Please Advise! Who’s the Villain in the Trump-Musk Feud?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Former buddies Donald Trump and Elon Musk have had a vicious falling-out. Yesterday they began trading insults and accusations on social media.

What will come of this?

Signed,

Bystander

Dear BS,

Is there a tariff on popcorn? Sales of jumbo buckets and hot butter could be driving the economy this month.

After a Pact of Steel forged in the 2024 election campaign, Trump and Musk have had the inevitable blowout. This must have been how it felt in 1941 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Sad. It makes you wonder if there is any hope for two lonely megalomaniacs in this crazy world.

Trump was in the Oval Office Thursday, hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the day before the anniversary of D-Day. Trump suggested (no kidding) that D-Day was “not a pleasant day” for Merz's country. Clearly, Trump is not quite up to speed on current events — he'll probably only find out how the Civil War turned out when he finally finishes watching Gone with the Wind. Anyway, Trump would soon discover that June 5, 2025, was about to become E-Day.

Elon had launched a pre-attack bombardment the previous day, describing Trump's “big, beautiful budget bill” as an “abomination.” On Thursday, the fight quickly escalated to DEFCON Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Musk claimed Trump has not released the files on the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein because Trump's name appears in the files. Trump threatened to cancel all Musk's government contracts. Musk replied that he would immediately decommission SpaceX Dragon rockets. Steve Bannon said Musk is an illegal alien who should be deported. Musk said Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance. Previous Trump target Harvard University reported an emergency overload in its schadenfreude reactors.

It's an unusual situation for Musk — when he wants to start a major feud with someone, he usually has children with them first. Then he fights with the children, too. His trans daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, once said of Musk: “You single-handedly disillusioned me with how gullible we are as a species because somehow people keep believing you for reasons that continue to evade me.”

And just last week in the Oval Office Musk explained his black eye by saying his son X had punched him. If true, that's one smart little kid — he could make a lot more money that way than with a lemonade stand. People would be lining up to place orders. Pretty soon the boy could be up for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's job.

The black eye was foreshadowing, as a butterfly's flap foreshadows an F5 twister. A public feud between two demented trolls, each obscenely swollen with power and utterly lacking in impulse control, was never likely to look like a badminton match.

This was always the downside of Trump's Musk alliance. The president depends on stooges. Trump wants allies whose tenuous grip on power and status rely entirely on his patronage. Musk has his own power base, his own resources.

While Republican quislings like Speaker Mike Johnson and Sen. Lindsey Graham compete to demonstrate who has the most collapsible bone structure, Musk has always been someone who follows his own equally vicious, self-serving agenda.

Predictable? This brawl was like inviting Drake and Kendrick to your birthday party. Meanwhile poor Ye wants everybody to be friends again — just three Führer-stans trading collectible arm bands, like the good old days.

Speaking of birthdays, Trump's is coming up June 14 and he wants a big military parade. He's going to need to include some anti-aircraft weapons. As Vladimir Putin discovered so recently, those ground-based targets can be sitting ducks. Bad idea to pick fights with dudes who make rockets.