Opinion | Peter Cherry
Last year, two mercurial billionaires formed an alliance and vowed during the electoral circus to “make America great.” Ultra-reactionary President Donald Trump had the political influence of the extreme right, while Elon Musk had the money and social media might. But starting last Thursday, the aggravation of the ongoing economic and political crises of the ruling class revealed itself in public sparring between the two, who attacked each other over social media and in press statements. Beyond the immediate drama, the divorce of the president and world’s richest monopolist not only threatens to upend the dynamics of Trump’s administration, but also is an expression of the general crisis of imperialism itself.
Before Musk formally left the Trump administration and resigned from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the agency responsible for mass austerity measures that cut 280,000 federal jobs and got rid of services around food and health care for millions, Musk’s companies were being targeted by protest and actions for his role in Trump’s government. His automaking monopoly Tesla’s profits fell by 71% in the first quarter of 2025, with Trump’s tariffs and sanctions further threatening his bottom line there. After resigning, Musk, who gave $275 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign and formerly pledged to continue financially supporting Republicans with $100 million in the 2026 elections, then reverted and stated he would be scaling back his political contributions. Musk also cited disagreements with Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which not only further entrenches public spending cuts to education, health care and social services while expanding military and police funding, but also threatens to cut into the profits of Musk through his monopolies Tesla and SpaceX.
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.”
Indeed, one trait of the US imperialist economy is that money taxed from the American working class and small business owners is used to subsidize the production and sale of commodities produced by monopolies to compensate for their declining rates of profit. Tesla, like every monopoly, has greatly benefited from being bailed out with money taken from the American people’s wallet, mostly in the form of emission trading payments from non-electric car markers and tax credits. An analysis by the Washington Post put Tesla’s total income from emission credits since 2007 at $11.4 billion as of February 2025. It’s gains from tax credits, which allow more people to buy its cars at higher prices, is estimated to be at $3.4 billion. While those emission credit schemes that subsidize big corporations are run by US states, nevertheless the “One Big Beautiful Bill” threatened to undermine them by contesting states’ ability to serve their own emission rules.
Musk called this bill a “disgusting abomination” over his social media platform X, and soon after it escalated uncontrollably into a fight over who deserved more credit for Trump’s election victory, why Musk didn’t cover up his black eye with makeup during an Oval Office visit last week, and why President Trump dropped his support for a Musk associate that he nominated to lead NASA. This escalated further with Trump threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal government contracts for Musk’s companies. Musk then retorted by suggesting that it might be time to create a separate party from the Democrats and Republicans, and then added that there were references to Trump in government documents about the deceased finance capitalist and pedophile pimp Jeffrey Epstein and that these files were suppressed to protect Trump from being named as an associate of Epstein.
Both reactionaries have a lot at risk, and this contention is likely temporal. Trump benefited generously from Musk helping to purchase him the election to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and with the pledge for bribes for the 2026 midterms having yet to be delivered and now very much in doubt, Trump must confront the choking off of not only election support, but of an ally threatening to undermine his standing on the Right. On the other side, Musk’s companies have benefited from billions in government contracts, and are a lucrative revenue source for his empire.
By Thursday evening, Musk appeared to be trying to deescalate. Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman posted on X that Musk and Trump “should make peace for the benefit of our great country,” to which Musk responded “You’re not wrong.”
Photo: Trump and Musk at the Kennedy Space Center Launch Control Center in 2020.
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