- 4 months ago
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00:00How did it go from this?
00:03A star is born, Elon!
00:07We had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs
00:12and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot.
00:17To this.
00:19He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody.
00:24And he never had a problem until right after he left.
00:27And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape.
00:33He said the most beautiful things about me.
00:35And he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next.
00:39But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.
00:43As the Donald Trump, Elon Musk breakout plays very publicly all over social media,
00:49was it always inevitable? And why does this bust-up really matter?
00:54Welcome to AmeriCast.
00:57AmeriCast.
00:59AmeriCast from BBC News.
01:03Hello, it is Marianna, a.k.a. Misinformation, in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London.
01:09Hello, it's Sarah here. I'm at home in Washington, D.C.
01:12And it's Justin, also at home in South London.
01:15And we're hoping Anthony will join us later.
01:17Yeah, and it's quite right that we have some element of surprise, potential surprise during the course of the next few minutes,
01:26because that's what we're talking about, surprise.
01:29I mean, some not surprise in one sense, I suppose, guys, because we sort of assumed this was going to happen.
01:35But let's talk first about what actually has happened, because the extent of it is what has really caused jaws to drop, isn't it?
01:43So it starts with, well, with this. Let's hear the klaxon.
01:49Perhaps the most important use of the of the Elon Musk klaxon that has ever occurred, because we may have been talking a little bit about soft launches of the breakup.
02:03And, oh, has it actually was it conscious uncoupling and it was all going to be OK between Donald Trump, obviously, and then Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.
02:12And lo and behold, it's not really been OK at all.
02:16There has been this very, very big falling out and breakup.
02:20And I don't know how we want to start.
02:22It's a bit of a tit for tat, really, that becomes very memeable very quickly.
02:27I think there was a clear point to which it started, Mariano, because Elon Musk had for a few days been criticising what Donald Trump calls his big, beautiful bill, the spending bill.
02:37And Elon Musk was complaining that tax cuts were going to add to the deficit.
02:41And what was the point of him doing all of this cutting of government spending if Donald Trump was just going to spend all this money on tax cuts and raise the deficit?
02:48So, I mean, he'd said that on social media. He'd given a couple of television interviews about it.
02:53And it was really noticeable that there wasn't much response at all from Donald Trump.
02:58Then there he is in the Oval Office on Thursday, sitting beside the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz.
03:04And he's asked about it. And then just suddenly he goes for it.
03:09So have a listen. This is this is the first thing he said.
03:11But I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people.
03:20He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem.
03:23And he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate because that's billions and billions of dollars.
03:30And it's probably fair to say that Elon Musk didn't take too kindly to those comments.
03:36And as is his modus operandi, decided to take to X his social media platform and begin this kind of war of words where you've got Donald Trump posting on true social and him posting on X,
03:49going from very explicit criticism of the bill to then very explicit criticism of Donald Trump.
03:55It must be the first time two people have gone to war on social media when they both own their own social media platform, which is I mean, that's quite something.
04:05And it shows you the scale of this row when you're talking about the richest man in the world, probably the most powerful man in the world.
04:11Both of them with their own social media sites to launch jabs at each other from.
04:16And the scale of the escalation was just staggering, wasn't it?
04:19Because initially you had that stuff from Trump and it all sounded like sort of measured criticism.
04:24And you might have thought, well, maybe Elon Musk in the coming days, this is how politics used to work, isn't it?
04:30Might have used coded language to say, well, I'm not sure the president's quite right on that.
04:35Although I still think he's a jolly good fellow for all the rest of it.
04:38Because after all, he did once say he loved him more than a man can love another man who is heterosexual.
04:43So, I mean, you know, this is this is this is in the context of a pretty close relationship, a very close relationship until very recently.
04:51But no, Musk doesn't do that. He just goes goes completely.
04:55Well, as Donald Trump would put it crazy, because Trump later used that word, didn't he?
04:59And you start to get a load of things topped, Marianna, by this extraordinary and sudden bomb, as Elon Musk calls it,
05:09where suddenly in the middle of the night, he says, time to drop this bomb.
05:13And he kind of accuses Trump in effect of being part of Jeffrey Epstein, this the sex offenders coterie of people who visited him.
05:25He said he's in the Epstein files. And that's why those files haven't been released with absolutely no evidence.
05:31We should make clear that that is the truth. But I mean, I mean, this is a staggering kind of escalation.
05:39Yeah. And, you know, lots of these topics and themes that Elon Musk has now evoked and started talking about are ones that his followers on X are particularly animated around.
05:48You know, concerns about Epstein and abuse, sexual abuse and all of the kind of really serious issues that arise from talking about him and everything kind of surrounding him.
06:00And so to kind of bring that up and evoke it in relation to Donald Trump is is a pretty sort of extreme way to go.
06:05It's in lots of ways not surprising. Like if you spend your time monitoring Elon Musk's feed on X, as I do, this is how he often falls out with people.
06:13And it does become quite extreme and quite personal. The White House, you know, as you said there, Justin, there's there's no evidence to support what he's saying.
06:20What he's saying is unverified. And the White House came out to describe these kind of comments as unfortunate.
06:25I think one of the most interesting things is the way that, you know, if you think about it, Donald Trump used to use Twitter all the time.
06:32So perhaps in an in an old world, you would have had him and Elon Musk sort of like having that ding dong quite literally on X, like replying to each other.
06:40But because Donald Trump has never quite taken the step to go back on X, he is back on X, but he doesn't use it in the way that he used to.
06:47And you wonder whether there's this element of power and control that he decided, like, right, I'm going to stick to truth social because Elon Musk ultimately is the person at the reins on X.
06:56And that means I kind of am relying on him to be able to communicate with people.
07:00And, you know, I don't want, I don't know, whatever could happen, my algorithm to mean that I'm not being pushed to people and so on and so forth.
07:06But it's certainly like a very, a very messy breakup.
07:09And one I would say that I think we did predict.
07:12OK, this is now so serious that Anthony has now joined us. Anthony, it's it's it's war.
07:16And I suppose the question is whether it was inevitable right from the beginning, because we suggested some time ago to bang our drum for a second.
07:23We did suggest that it was inevitable, although we don't think we saw it quite going this nuclear this quickly.
07:30But it's not a surprise, is it that it has happened?
07:34Not a surprise. We weren't the only ones to make this prediction.
07:37But like you said, this was particularly dramatic and particularly fast.
07:40And I guess, you know, in hindsight, these are two of the biggest personalities who live their entire lives in the public.
07:46They have two of the biggest megaphones in the world, the most powerful politician in the world, the most wealthy man in the world.
07:53So this has been set up for a dramatic clash.
07:57And now we're seeing it unfold.
07:59But we went from zero to Elon Musk talking about the Epstein files in about three hours yesterday.
08:06So even even by modern standards, that's a breakneck speed.
08:10Yeah, because in that particular X that he posted, Elon Musk said time to drop the really big bomb.
08:17So that suggests that this is the biggest thing he's got that he thinks he's got over Donald Trump.
08:23So he was holding nothing back.
08:25I mean, it tells you quite something about his personality, doesn't it?
08:28That once you've started a fight over a spending bill, you're dropping what you call the really big bomb quite so quickly.
08:34One of the most interesting things that he did suggest, Musk on X, was that actually, essentially, Donald Trump couldn't have won the election without me.
08:43I'm instrumental to that. And like, what's he kind of going to do now?
08:46And I think that's the really interesting thing, thinking about this, because this breakup has been very explosive.
08:51And it's worth saying that as a consequence, it has very much caught the Internet's attention.
08:56Like the undercover voters have all not escaped.
08:59Like the memes, the there's all sorts of TikToks of people saying, you know, all kinds of things like, you know, the girls are fighting.
09:06It's a falling out. It's, you know, some Internet memes all about like men aren't emotional.
09:11Well, maybe they are all that kinds of stuff.
09:13And then you've also got conspiracy theory activists online who are suggesting it's actually just a fight for show,
09:20that it's it's a it's a fake fight. It's not actually real.
09:23And then you've also got loads of memes of Barron Trump, Donald Trump's son,
09:27with people suggesting he's the one pulling the levers and saying it's time to cut off Musk now.
09:31This is what we're doing and so on and so forth.
09:33But on a serious point beyond those jokes and memes and everything else, which are kind of engulfing all sides of the political spectrum,
09:39but certainly some very happy people who don't like Donald Trump and Elon Musk very much.
09:45I think is that question of like Elon Musk has been a very useful person to Donald Trump in terms of the way he succeeds in reaching certain groups of people on social media.
09:57This idea of being kind of not woke or opposed to those ideas and how Elon Musk certainly sort of helped him in that that idea of being like a bit more modern, perhaps,
10:06but then also like not being too sort of like serious or not accessible or not reaching different audiences.
10:14And whether you dislike or like Elon Musk, like he has been useful in that sense.
10:19Like, is it that Donald Trump has genuinely decided that Elon Musk is no longer of use to him?
10:24Or is it that like this this actually is just a breakdown of a relationship that actually could backfire kind of for both of them?
10:31Oh, I think it's a massive, massive deal actually for I mean, and it is really serious.
10:36You're quite right to say it's serious because it's OK to look at the memes and all the rest of it.
10:39And some of the matter ones are quite funny, but this really does matter politically, it seems to me, potentially.
10:46And you can see that already with people like Steve Bannon and the Musk, the Trump, sorry, adviser from the first term and certainly through campaigns.
10:58And he's even been to prison for contempt of Congress.
11:01I mean, he's a really keen Trump man and he is absolutely celebrating and a lot of MAGA world is celebrating because they always saw Musk as an outsider.
11:13And they always saw Musk potentially as a threat to the project as someone who is fundamentally libertarian in his in his outlook.
11:22You remember Vivek Ramaswamy, the guy who himself ran for the Republican nomination for a bit sometime around Christmas.
11:29I think it was on Christmas Day, suddenly announced that he didn't he didn't think Americans were up to much anymore, particularly American children.
11:36They're in too many sleepovers and all the rest of it.
11:38And Ramaswamy, remember, was part of the kind of must.
11:42Well, originally was part of Doge, wasn't he?
11:44And there's this sense that these people, these sleek, wealthy people have a view of America that actually isn't the view of a lot of MAGA supporters.
11:56And they are very, very pleased to see the back of them.
12:00And, you know, I think there is going to be some considerable amount of celebration.
12:05And potentially, Anthony, I don't know what you think of this, potentially or Sarah, potentially as well, actual changes in what really happens as a result of Musk going.
12:15Well, I think Elon Musk did exert an influence from within the White House, within the administration, maybe tempering some of these pushes for higher tariffs, obviously targeting parts of the government for cuts that the people who were in charge of his departments, like Marco Rubio in the State Department, didn't want.
12:36With him out of the picture now, I think there there is a very real chance that policy could shift.
12:41I mean, we've talked about what Donald Trump can do to Elon Musk.
12:46And I think it's pretty clear he could cut funding for Elon Musk's programs, which are heavily dependent on government contracts.
12:53He could renew investigations into Elon Musk that the Biden administration was pursuing.
13:00He could oust all of the Musk allies who have nestled their way into government agencies.
13:06But I think it's also important that we talk about what Musk can do to Donald Trump.
13:10And you touched on this, Justin.
13:13Musk can steal the spines of Republicans in the U.S. Senate and help derail this spending bill.
13:19He can provide financial and political air cover for them, essentially, make sure that they have the funds they need to run for reelection, even if they cross Donald Trump, because that was a big concern among a lot of Republicans about breaking with Donald Trump.
13:32What would they do with Trump support insurgent candidates running against them?
13:37Musk changes that dynamic and must can also threaten Donald Trump's allies with their own insurgent funded primary candidates.
13:45And and Musk also can can be a vocal mouthpiece for all the things he was trying to do within the administration.
13:54Now he can argue for without outside the administration.
13:57And he has hundreds of millions of followers on X and can generate news cycles on his own in a way that really only Donald Trump can right now in American politics.
14:06And it was really interesting, I thought, what kind of briefings were coming out of the White House yesterday.
14:11So as these two men are slagging each other off on social media, there's an explanation being dripped into reporters ears from Trump acolytes.
14:21And they were saying, look, what this is really about is two things that Elon Musk is upset that the big, beautiful bill cuts subsidies for electric vehicles and therefore for his Tesla cars.
14:33Tesla cars and that he didn't get his choice to be appointed as the head of the space agency, NASA.
14:39And obviously, if he had a friend at the top of NASA, that would help his company, SpaceX.
14:43And I mean, that may or may not be true, but it's clearly trying to signal to people, look, he was just in it for his own self interest.
14:52All he really cared about in government was making money for his companies.
14:56So don't listen to this man as the leader of any kind of movement.
14:59Don't ally yourself to him as a politician, because actually it was just selfish self interest that he was trying to get out of the government.
15:06And then you hear you were talking about Steve Bannon, Justin.
15:09I mean, he's probably the happiest man in America because he really hates Elon Musk.
15:13I think personally and politically thought that, yeah, as a tech oligarch, he couldn't speak for the working class.
15:19And it's not a new thing, is it?
15:20Oh, no, not a new thing at all.
15:22But he has gone so far as to suggest that SpaceX, the Elon Musk company that makes a rocket, should be privatized, should be seized by the government.
15:33And that Elon Musk's immigration status should be investigated because he likes to run a conspiracy theory that Elon Musk, who was obviously born in South Africa, isn't now an American citizen.
15:43So I mean, that's how far they're prepared to go in terms of suggesting action.
15:47But I think that it's it's it's not a stupid strategy to try and undermine Elon politically by saying it was just, you know, when he didn't get his way for his companies.
15:56That's when he walked out. Yeah. And of course, one of the big questions now is where the must never mind.
16:01I mean, he's not now going to fund his challenges to to to Republicans in Congress when Republicans in Congress are doing what he what he wants them to do.
16:14In other words, to object to the bill and not get it passed.
16:18They're pretty safe to do that now.
16:20And that might have a political impact.
16:22But further down the line, I mean, you know, the guys is as both of them are quite capable of doing anything.
16:30Now, you'd think they are remarkable, you know, remarkable in their their ability to move on and to move positions.
16:38And you wonder if he possibly might even fund Democrats.
16:42I mean, he's got a lot of money. It can do something in American politics.
16:46It doesn't always win. He was up in Wisconsin, wasn't he?
16:49And in that judicial race and he spent a ton of money there and didn't have any influence at all.
16:53So we should keep it in context.
16:55But, you know, what if he goes completely rogue and starts funding potentially in the 26 midterm elections people to knock the Republicans out?
17:04And he used to fund Democrats.
17:07I mean, he was a Democratic donor before his heel turn last year supporting Republicans.
17:13So in theory, he could go back, although I think there are a lot of Democrats, probably most Democrats who wouldn't want his money.
17:19There's a handful of them, like Ro Khanna of California, who's a friend of his, who has been who have been taking to social media, calling out for an outreached Elon Musk.
17:29But he's been getting a considerable amount of pushback from that.
17:33So, you know, it is it's interesting also to think about when you talk about Donald Trump punishing Musk and what Trump could do.
17:42All of this is remarkable because it's punishing Elon Musk for expressing political viewpoints.
17:47It's punishing Elon Musk for not being loyal, for not toting the party line.
17:52And it's taking it out on his companies that have signed contracts with the federal government.
17:56I mean, it seems normal now for us to talk about this, like, oh, how is Donald Trump going to get back at Elon Musk?
18:02But it fits in with what Donald Trump has done to say Harvard as well, where there are political differences.
18:08And Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government, the purse of the federal government to punish people who he doesn't agree with politically.
18:15And that is a remarkable turn of events to do it so overtly and and in such huge measures.
18:22I think it's worth saying as well that this is a real test of the influence that Elon Musk does or doesn't have without Donald Trump.
18:29Like before he endorsed Donald Trump anyways, he was already seeming to affect like what people were talking about as per what is recommended on X and the way that, you know, a social media platform on its own.
18:42Now that social media platforms have in some ways like eclipsed the traditional media and lots in a certain sense, you know, the ability to like distort and change what people care about or put things on people's agenda that they weren't talking about.
18:54It's kind of a test of the ability of Elon Musk to do that versus what Donald Trump can do.
18:59You know, he's he's got a very good in with quite a lot of the podcasters, the streamers, the kind of alternative media world that we've chatted about a lot.
19:06Like, will he capitalize on that?
19:08There have been quite a few funny memes saying things like, you know, who gets Joe Rogan, the podcaster in the divorce?
19:13Like, you know, ultimately, where do all these people fall down?
19:16Do they decide that actually they're not very happy with some of the things Donald Trump is doing?
19:20And so they side with Elon Musk and they want a new party and they want new politics and all that kind of thing.
19:25Or is it tactical from Donald Trump?
19:27And actually, you know, Elon Musk is perceived to be this kind of like slightly more out of touch, very rich man who runs all sorts of businesses, including a social media company.
19:36And actually, this is Donald Trump's way of kind of losing him because he's not that valuable in that world anymore.
19:42The thing that really strikes me about them both, Mariana, and this is really your world because it sort of fits into your world in a way, they are remarkably disinhibited as individuals.
19:53There's something about Donald Trump, isn't there, as a politician that makes him unique.
19:58And we've discussed that in the part. And this this ability to be less inhibited in anything than most people tend to be is mirrored, isn't it, in in in Musk.
20:10And then that fits into the social media world because a lot of people are very disinhibited on social media because they don't think they're ever going to meet the people they're being nasty about.
20:19I mean, it really does. They fit this world horribly.
20:23And I think it's actually worth saying that as well, because it is very possible that on the next episode of AmeriCast, they've somehow like kiss and made up and like they they both enjoy these kind of like big, big feuds and falling outs.
20:35And, you know, there were even bits where Elon Musk was replying to accounts that basically don't have any followers saying like, OK, yeah, fine.
20:41I won't do that to Donald Trump then and that sort of thing.
20:44And Elon Musk is quite famous for his for his trolling.
20:48I've been on the receiving end of it and he doesn't like to take anything very seriously.
20:52So, you know, is there a world where they kind of both just like pretend that it was whether it was or wasn't that it was just sort of like, oh, it's just a bit of a funny thing.
21:01But like, it's all OK now.
21:02I mean, after some of the various political rows that Donald Trump has had with J.D. Vance and Musk, you know, with people like Zelensky, for example.
21:10Like, again, those things were sort of brushed off later on the line and it was kind of like, oh, we're all OK again now.
21:15Like, could that happen here or is it more is it longer lasting?
21:19There's a lot of work going on in Washington right now to try and make that happen.
21:22I mean, because it is now. Well, it's not even nine o'clock in the morning yet.
21:25But the story here has rather shifted to can they make up and who's going to facilitate that?
21:31So there's reporting that White House aides are going to be talking to Elon Musk today for a wee while.
21:37It looked as though actually possibly there was going to be a call between the two men.
21:40People are so eager to brush this under the carpet.
21:43But Donald Trump has spoken on the phone to a couple of reporters already this morning and said that he has.
21:50He said he asked if he had any intention to speak personally to Elon Musk this morning.
21:54He said, you mean the man who's lost his mind and said he was not particularly interested in talking to him right now.
22:00But it does seem as though officials in the White House are very eager to try and at least take the temperature down on this.
22:08And it would suit both of them.
22:09I mean, we've just been running through the consequences it could have for either man.
22:13I think there will be a lot of diplomatic work going on today to try and ease the pressure.
22:17And Elon Musk was backing down a little bit late last night.
22:21There were some people posting things saying, look, guys, you know, this fighting is not good for anybody.
22:26Can you please try and make up?
22:28And Elon Musk was reposting or replying to some messages like that, indicating that maybe he did want to take it down a notch.
22:35So then the next stage in this story could be watching how people try and patch this up rather than make it worse.
22:41That's exactly right. The two men, despite having huge egos, despite both wanting to have the last word and priding themselves on hitting back harder than they've been hit, they do still have political views that are aligned.
22:55They still want to cut the size of government. They still want to fund various tech policies.
23:02They want to realign the American economy to focus on America that they they are against big, big cultural issues on the left as well.
23:13So you could see grounds for them to be able to reach some sort of rapprochement.
23:18But it's going to it's going to take one side or the other giving a little bit.
23:22And as you mentioned, Sarah, Donald Trump doesn't seem interested in that right now.
23:26And Elon Musk, you know, even if he's taken a few steps back, you could very well start up to amp up the ampedge again.
23:34You know, once you once you make Epstein allegations, it's hard to go back from that.
23:39There is another world where he decides to set up a new political movement and to spearhead that and to try and stay in politics in some way, which to some extent with his social media platform and with the voice he has and the following he has, like, could be possible.
23:53If he's going to team up with like a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the future and it's this kind of anti establishment thing that they build on and maybe he gets Rogan and the other, you know, podcasters and like alternative media outlets on board.
24:05That's all a possibility. But then at the same time, like ultimately, Donald Trump is the charismatic one.
24:10Like Elon Musk is not known for his charisma. In fact, quite the opposite.
24:13So actually, is Elon Musk all the weaker without Donald Trump?
24:17Someone else who's got that kind of charisma and that sort of perhaps slightly more lighthearted approach, if that's the way of putting it, who people do find quite funny and likable, you know, in some cases, at least.
24:31You mentioned Joe Rogan, Marianna, and it is interesting.
24:34One of the reasons why Rogan ultimately endorsed Donald Trump was because he respected Elon Musk and said, well, if Elon Musk likes Trump, then he will like him, too.
24:42So I could very well see Rogan moving over to a new kind of base of power around Elon Musk.
24:48But, you know, in the end, Donald Trump is still the president and the president has considerable power and a platform that's even bigger than X.
24:56So he's probably positioned to be able to move on from this in the short term better than Elon Musk.
25:02Elon Musk. But Elon Musk did post on X last night that he is going to be around for 40 years plus years.
25:08That's an optimistic view of life expectancy.
25:10But nevertheless, and Donald Trump is only going to be president for three and a half years.
25:15So we may see Donald Trump win the battle.
25:18But ultimately, with Elon Musk sticking around and having all those resources, winning the war.
25:23That's it for this episode of America as we will probably be back talking about the Elon Musk, Donald Trump feud or the makeup sometime soon.
25:32Until then, you can hear all our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
25:36We'll see you next time.
25:37Bye.
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25:40Bye.
25:41Bye.
25:42Bye.
25:43Bye.
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25:45Bye.
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