Musk vs Trump: Who Wins?

Guest Post by Bill Bonner

The world’s richest man is now blasting away at the world’s most powerful man. Not since Louis 14th turned on his trusted lieutenant, Nicolas Fouquet, has the world seen anything like it

Poor Elon. He lost the love of the loony left when he joined forces with Donald Trump. Now, breaking up with The Donald, he is alienating the MAGA mob.

Fox is on the story:

Elon Musk on Wednesday sent out a missive to the 220 million people who follow him on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) urging them to contact their members of Congress and voice their displeasure at the legislation, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects would add trillions of dollars to the national debt.

And on Thursday he wrote: “Without me Trump would have lost the election.”

Axios adds:

Ian Miles Cheong, a prominent Musk supporter and right-wing activist on X, tweeted: “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.”

Musk responded to Cheong: “Yes.”

When another follower suggested they could finally be honest about the stupidity of Trump’s tariffs, Musk posted: “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.”

And get this, from Musk:

Donald Trump is in the Epstein Files. That’s the real reason they haven’t been released.

But then, Trump struck back. Forbes:

Shares of Tesla dropped by more than 8% on Thursday as the relationship between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s appeared to unravel, with Musk launching attacks at the president on X and Trump suggesting to telling reporters at the White House criticism of his signature bill from the world’s wealthiest person amounts to “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Isn’t this fun? The world’s richest man is now blasting away at the world’s most powerful man. Not since Louis 14th turned on his trusted lieutenant, the very rich and very successful Nicolas Fouquet, has the world seen anything like it. Jealous of Fouquet’s wealth and power, Louis had him arrested and took his property for his own, including the jewel of French chateaux, Vaux le Vicomte. Fouquet died in prison 19 years later.

And now it’s Musk vs. Trump. A Mega-Match-up. Money versus Politics. Brains vs. Brawn. Win-win against Win-lose.

Ultimately, Musk is a win-win guy. He must satisfy his customers — including investors. If he fails, they will leave him. (Unfortunately for him, his biggest single customer is the US government.)

Trump, on the other hand, is a win-lose guy. Even in business, he believed the way to make money was to ‘win’ — by making the other guy ‘lose.’ And when someone crossed him, he would hit back ‘ten times as hard.’

How will this turn out? In the next few days, we expect to see the battle go in Musk’s direction. Because, the current battlefield is the Big, Beautiful Budget Abomination (BBBA) in the Senate. Musk has the high ground. Trump’s position is indefensible. And Senate Republicans are having an identity crisis. Are they ‘conservatives?’ Are they RINOs? Or are they MAGA Trumpistas?

In the old days of the 20th century, there were liberals (Democrats) and conservatives (Republicans). Even then, there were two kinds of Republicans. There were the slick, big-city Rockefeller Republicans. And the bumpkin ‘conservatives’ of the farm belt.

The city Republicans were richer, dressed better and were more in tune with the needs of Wall Street. The country Republicans were down-to-earth, patriotic and more likely to go to church. Both were wary of Big Government. Hard headed and skeptical, they counted on family, God, the Constitution and old-fashioned self-reliance to improve the human condition (many were not so sure it could be improved). And they all hated deficits as they hated sin itself. Neither would have supported the BBBA.

And by 1981, they had gotten the ratio of debt/GDP down to just 30%.

Things changed with the advent of the new money system in 1971. It took a few years for Republicans to realize it, but since the feds could now ‘print’ money, there was no longer a penalty — at least in the foreseeable future — for over-spending. In fact, the penalty went over to the other side. Vote against more spending and you might lose your seat in Congress. Vote in favor, on the other hand, and the feds would print more money to cover the costs. What’s more, from 1981 to 2020, interest rates actually went down as the Fed made more of this fake capital available. And today, the debt/GDP ratio is 120%.

There were a couple rear guard attempts, after 1990, to restore the ol’ time religion…such as ‘the Pledge’…and the Tea Party. But for the most part, Republicans became Democrats, ready to spend, spend, spend in exchange for votes. This new breed became known as RINOs — Republican in Name Only.

It fell to a life-long Democrat, however, to transform the Republican Party from a group of conservatives to a group better described as ‘Big Man socialists.’ No longer advocates for small government, they joined the Democrats in calling for a Big, Powerful, Ambitious Government.

And how close are they to Democrats now? USA Today:

President Donald Trump announced he agrees with a longtime antagonist, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on the need to abolish the cap on the country’s borrowing.

Today, neither party wants a limit on how much debt it can add. But now, a penalty has returned. Musk is right; if deficits are not brought under control, a financial crisis will soon be upon us.

And while the Trumpistas now dominate the Republican Party, there may not be enough of them to pass the BBBA — not without substantial changes.

Stay tuned.