Donald Trump and the U.S. Senator from the Middle East: Can Social Media Disturb the Trump/Mumstorm Controversy?
The alliance between President Trump and Musk has been damaged by the blowup. Their feud could have far-reaching consequences if it drags on or even escalates.
Trump said he would stop Musk from working for the government. “If we thought that, we would not let him do that segment or look in that area, if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest,” Trump said.
Use social media as an irritant. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Musk posted a poll on X, asking whether it was time “to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle.” Almost two million people have responded to this question and more than 80 percent have voted “yes”. The post suggesting that the president should be impeached was responded to by Mr. Musk. It was not clear if he was agreeing with the part of the post or with the part of the post that was impeachment.
Musk claimed without proof that Trump appeared in government documents about a sex trafficker, despite the fact that he was never convicted of any crime. “That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk claimed.
One tally, by The Washington Post, found that at least $38 billion in government support has been funneled to Musk’s companies, an estimate that likely undercounts the breadth of support since some defense and intelligence contracts are not publicly available.
Take a look at Mr. Musk’s immigration status and drug use. Mr. Bannon called on Thursday for a “formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.” Mr. Musk is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in South Africa. Mr. Musk should be investigated for his drug use and his efforts to be briefed on military plans involving China.
He noted that Musk had only had positive things to say upon leaving the Oval Office last week. “You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk. I said “You want a little makeup?” even with the black eye. He said, ” No, I don’t think so”, while the person said, “We will get you there to make up.” It’s interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is,” Trump said.
Musk endorsed Trump after the assassination attempt. Musk wrote on X minutes after the shooting that he fully endorsed Trump and hoped for his quick recovery.
August 2024Musk hosted an interview with Trump on X. After lengthy technical delays, the conversation largely followed the contours of Trump’s campaign speeches, and the two men both praised and talked past one another.
Musk and Trump were on the campaign trail. Wearing a custom black “Make America Great Again” hat, the billionaire addressed a rally in Butler, Penn., where he hopped around on stage, described himself as “dark MAGA,” and predicted “this will be the last election” if Trump were not to win.
At one of Trump’s rallies in New York, Musk gave away $1 million dollars to voters in swing states, as well as taking the stage.
Election night in November was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. The morning after, he celebrated by posting an apparently AI-generated image of himself saluting the American flag, captioned, “It is morning in America again.”
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Musk and Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate for the presidential election, would lead a Department of Government Efficiency focused on curtailing federal spending. At the time it was not clear whether the entity would exist inside or outside the government.
After the inauguration, Musk joined the White House as an unpaid presidential advisor. His status as a “special government employee” gave him a 130-working day clock. The department of government efficiency, or DOGe, is not an official federal department but is the most visible face of it. Musk was the de facto leader of DOGE, even though the Trump administration repeatedly tried to argue in court that he was not.
“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” Musk told reporters. They are going to get what they voted for.
They also addressed concerns that Musk’s many companies, which have business with and are regulated by some of the agencies DOGE has targeted, created conflicts of interest.
Trump publicly reprimanded Musk a week later. On March 6 he told Cabinet members that they are in charge of job cuts at their agencies, not Musk.
Trump asked if anyone was unhappy about reports that some agency heads were unhappy with Musk’s slash-and-burn approach. His question was responded to with a smile.
Only months before, Trump transformed the driveway of the White House’s South Lawn into aTesla showroom, and the White House had tapped Starlink to expand internet across the campus.
After leaving his role in the Trump administration last week, Musk has been attacking the megabill, calling it “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination.”
On his Truth Social site, Trump wrote that Elon was “wearing thin”, that he asked him to leave and that he took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars.
The two men used their social media streams to hurl insults at each other, after their differing opinions over the Republican mega- bill emerged into personal attacks.
He said Musk was more knowledgeable about the bill than almost anyone else and never had a problem after he left. On X, Musk quickly countered, claiming “this bill was never shown to me even once.”
“In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful,” Musk posted Thursday. Everyone is aware of this! Either you get a large and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is what’s needed.
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“They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamor is gone. The whole world is different, and they become hostile, I don’t know what it is,” Trump said.
After Trump spoke, Musk posted on X that “without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
“While their political partnership appears to be at an end, it is difficult to imagine the government cancelling SpaceX contracts anytime soon,” said Dan Grazier, senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center, a think tank focused on national security.
“It will be some time before any of the company’s competitors will be able to take up the slack, so it looks like the president and the tech mogul will have to find a way to get along,” he said.
It’s not certain if Musk was joking or making a serious point, but he responded to the threats by saying that he would decommission his Dragon spaceship, which has been used to ferry crew and cargo to the space station for years.
The federal government’s goal of sending humans to the moon will be affected if crew members walk away.
The work that was being done by Space X for the Pentagon could lead to backlash from the intelligence community and national security implications, according to a news report in March.
The Starlink satellite network is a player in a multi-billion-dollar federal effort to expand internet access.
Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine in 2022, leading to top Pentagon officials coordinating directly with Musk, according to The New Yorker.
“Tesla is hugely reliant on federal largesse for the build-out of EV charging infrastructure, not to mention federal regulatory approval for his continued autonomous driving and robotics experiments,” Sonnenfeld said.
The House version of the bill would cut consumer tax credit for buying electric vehicles and reduce federal funding for charging stations.
Musk previously opposed the EV tax credits because they were mostly benefiting his competitors, but since he has been overseeing mass layoffs and other shake ups at the Department of Government Efficiency, the profits and sales of the company have plummeted.
The end of federal programs aimed at growing the EV sector would not damage Tesla as severely as other problems the automaker is confronting, said John Helveston, a professor at George Washington University who studies the electric vehicle industry.
“His wealth is highly precarious,” he said, noting that most of Musk’s fortune is tied to his stake in Tesla. The reality is that Musk’s position is less strong than people think.
Both gestures were intended to demonstrate the close relationship the billionaire had with the president, who was willing to shill for him after he donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to Trump’s presidential campaign.