Elon Musk is many issues: billionaire, natalist, aspiring gamer. He runs gigantic companies and dreams of colonizing Mars. However above all, Elon Musk is a poster. And as his storied relationship with President Donald Trump dissolves in actual time, by god, he’s posting by means of it.
The ensuing timeline—a chaotic, catty, incendiary voyage into the grievances of the world’s richest man with the president of america—must be enshrined as a historic artifact, a front-row seat to the obvious finish of an extraordinarily consequential partnership.
Tensions between Musk and Trump had been steadily constructing, however they spilled into the open on Thursday. After Musk took repeated pictures on the president’s “Huge Stunning Invoice” and the trillions of {dollars} it’ll add to the deficit, Trump accused Musk of caring solely concerning the removing of an electrical automobile credit score that helps Tesla and urged their relationship had frayed.
Then got here Musk’s many, many posts on X. Between 12:19 pm ET and three:20 pm ET, Musk fired off 49 posts, reposts, or replies. That’s a median of 1 new missive each 3.5 minutes, over a three-hour stretch.
It began merely sufficient. “No matter,” Musk posted to X at 12:19 pm ET. “Hold the EV/photo voltaic incentive cuts within the invoice, despite the fact that no oil & gasoline subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), however ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK within the invoice. In the complete historical past of civilization, there has by no means been laws that [sic] each large and exquisite. Everybody is aware of this! Both you get an enormous and ugly invoice or a slim and exquisite invoice. Slim and exquisite is the way in which.”
Lower than half an hour later, after just a few extra innocuous posts and in response to a video of Trump saying he would have received Pennsylvania no matter Musk’s assist, Musk went nuclear. “With out me, Trump would have misplaced the election, Dems would management the Home and the Republicans could be 51-49 within the Senate,” he posted.
From there, Musk performed the hits: A nasty pun (“Kill Invoice”). A number of “crying laughing” emojis. A nugatory quiz. Sympathetic retweets. The previous few hours have been a dash by means of Musk’s posting playbook, well-honed by means of years of being X’s proprietor and one among its most dedicated customers.
Trump posted too: “The best approach to economize in our Finances, Billions and Billions of {Dollars}, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” he wrote on Reality Social throughout Musk’s meltdown. “Elon was ‘carrying skinny,’ I requested him to depart, I took away his EV Mandate that compelled everybody to purchase Electrical Vehicles that no one else wished (that he knew for months I used to be going to do!), and he simply went CRAZY!”
Musk responded by accusing Trump of being within the Epstein Recordsdata. (As of this writing, he’s nonetheless following that thread.) He additionally claimed that “@SpaceX will start decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft instantly,” which might deprive NASA of its most well-liked shuttle to the Worldwide House Station.
“I don’t thoughts Elon turning towards me,” wrote Trump on Reality Social, “however he ought to have finished so months in the past. This is among the Biggest Payments ever offered to Congress.”
“Trump must be impeached and JD Vance ought to substitute him,” wrote far-right X poster Ian Miles Cheong. “Sure,” Musk responded.
The very public spat between the world’s richest man and its strongest chief reveals no signal of slowing. The results of the falling-out may be astronomical: Musk is price tons of of billions of {dollars} and has confirmed that he’s completely happy to deploy it to attain his personal political and private ends. Trump has energy to choke off a lot of Musk’s corporations from profitable authorities contracts.
It’s an unprecedented second that appears prone to result in unpredictable locations. However no matter twists it takes, there’s no less than some assurance that they’ll occur out within the open.
