By Douglas V. Gibbs
President Donald Trump brought billionaire businessman Elon Musk on board for one purpose, and one purpose only: to discover waste, fraud and abuse within federal spending. Elon Musk did just that, and as a result we are on the road to reduced federal spending, and ultimately making a dent, though probably a little tiny one, in the overall federal debt. Thank you, Elon. It’s been glad knowing you and working with you. Adios.
Then, Elon Musk on the way out the door decided to be a little frustrated over the One Big Beautiful Bill claiming that after his hard work only a portion of his recommended cuts are happening, and spending is going up in other areas he’s not thrilled about. But, Musk forgets he was brought on board to root out wasteful federal spending, not to be a policy-maker or have an opinion beyond which spending needs to be considered as waste and removed from the federal spending scheme.
The press, especially the lefty media who claims that Musk and Trump working together equated a billionaire oligarchy running the country, is excited about the spat – if you can even call it that.
Musk is no conservative, and he’s no political mastermind. He’s a businessman that, with a bunch of guys very good with their computers, was brought onboard to root out bad spending.
That all said, there is a tad more to the whole scenario according to the journalistic experts. “Money.” President Donald Trump is trying to get us closer to constitutional authorities and one of the big taboos of economics is stomping all over laissez faire. But, the One Big Beautiful Bill targets bad expenditures and the sweeping tax and spending package also says no more subsidies for electric vehicles. Quite the hit for Musk’s Tesla which has thrived on those subsidies. Musk has a business to run, and now, maybe, he’ll need to do it without taxpayer money. Sure, losing those electric vehicle tax credits stings, but Musk is missing the whole principle he claimed to recognize while steering DOGE through the labyrinth of federal spending. We need to slash government spending, and he’s been beating that drum himself, so let Trump slash unconstitutional subsidies, too.
Musk is correct, sort of. The One Big Beautiful Bill has its share of flaws – primarily the fact that all of these things are shoved into one bill (each should be voted on individually on its own merit) and that allows hiding places for deals, backroom funding, and lots and lots of pork. I agree, doing basically their own version of an omnibus bill is a betrayal to the small-government constitutionalism Trump claims to be shooting for.
Regardless, among Musk’s antics is the threat to decommission Space X’s Dragon spacecraft – which challenges President Trump’s plans for space exploration and ultimately a trip to Mars. Fine. Bezos has his Blue Origin rockets. Let the free market do its thing. That’s what happens. One private company loses ground, and the next one in line takes its place. Long ago there was no Walmart, it was all about K-Mart. Before that we had Fedco and Gemco. The spot at the top changes, and the market always takes care of it. That’s the way of America.
As always, Trump will rise to the top, and we’ve already seen it during this latest episode of As the Beltway Turns…Trump has taken the high road, said he doesn’t have time for this stuff, and he wishes Elon Musk well. There’s no feud from President Donald Trump’s point of view – just a former ally who got a little butt-hurt on the way out the door.
Trump will not back down, and his agenda will not be marred by Musk’s frustrations or antics. Musk says he may challenge MAGA and Trump, but we saw what happened to the Democrats when they tried to take on Trump…again. The MAGA movement is bigger than one billionaire and a bunch of whiny spiteful lefty lunatics. If Musk wants to take on Trump and MAGA, he’ll wind up finding himself on the wrong side of history.
The feud is temporary, and minor in the grand scheme of things. It is simply giving the Democrats and their complicit media allies an excuse to try and avert your eyes away from the failures of the Democratic Party, and the idiotic violence on the streets of Los Angeles as ICE tries to do its job and carry out Trump’s campaign promise of taking care of the immigration issue. Trump will prevail, Musk will go back to managing X and Space-X, and figuring out how to get people to stop attacking his Tesla dealerships, and Trump will go back to Making America Great Again. The American people elected Donald J. Trump to drain the swamp, not play games with a billionaire ticked off because his federal subsidies got cut off.
Donald Trump, and MAGA, after all, doesn’t cow-tow to anyone – not even to Elon Musk.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
