Friday Insights-June 6, 2025
Now there is proof both Trump and Musk are insane
One friend who follows SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, commented to me, “It was like watching a Starship launch—you knew it would eventually blow up.” The “it” was the Musk-Trump relationship. I put Musk first because, damn-it, he bought the “President” in “President Trump.”
I blame Musk for returning a revenge-crazed sociopath to the White House. I am enjoying watching Musk reap what he sowed.
Musk’s purchase of the Trump residency was “confirmed” when Musk accused Trump of being ungrateful for Musk buying Trump’s way back into the White House. And because Musk has proven to be a much more astute businessman than Trump, one can assume Musk is suffering from buyer’s remorse.
But what, one must wonder, did Musk think he was buying? We now know that it wasn’t making America great again. More likely it was the removal of all regulatory obstacles to Musk’s dream of going to Mars, the tacit assurance of NASA and DoD contracts for Space X, and just the fun of prancing around in the White House, most likely under the influence of one drug or another, regular visits to the Oval Office, including ones accompanied by a nose-picking child, and demonstrating to follow billionaires that hundreds of billions in wealth buys you a lot more than just a few billions.
What is humorous, sort of, is that we all knew that that “bromance” wouldn’t last. We knew that two huge egos cannot exist in the same space. And we knew that eventually, either Trump or Musk would do something that would trigger a rapid unscheduled disassembly of the Trump-Musk alliance.
Now that the two titans, one of them real but crazy and the other self-imagined and increasingly bizarre, are no longer a team, what will happen?
My insights on this question are not worth much. I should have studied more psychology or pharmacology in college, but I studied neither. So I have to guess.
The fallout from the breakup will depend on how upset Trump is that Musk launched a full-scale attack not only on Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” but also on Trump himself. Ordinarily, as documented in a career marked by retribution against perceived adversaries, Trump would likely have carried out some of the threats he made this week, including ending all contracts with Musk-controlled companies.
Will Trump pull the plug on Starlink, SpaceX, and do another Tesla commercial on the White House lawn? Or will Trump and Musk calm down and make their divorce a civilized one?
My guess is that some minor sniping will continue, but astronauts will continue to travel to the ISS in SpaceX Dragons. I also assume that the Starlink contracts will continue. But things like Trump pitching Starlink to foreign leaders, or somehow attempting to pressure them into buying it, will end. Trump doesn’t have it in him at almost 79 years old to take that much humiliation.
Musk talked last week about starting his own political party. Good luck with that Elon—there are not enough Cybertrucks on the road to provide canvases for the activists that will be angered by creation of a Musk party. What could you call it anyway?
Instead, Musk is likely to recede from the limelight, father more children, and hope that the fallout from his “Trump experiment” blows over. But while Musk will (mostly) avoid attacking Trump on X and other media (at least while not high on drugs), he will make it his business to decimate Trump’s power.
Musk, having shown that he can buy a presidential election, will “invest” in 2026 House and Senate races to stop the Trump Train in its tracks.
Trump will not be able to produce a supermajority for Democrats (or enough Trump-hating Republicans along with a Democratic majority) to make a Senate convictions on one or more future Trump impeachments possible.
So what else does the “feud” mean?
For one, Musk’s comments this week, even if not followed up with similar comments, will likely embolden a few Republicans to push back on Trump policies. Musk aggressively attacked both, increasing the national debt and tariffs. I expect that Musk’s condemnation of both will have an impact as the Senate continues work on the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
If Musk continues to speak out against the Trump tax cuts (the extension of the 2017 giveaways to the rich), the feud will likely intensify again. We’ll see.
Only one insight?
What about the other news of the week? I’m not commenting on it except to say that the President nauseated me in failing to impose new sanctions on Russia as it continues its war in Ukraine. Trump also made a comment that sounded like he felt Putin was justified in retaliating against Ukraine for the brilliant drone attack on Russian airfields thousands of miles from the Ukrainian border.
Thank you.
I may have more to say on Sunday, but there’s just so much Trump one can stomach in a week.
Thank you for reading Dean’s Friday Insights. I appreciate your support.
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Take one individual who cannot abide criticism. Mix with one individual who cannot abide being marginalized, let alone ignored and kaboom! It was bound to happen. Trump and his aides should want it to end soon, but that would require levels of human interaction that neither individual is capable of. No one should want to be near this.
“But what, one must wonder, did Musk think he was buying?”
President Vance