We seem to be moving toward a bit more real animus between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Musk keeps attacking Trump’s budget bill on Twitter. Trump has now stopped saying they’re actually best buds. In comments today he’s saying, albeit very tepidly, that the friendship seems to be over. I remain agnostic on where this dispute goes and whether it will amount to anything. What I see mostly is that Musk just looks incredibly small and diminished at the moment. The response from Republican members of Congress seems like a general, “Thank you so much for sharing your views” kind of thing.
I hear from the D.C. publications that Republican electeds are on edge. But they don’t seem on edge. They don’t seem afraid of Musk. Or perhaps it’s better to say they’re much, much more afraid of Trump, which amounts to the same thing. But even his criticisms, while notionally biting and intense, feel sulky and ineffectual.
I’m not completely sure why it seems that way. It may simply be the atmosphere created by the relative indifference on the Hill that I just described. If you threaten people and they don’t care, you look bad, no matter how killer the threat may have been in the abstract. Maybe it’s the drug story; maybe it’s the month-old breeding-mare compound story; maybe it’s the black eye. It maybe simply be that there’s just not a lot of room to maneuver for him, no room to operate further to the right when Trump is delivering so much for his base of support. I’d love it if Elon meant business and could cause trouble for Trump. And even a greatly diminished Musk could be at least a headache for Trump and the GOP. For the moment, though, I’m not seeing it.
Musk just seems weak. He has the ripe stench of a loser on him. As I said earlier, losering as he may be, there are big canons he can wheel out. For now, though, he’s not doing that. And it’s all for play and all not amounting to anything until he does.
