I’m sorry to admit I’m following a current headline regarding the big public ‘split’ of Trump and Musk but I feel compelled to say something because I gave Musk a lot of credit during the late campaign months and first weeks of the Trump 47 administration. Am I into this split? Hardly. I think it’s wildly blown up by the press and haters across the spectrum, but it does illustrate a quality that both Trump and Musk have been criticized about, gravitas vs flamboyance. Call this a bit of a personality study and not just another of the million public punditry thrashings going on right now.
Trump has been known as a legendary blow-hard, hot head, almost spastic personality. I’d not usually have a lot of regard for this kind of personality profile but his successes as President have been so overwhelmingly positive for the America First perspective, the guiding principle in this instance, that I don’t care how erratic he comes off, he’s my man. But low and behold, a funny thing has happened over the past year, or two, or three; he’s become noticeably more measured, sometimes, approaching the hallowed disposition of gravitas.
Elon Musk by many measures is equally accomplished as Trump, just in different ways. I even credited him with saving western civilization in the past, maybe a symbolic compliment, but materially true, particularly with when and how he acquired Twitter/X and what that did at a critical moment. His public persona has always been sort of an enigma, but I’d have never called him erratic, until now. He seemed thoughtful, understated; frankly, he come off to me as a simpleton although obviously he was and is not. During his later campaign he started getting amped up and when launched with ‘DOGE’ he became reckless and flamboyant. And so it is with the big split now in the news. Donald Trump and Elon Musk have traded places in temperament.
As to the split itself, who can know. Musk is upset over maybe losing some subsidies. There’s the stuff about the ‘big-beautiful bill’. I hold one possible theory that it’s all pure theater to distance himself from Trump in the news to gain back some lefty Tesla loyalty. If so, who am I to judge? There’s a lot of scuttlebutt about big personality conflicts. Steve Bannon hates Musk. (I think, by the way, that it’s good to have Bannon as a friend as long as he’s kept in the basement away from the public. There’s a man living on the edge), so who knows. One story says it’s a big bust, another says it’s a cooling, we’ll see. If cooling means that Musk reverts back to thoughtful detachment, then this is all a good thing. If, on the other hand, Musk digs in, keeps making wild claims about Trump, guess what; Musk will lose and lose big. Trump has the figurative skulls piled up in the corner of the Oval Office to prove it. There is a point of no return, even for Elon.
One wild claim made should receive a comment here, the Epstein list accusation. While Trump was documented as hanging out with Epstein occasionally, his rejection of Epstein’s drift is also well documented. It’s inconceivable that Musk has seen what 100 million Democrats would love to claim seeing and if a single one of Trump’s legions of enemies, who were in power for four years, if they had seen compromising evidence, we would have gotten it in wall-to-wall 24/7 news. That tidbit would have dropped over the transom even prior to 2016. Hillary would have seen to it. So Elon, don’t try so hard to make a fool of yourself on this point. If you want to demean Trump, try something more accessible. Talk about his ketchup on steaks or something.
If Elon wants to be in government long term, there’s a way to do that called elections. But I wouldn’t hold my breath over it. As for Trump, I remind myself and everyone that he’s near the end of his arc, age and tenure; three and a half years plus whatever he can get from his coattails. That really isn’t that long at all. Trump’s biggest failure in his first term was hiring traitors and spies to his agenda. Getting the most out of his short time with us now is making sure he doesn’t repeat that mistake, so certainly a sober warning for him as well.
If you’d like to comment on this post, feel free to do so on Twitter/X. Follow me: @leestanNEreader