Trump and Musk meltdown: ‘This is good entertainment – and he knows it’
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The wheels have finally fallen off the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, with the pair trading insults and serious allegations on social media. Where does this drama leave The White House now?
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Read time: 4 mins
In brief…
- Elon Musk has called for Donald Trump to be impeached, and alleged he is named in documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, just days after leaving his role in the administration.
- The News Agents say Musk got “giddy” with the attention he was given during the 2024 Trump campaign, but believe the pair’s politics don’t align.
- They say Trump always needs an enemy to pursue, otherwise he gets bored, and his politics “stop making sense”.
What’s the story?
“The girls are fighting aren’t they.”
That was the response of Democrat Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, when she was quizzed by a journalist about the very public fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which has played out on social media in dramatic fashion.
And she’s not wrong.
The cracks were already showing, with Musk having recently stepped down from his unelected role heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and criticising Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, calling Trump’s move to implement a $1 trillion (£741 billion) cut to benefits and introduce tax cuts for individuals and big business a “disgusting abomination”.
Free from the shackles of his government position, Musk exercised his right to freedom of speech by calling for Trump to be impeached, and alleged Trump is named in The Epstein Files, documents relating to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He also claimed that he was responsible for Trump’s 2024 election win, having spent over $290 million (£214m) on his campaign.
Trump previously promised "full transparency" over the files, following a release of some of their details earlier this year.
Trump responded by saying Musk "went crazy" during their time working together, and said "nobody wanted" his Teslas – despite previously posing behind the wheel in a photoshoot for the cars outside The White House in March 2025.
“A Ferrari can go from 0 to 60 in about three seconds,” says Jon Sopel.
“This went from 0 to thermonuclear in even less time, as they tore lumps out of each other in the course of an evening.
“The scale and velocity with which it blew up was just unbelievable.”
The online conflict between the billionaires resulted in a further drop in Tesla profits, with US markets closing the day of the drama with a 14% drop in the Tesla stock price.
Trump vs Musk: 'Why now, Elon?'
Was this always on the cards?
They’ve had a good run, that’s for sure, but Lewis Goodall says what happened this week was always “much predicted”.
“These two characters were always too big to share the same stage, but perhaps Musk has finally woken up to the fact that the interests between Trump and musk were never aligned,” he says.
Musk never supported Trump’s tariffs on goods from China because he imports huge numbers of components from China, he encourages migration for high-skilled people to support his companies and wanted to reduce the US debt and deficit.
“Musk got completely giddy with it all,” Lewis adds.
“He was put into the centre of that MAGA crucible where he received all of this attention and love.
“He was being lauded as a genius and you could see the adrenalines and the endorphins were being propagated endlessly.”
He believes the post-election reality, when work began in DOGE trying to make the changes he wanted to implement, brought him down to earth with a bump.
“When he was actually put into government and saw what was happening, he realised his politics and theirs were never at one.”
Jon, however, believed the billionaires’ bromance might have made it to the end of 2025, but they didn’t even make it halfway through the year.
“I believed they were tied by a mutual interest – Donald Trump wanted a lot of what Elon Musk offered, Elon Musk wanted a lot of what Donald Trump could offer,” he says.
“Elon Musk was paying out hundreds of millions of dollars towards the Trump campaign, and winning contracts for SpaceX. That is why I thought that, ultimately, they would stick together.
“I also thought the other reason was because if they fell apart, it would be catastrophic – and that has proved to be correct.”
What’s The News Agents’ take?
The shots fired by Elon Musk are already serious – and The News Agents say any further escalation would be “fraught with danger” for both men.
“These are two narcissists who probably richly deserved each other,” says Jon.
“When these sorts of people engage with each other, I bet they're looking for ammunition that they can have stored up so that if it all does go to shit, they've got something to throw at the other person.
“And it looks like that's what's unfolding now in America.”
But while, at this point, Musk’s allegations against Trump may seem deeply damaging for the President, Lewis says it’s important to remember exactly who he is.
“What do we know about Trump? He's in the entertainment business. He's in the attention business. This is good entertainment, and he knows it,” Lewis says.
“He needs enemies to go after all the time. If he doesn't have enemies, he doesn't have opponents, and with those he gets bored, but also his politics stops making sense.”
Lewis says the public spat with Musk is a perfect distraction from the chaos caused by his tariffs and ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ and allegations of corruption within his administration.
“We are dealing with two men who are pathetic in so many ways,” he adds.
“They are so deeply childish, so deeply thin skinned.
“That's what makes it entertaining. It was always going to end up in chaos.”
Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.
