The Big Beautiful Breakup

What's behind the sudden rupture between Trump and Musk? Is it just another bad Hollywood sequel?

It always seemed plausible if not likely that the bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk would end something like this, given that each has an outsized ego, idiosyncratic and perhaps unstable opinions, and complete candor (or “no filter”) if you prefer. Both the nature of politics and outsized characters like Trump and Musk should have led any student of human affairs to predict this.

It is also completely plausible that a week from now the breakup will suddenly reverse, and they’ll be semi-convincing bosom buddies again, like a bad sequel to the 2006 romcom The Breakup, a film that got a terrible 34% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and which the New York Times called, with a phrase can be borrowed here, "a sour, dispiriting affair.” (Maybe Max Cossack can take this as a prompt for a future piece on whether any romcom film can ever have redeeming qualities. . .)

And suddenly Trump is saying nice things (well, one nice thing) about Elizabeth Warren? Another sign of how Trump’s name calling and insults have a shelf-life. And just what are all the Musk-haters on the left going to do now? How strong is the glue on those bumper stickers so many lefties affixed to their Teslas?

For the record and for what it’s worth: I don’t think there is an Epstein Client List. Or if there ever was such a list, it was long ago destroyed, which is why we don’t have it. It may be possible to recreate a suspect list by various investigative means, but that’s not the kind of list that can be deemed authoritative and readily made public. And in any case I doubt Musk would know who is and isn’t on it.

But for the moment let’s enjoy some memes!