The End of the Manly Affair?

The Trump Musk split rather embarrassingly resembles the acrimony of a failed love affair.

It was all going so well.

Two formidable men agreed that their nation was imperilled. Two former Democrats united to fight against the Democrat Party Machine and its owned mainstream media. Both men opposed wokeness, the ‘mind virus’ poison of national self hatred, hypocritical race obsessed hatred, and anti-American distortion of history. Both men wanted to tackle the vast mountain of debt and the corruption and waste that had built it.

And both men were brave enough to deal with death threats, potential or actual assassination attempts, and all manner of personal and private attacks and demonisation in order to begin the task of Saving America.

In many ways it was a surprising alliance in the first place. The interests of both men were forged in the world of business, but it’s somewhat the case that two business areas could hardly be more different than tech industry innovation and property development and construction. The generational difference in the ages of the two men was reflected in the nature of the businesses that formed them.

Trump’s mind tends towards the solid, the material, the certain. Property is about lands and buildings. There could be nothing more real, more solid, more immediate, even if you are dreaming new properties into existence. Musk, by contrast, has a mind that is far more mercurial, as is the area of business he operates in-the cutting edge tech industry is about ideas, virtual spaces rather than real ones, the immaterial, the uncertain, the speculative.

Both men could think about the same thing in very different ways. Take a shared aim, perhaps the greatest shared aim they had. It wasn’t just about cutting debt and opposing corruption and spending waste. It was about freeing US companies from federal and bureaucratic barriers to success. Both men wanted a deregulated, lower tax, entrepreneurial, unfettered economy where great men and great companies could thrive, do what they need to do to create success, and be left alone by government.

When described purely as a vision or a general idea, the views of Musk and Trump on the kind of economy America needs seemed identical. But tellingly the industries they were most inclined to view as vital and as the beneficiaries of this opening up of the economy were different ones.

Trump was the man who describes that economic boom through reference to old industries. Trump wanted to drill, baby, drill. Musk wanted to do the exact opposite-he was the EV King. One is Oil, the other Electricity. There is a fundamental difference if you perceive economic boom as ensured by traditional industries and if you think that economic boom is dependent entirely on new technologies. There is a fundamental difference if you think economic boom means the return of well paid jobs for the average American, blue collar and old industrial jobs, and if you think economic boom means no restrictions on tech industry recruitment of Indians.

Therefore both can be united by the same genuine aim and genuine opposition to the kind of parasitic non creative economy of Democrat and Uniparty corruption, both can be against over regulation, red tape, bureaucracy and State interference blocking entrepreneurial success, both can want a golden economic future and have a vision of American success, but differ massively on the measures needed to achieve that. The immigration argument that saw Vivek sidelined was a precursor of the following split with Musk. At that point, when Vivek fell, Musk stepped back from the brink, moderating his language and support of high skill immigration exceptions just enough to still be welcome in the Trump tent.

But the issue of putting actual Americans first is fundamental to the entire Trump brand and the entire Trump project. It’s not really compatible with high skill tech industry immigration exceptions any more than it is compatible with vast waste funding DEI client groups, ideological woke bullshit and a permanent administrative class of Democrat voters siphoning off fat salaries for zero productive work. So even with Musk agreeing on the anti woke agenda and the anti waste agenda, there is still this incompatibility of interest fovused on two economic realities-the EV subsidies versus Trump’s commitment to oil, and the MAGA blue collar industrial base and nativist American loyalty versus the tech industry reliance on importing high skilled talent. It’s this whole area that has long explained the distaste for Musk in parts of the Trump base AND the way in which this split developed, even if it wasn’t in the end outwardly fovused on immigration.

Here for example is an astute take from the worker supporting, blue collar focused part of the Trump Alliance, those old leftists who are actually genuine about wanting to support the working class (as opposed to the Democrat leftists who are fundamentally repelled by the working class they historically claimed to champion):

Clearly Betya Ungar-Sargon is not distraught at the split with Musk, and it’s a sentiment shared by many MAGA voters who never fully trusted their recent ally. Steve Bannon, somewhat typically, is perhaps the most aggressively anti Musk voice in the Trump and MAGA fold, and has long seemed to detest Musk and have a very personal animus against him. Bannon is positively delighting in the split, seeing it as validation of his long held and bitterly nursed distrust:

This of course would be far more than a split-it would be an actual full on war (and not merely verbal or social media based) of the Trump administration against the Musk empire. If claims of CCP influence on Musk are accurate, then there would be a national security argument for such an escalation, but if they aren’t, it would be an astonishing blunder to take this disagreement to such a stage. The Deep State, the permanent administrative State, the judicial activism, the error, timidity and compromised uselessness of the Supreme Court, the similar issues that remain with a Republican Congress and Senate much of whom are still only very reluctant cowed followers of Trump policy, all seem to me a far more urgent problem to deal with than a disagreement with Musk (so far, beyond a few online criticisms, Trump seems to agree with me rather than Bannon).

One of the most obvious lessons of any kind of warfare is that a fight on too many simultaneous fronts is a fight you are likely to lose. Surely dealing with the entire structure of corruption that still exists (50,000 NGOs, the families of judges on the NGO State funded payroll) and that built the debt is more urgent than starting a fight with the world’s richest man when he seems to have split from you on the basis that you aren’t tackling that debt crisis quickly enough? All of the things which are the claimed reasons for the great alliance between Trump and Musk, and the claimed reasons for its end, still exist. Bannon’s call for all out war against Musk and the State seizure of his industries and empire seems astonishingly stupid to me, unless Musk actually is a Chinese puppet (which at this stage, on this evidence, I don’t consider credible).

Unlike the gloating Bannon, I can’t begin to describe how saddened I am by the Musk and Trump split. What they could achieve together was vast. What they can achieve separately will be vastly diminished.

It seems that the progressives, leftists and globalists can be ego driven, psychotic, utterly ruthless and vile people who are devoid of any form of decency or morality….and yet they can work together with the unity and purpose of an army of ants.

The Right can’t stay united for more than a few months, even when the task facing them is monumental and the threat of failure is existential, even when the individuals involved are brilliant and have developed a close personal bond quickly.

Now Trump is saying Musk is a flake and a hysteric, and Musk is saying Trump is a compromised pervert on the Epstein list. Both of these takes are untrue. Both give the mutual enemies these men share hope, ammunition and delight.

I realise of course that neither Musk nor Trump are fully of the Right, but they were the best we have and the most mutually opposed to wokeness and national self destruction. They had the potential to merge their talents to usher in the salvation of not just the US, but the whole of the West.

One of the most touching and uplifting moments of the 2nd term was the way these two men interacted with mutual respect and with affection while laying out very clearly the scale of fraud and corruption and the necessity of tackling it. I’m not sure yet if Musk has been too much of a financial purist or if Trump has been too much of a spending conformist. Musk says Trump has forced a hideous spending bill full of pork. Bannon by contrast says the Trump adninistration wanted 1 trillion of savings and Musk’s EV subsidies included and that caused the split.

Either way, their shared idea of unlocking a US economy freed for innovation and entrepreneurship and divorced from woke ideology and Uniparty corruption was a thing of beauty. The work of DOGE should have been followed by application of its revelations and the bonfire of the networks of corruption. Instead we have got this petty exchange of bitchy messages like the fall out of a swiftly failed romance.

The majority of the cause for the split seems to have come from Elon and his hysterical reaction to the ‘big beautiful bill’. Elon has displayed the classic flaw in libertarianism, which is that its greatest virtue is also quite frequently its greatest stupidity. Like Rand Paul Elon has claimed to oppose a Trump measure on grounds of fiscal purity. The Libertarian wants a far more radical tackling of the national debt and is horrified by the ‘pork’ in the spending bill. There are various responses to this. Is it case of too much ideological purity, as it seems on the surface?

The pragmatic argument is that things can’t be tackled as swiftly as Musk wants. Trump still has that razor thin margin in Congress and Senate to deal with, and Republican Senators and Congress members who are still cowards or still RINOs ready to rebel. A slowing of debt and some progress (like making sure Biden spending levels aren’t made permanent) is still progress. It doesn’t take a ideologically pure minarchist to be disgusted with this kind of compromise when faced with urgent debt, but at the same time it doesn’t take a sell out to accept some progress rather than none. Stephen Miller and others including Trump have offered the prospect of further cuts ahead and defended the savings in the bill already.

One of the interesting takes though is that this framing is false anyway. They point out that Musk promised between 1 and 2 trillion in savings and delivered, in the end, significantly less than that. Is it that Musk wanted more and Trump failed to deliver, or that Trump wanted more and Musk failed to deliver? Ultimately responsibility lies with the President, but so does the necessity of prioritising the delivery of what can, at this stage, actually be achieved. Many libertarian purist rebellions on spending seem to prefer vast spending and corruption, in the end, to too small reductions in it. An all or nothing ideological purity is easier when you’re not the President who is going to be judged by the end result.

The split was, though, probably avoidable, if Musk in particular had been less emotional in his responses. Trump has clearly been less invested in the emotive side of the bromance. He has expressed sadness at the split, but little interest in repairing it now that Musk seems emotionally unstable to him (the difference perhaps between a teetotaller who is older and a volatile genius with a drug habit). Musk by contrast went further in initial anger (the notorious Epstein reference) but seems to have regretted it pretty quickly too. When told the rift should be repaired for the good of the nation, he agreed.

The argument that the split is kabuki theatre alone or 4D chess is one I will only mention in passing, as it is absurd and on the same level as commentary which once told us that everyone in US politics was a clone.

All this drama though lessens both men. I’ve always enjoyed mean tweets and bluntness from Trump. I have also enjoyed Elon’s impatience with fools and refusal to give ground to absurd shibboleths. But what is courage and truth when aimed at real enemies, becomes querulous foolishness when aimed at a needed ally. It was an alliance that improved both men, and it’s a break that reduces both of them too. Both seem less competent and less dedicated to saving America from this particular split occuring, and that has never applied to any prior spat either has had with others.