Full Disclosure: I am not a fan of Elon Musk. As I wrote in a previous post, Musk’s gutting of USAID was cruel and immoral. His action has caused the premature death of thousands of people. Nevertheless, the breakup of the Musk/Trump “bromance” teaches us some valuable, albeit sad, political lessons. The divorce began to go downhill last week and then got much worse.

On Tuesday, Musk did not hold back when he denounced Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill: “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” The president responded, “I’m very disappointed in Elon.” On Thursday, the breakup between Musk and Trump turned even nastier. During his meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a reporter asked the president about Elon Musk’s sharp criticisms of Trump’s budget bill. Trump reacted, “He hasn’t said anything about me that’s bad. I’d rather have him criticize me than the bill.” Musk was quick to grant him his wish. By the end of the meeting, the two had quickly moved from what had been legislative differences of opinion into sharp personal attacks on their respective social platforms. Musk live-tweeted his responses to Trump’s comments on his social media platform X, getting progressively more personal. And Trump responded hard on his own platform, Truth Social. Late Thursday afternoon, Musk responded to an X user who called for the president’s impeachment by simply saying, “Yes.”

Trump tried to psychoanalyze the motivation for Musk’s outbursts. “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Musk had highlighted Trump’s hypocrisy by mentioning various quotes in which Trump had campaigned with promises of a balanced budget. These balanced budget promises were directly contradicted by the official predictions that the “big, beautiful” bill would increase the debt several trillion dollars over the next decade. Trump tried to defend himself by attacking Musk, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”

Musk then hit Trump in his most vulnerable spot: his election “victories”. Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Trump campaign and claimed he was in fact the reason Trump won the presidency. Musk affirmed, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk later added: “Such ingratitude.”

Musk fired another bombshell. He accused the Trump administration of withholding records about convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein because it involved Trump himself. “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk wrote on X. “Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk later added: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”

Both Trump and Musk realize, in their saner moments, that their breakup is damaging them both. As master of the art of distraction, Trump changed his emphasis to immigration issues over the weekend (Abrego Garcia, Los Angeles, etc.). Nevertheless, the breakup is worth analyzing. Readers can find complete lists of the attacks and counterattacks online, but those mentioned above are sufficient to warrant some sad, but true, lessons.

1. Cronyism is rampant in our government. Trump admitted handing out “Governmental Subsidies and Contracts” to Musk based on quid pro quo rather than merit.
2. The weaponization of government agencies is on the rise. Trump campaigned against the Democrats’ weaponization of agencies that were supposedly non-partisan. His own weaponization of the Department of Justice and other agencies, plus his threats against Musk are just as bad or even worse.

Our democracy is being ruined by the influx of unlimited money in our elections. Money is buying our politicians and our elections. We must return to reasonable caps on political donations.