Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Images: Musk, Marcel Grabowski / UK Government. Trump, Gage Skidmore. Both via Wiki Commons
Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Images: Musk, Marcel Grabowski / UK Government. Trump, Gage Skidmore. Both via Wiki Commons
What does it say about our country that the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man are both gibbering idiots, each of whom needs the other to complete himself?
Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
I’ve been waiting for an occasion to use that word, “unseemly,” for months…even years. It’s one of those in between words, describing something that is not specifically terrible or disgusting, but rather inappropriate for a reason falling between morality and tastefulness. The opportunity to put “unseemly” into use doesn’t come along that often in this day and age, because nearly everything happens at the extremes. Things are either so utterly unacceptable that they’re almost beyond words, or they’re so wonderful that describing them becomes embarrassing. Dylan or The Beatles or Taylor Swift are good examples of the latter, and if you need an example of the former, well, wake up.
The spectacle this afternoon of Trump and Musk going at each other like two third graders fighting over who’s going down the slide first on the playground has been, for me anyway, delicious on the scale of an appetizer at a great Northern Thai restaurant or a sip of cool water along a mountain hiking trail on a hot day. Could you have asked for more? Flintlock pistols on the Palisades in Weehawken perhaps, or maybe a real sandbox rather than Truth Social and X, so they could get some nasty grains in each other’s eyes.
I guess we’ll have to settle for the display to which I’m sure most of you have been treated today: Trump describing Musk as “wearing thin” around the White House, “so I asked him to leave;” Musk hauling out the “bomb” of the Jeffrey Epstein files; Trump threatening Musk’s defense contracts; Musk re-tweeting a suggestion that Trump should be impeached with the single word, “yes.”
Lots and lots of punditory delight, complete with references to a mental health diagnosis of “narcissism,” and of course the words “ego” and “bromance” got quite a workout this afternoon.
But the whole spectacle, even though it could have been and was predicted, was still something of a shock, even though it fit so wholly within the personalities—I hesitate to use that word with these two, but there it is—of both men. By late afternoon, you could practically see lines of Ketamine being hoovered up in Texas or aboard a Gulfstream somewhere over Oklahoma, and the buzzer for the Diet Coke button overheating in its spot on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The nearest McDonald’s probably saw some extra business today, as well.
What does it say about our country that the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man are both gibbering idiots, each of whom needs the other to complete himself? I’ll leave that one to the historians.
In the meantime, Rick Wilson, the Never-Trumper Republican former political operative, had a field day with a video “letter of advice” to Musk in mid-afternoon, pointing out that Musk has two very powerful weapons at his disposal: He can effectively de-platform Trump’s use of X through bots and MAGA promoters by hitting the de-emphasize button. And Musk can take a pick-axe to the “Big Beautiful Bill” by putting together a few TV and digital ads tying about 20 Republicans up for reelection in the Senate and House who will hold the bill’s fate in their hands between now and the July 4 target date they’ve set for passage.
True, as far as it goes. But I think in another 48 hours or so they will take the whole thing to the next level on their own and do sufficient damage to each other’s almighty “brands” that the Big Beautiful Bill will collapse of its own weight, and the damage to Musk’s bottom line between Tesla and whatever Trump has in store for him will be all we’ll be able to stomach before our delight will effectively eclipse the sun and the Earth Will Be Cast Into Darkness.
We can use that opportunity for a nap. We’ll need one by then.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
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