The history books are filled with breakups and beef.
There’s Jen and Brad, Drake and Kendrick, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas.
Henry VIII had a few pretty prominent fallings out.
And many have compared Donald Trump to Nero, the Ancient Roman emperor whose second marriage to Poppaea Sabina ended with murder.
Today, the gradual then sudden implosion of Donald Trump’s bromance with Elon Musk surely joins the canon of history’s most epic breakups.
Beeves so operatic and consequential there can surely be no reconciliation.
And a ruckus which will genuinely have an impact on world events for years to come.
Here’s how it went down – and what happens next.
1. How it started
The signs had been there for a while – but the first visible cracks in Trump and Musk’s bromance started to appear the morning after the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April.
After winning the state by around 30,000 votes in the Presidential election last year, Trump thought his pick jn the race – Brad Schmiel – had a decent shot.
Especially after Musk – whose bottomless wallet helped swing the election for him – decided to pump millions of dollars into the race.
In the end, Schmiel suffered a thumping defeat to liberal judge Susan Crawford.
The state voted for Crawford by 55% to 45% – the first indication that Trump’s magic – and Elon’s cash – were not infallible. The electoral shine was starting to rub off.
In the days that followed there was chatter that Trump wasn’t all that happy about sharing the limelight with Musk if he wasn’t going to see results.
It was quietly agreed Musk would step back a bit and spend more time with his failing car business.
2. How it’s going
Fast forward to last Friday, and the 130 days Musk was allowed to be a “special government employee” without having to make transparency declarations were up.
There was a deeply weird press conference cum exit interview in the oval, where Musk, sporting a mean looking shiner, got extremely upset about a newspaper that accused him of being high on Ketamine during the campaign.
And then he was gone, Donald probably thought.
Until a few days later, when Elon started tweeting – Or X-ing, or whatever it’s called these days – about Trump’s budget bill. The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” – or as Musk described it – a “disgusting abomination”.
The details aren’t important, but the gist of his beef with the bill are that he was brought in to cut government spending, and in order to get them to vote the bill through, Trump had to let congress attach quite a lot of government spending to it.
On Thursday, he escalated matters even further by going right after Trump’s beloved trade war.
“The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,” Musk wrote.
3. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed
Speaking in the Oval Office last night, Trump said he was “disappointed” in Musk’s response to the Big Beautiful Bill.
Of course, he went further on Truth Social later, saying:
“Elon was “wearing thin,” I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
Regular readers will recall Trump was kind of fine with hawking electric cars a month or do ago, when he turned the South Lawn into a Tesla dealership.
4. Elon pulls the pin
In one of the most unexpected escalations since Will Smith got out of his seat at the Oscars, Elon decided now was time to play the Epstein card.
In remarks that we should note are entirely unsubstantiated, he tweeted: “Time to drop the really big bomb:
“@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
“Have a nice day, DJT!”
It’s not a secret that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein used to hang out at New York Society events. There are pictures and video.
Any suggestion of anything other than this is entirely unsubstantiated.
5. Nice rockets you’ve got there
Trump followed that up with an entirely unveiled threat – and a brutal assessment of Musk’s work with Doge…
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Musk then reminded the President that a huge chunk of America’s space travel capabilities are tied up in his companies.
He tweeted: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
NASA relies on the Dragon spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In fact, there’s a launch scheduled for next Tuesday.
6. Trump hits back again
“I don’t mind Elon turning against me,” Trump said.
“But he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that. I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Since then, Trump’s Truth Social posts have mostly been promoting a Newsmax story about “strong” polls for the President. All four polls in the story give him sub 50% approval. Trump’s poll average 46.5%, the second worst polling for a president 133 days into his term. The only president who polled worse at this point in his presidency was himself, eight years ago.
7. Then the kids started picking sides
Mum and Dad went off to seethe at this point, so the kids started to pick sides.
Former Trump aide turned far-right revolutionary Steve Bannon picked his side – unsurprisingly backing his old boss.
He urged Trump to immediately seize SpaceX from Musk.
And he said: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.
“Elon Musk is illegal, and he’s got to go.”
On the other hand, Ian Miles Cheong, who is somehow a major figure in the MAGA movement despite being some kid who lives in Malaysia, is going hard Team Musk.
“President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon,” he tweeted last night.
“Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.”
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8. OK, speaking of JD Vance – where is he?
Tennessee.
He was visiting Nashville last night as a featured guest of a Republican National Committee fundraiser.
As the public fallout picked up steam, he tweeted this picture of him with comedian podcaster Theo Von:
He, of course, remains Team Trump – and posted: “President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I’m proud to stand beside him.”
9. What happens now?
Well, when Elon wakes up, he’ll probably do some more tweeting. That’s literally the only thing we can solidly predict with this guy.
And Trump is scheduled to hold an Executive Order signing in the Oval Office at 6.30pm UK time – followed by a ceremony to swear in the new Secretary of the Navy. There will be cameras, there will be questions. It will be worth tuning in.
Later, Trump is going to a UFC fight in New Jersey.
Get some popcorn, clear your schedule.