’s reputation in recent weeks. He will, on this assumption, give up on politics and maintain a stance of studied neutrality. That feels unlikely, given Mr Musk’s ownership of X.

At worst, then, instead of Mr Musk spending $300m helping loyal Maga candidates get elected to back Mr Trump in next year’s Congressional midterm elections, he will spend serious money on swing states and districts with the aim of wrecking the president’s key economic policies. No doubt X will now tone away from pro-Trump sentiment.

The midterms were always going to be dicey for Mr Trump, whose hold on the Senate is weak even now. And it’s perfectly possible that Mr Musk’s interventions would make matters worse for the Trump partisans. After all, Mr Musk’s $1m prize lottery in the key state of Pennsylvania might have delivered that state to Mr Trump, and the Musk-backed America PAC (political action committee) many more voters than that. Mr Musk certainly thinks he won the last election for his former best friend: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.”

There are no heroes in this story. Neither the world’s richest person nor the most powerful man on Earth has shown much interest in improving the state of the world. They are both impetuous and puerile.

America has known some earthy types at the top of politics and business, and plenty of gamblers and chancers. But never before has the world been entertained, if that’s the word, by such a breathtaking display of such man-baby behaviour. Even by their own standards, it has been a depressing spectacle.

The only good that might come from it is that both men emerge weaker, and President Trump will at last find himself challenged by a more confident and assertive legislature – one that joins with the independent judiciary to restrain his dictatorial tendencies. So let us hope there will be no Trump-Musk reconciliation, the marriage is dissolved and their infantile hatred continues to run deep.