Trump, Musk break up, and Washington holds its breath

Washington: Maybe it was always going to end this way, with two billionaires angrily posting about each other on social media, fingers flying across pocket-sized screens as their incandescent feud burned hotter by the minute.

But even if the finale was predictable, that didn’t make it any less shocking. After long months when Donald Trump and Elon Musk appeared united in their chaotic mission to remake Washington, their relationship imploded this week like a star going supernova.

It began with Musk complaining about the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda, which the president at first took in stride. Eventually Trump let slip that he was disappointed in his former adviser, prompting Musk to unleash a flood of insults and taunts.

He accused Trump of betraying promises to cut federal spending, shared a suggestion that the president should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about his association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Perhaps most viciously, Musk insisted that Trump wouldn’t have won last year’s election without his help.

Trump, not one to slouch from a fight, could hold back no longer. He posted that Musk had been “wearing thin,” that he had “asked him to leave” his administration, that the tech titan had “gone CRAZY.”

Maybe, Trump threatened, he should save taxpayer money by cancelling government contracts and subsidies for Musk’s companies. On and on it went, as liberals savored the spectacle of their most despised political opponents clawing at each other’s digital throats and conservatives reeled at the prospect of having to pick sides. Laura Loomer, a right-wing provocateur and conspiracy theorist, saw an opportunity to position herself as the voice of reason.

“This fight should be taken offline,” she said — on social media, of course. The question now is whether Trump and Musk find some way to step back from a battle that is tearing apart one of the most consequential relationships in modern American politics.