The vision of the guardian on the Trump-Musk quarrel: we cannot count on excessive egos to end Oligopoly | Editorial
IT would have taken a stone heart to look at the death of the Bromance Trump-Musk without laughing. The Democrats passed the popcorn on Thursday evening as an Alliance between the most powerful man in the world and the richest in the world imploded via articles on their respective social media platforms.
Less than a week ago, they attempted a conscious decoupling in the oval office. Then, Elon Musk’s attacks against the “big, beautiful” tax and expenditure plan of Donald Trump intensified in the large -scale denunciation of a “disgusting abomination” – opposing its effects on the deficit, and not to the fact that it stops the essential support of the poor and the hands of 1,1 tn of tax reduction to the rich.
The president said that Mr. Musk had “gone mad” and was angry that electric vehicle subsidies were removed, said he had dismissed her, threatened to end his government contracts and made fun of the billionaire’s recent black eye. Steve Bannon has bypassed, suggesting that Mr. Musk should be expelled.
Musk said Trump should be charged and allegedly alleged that the government had not published files on the financier of the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein because the president was there. He threatened to immediately start the downgrading of the Dragon spaceship – now a key to the NASA program – and suggested that it was time for a new political party. The ultimate insult: “Without me, Trump would have lost the elections,” he wrote.
Later, Mr. Musk seemed to limit the damage, backing from the threat of the spaceship – not surprising, perhaps, when he had just looked at $ 152 billion wiping the value of Tesla. Each man knows that the other could injure him, via the government fiat or the political war box. However, the two are so unpredictable that the row could still revive.
Two narcissists accustomed to imposing their will were never likely to coexist happy for a long time, despite the advantages of doing so: it was less a marriage of convenience than of naked personal interest. Trump hates sharing the spotlight; Tesla’s boss frequently seized her. The president is surely also felt that he is dazzled by the spectacular wealth of Mr. Musk. It was angry to discover that Mr. Musk had organized private briefings on the plans of the Pentagon for any potential war with China – not only a conflict of flagrant, but perhaps more overwhelming interest, a sign of his growing power. Mr. Musk’s behavior also seemed more and more erratic. A recent New York Times report alleged that he had taken large amounts of drugs, including ketamine while advising Trump before the elections. Mr. Musk described history as “BS”.
His departure from the president’s orbit is good news. Mr. Musk improbably asserted that he would save 2 TN per year – approaching a third of the federal budget – taking a bureaucracy chainsaw. Wild decisions by the so-called Ministry of Government efficiency are mired before the courts. But he nevertheless caused real damage that will not be easily corrected, the agencies and the departments that have taken decades to build. People die because of its demolition of USAID.
However, although the link between the peak of power and the peak of wealth has been broken, politics remains in its appearance. Mr. Trump’s approach is particularly harmful, directly transforming wealth into political favors and power, and wealth power. This is the new oligopoly. He oversees a billionaire cabinet and managed his friend of real estate tycoon Steve Witkoff, a man without diplomatic experience, to bring peace to the Middle East and Ukraine. But although the megadonors are strongly biased towards the Republicans, the Democrats also depend on the billionaires. Mr. Musk is a symptom of underlying discomfort. Democracy requires better guarantees against the unhealthy marriage of wealth and power than the rampant egos of those who command them.
