How long will Trump and Musk's friendship last?

How long will it last? friendship between the two most powerful men in the United States ? One has the executive power being the American president, Donald Trump, while the other, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, can be considered as the capitalist with the strongest power of influence of all . True friendship or alliance of circumstances?

The two men, who like the light and the media attention , how long will they be able to work together before they can't stand each other anymore? Trump, like Musk, wants to be the 'protagonists' , so this political question that arose at the beginning of January, when Donald Trump was officially sworn in, is at the centre of all the questions about the presidential 'couple' .

To try to understand where this need for light comes from in both men, we would have to Study the past of the two politicians-businessmen .

It is in South Africa, more precisely in the city of Pretoria , where Elon Musk was born before acquired US citizenship in 2002 The world's richest billionaire, worth more than $400 billion , according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, is the boss of a galaxy of impressive companies . Among them, X (ex-Twitter) which he bought for about $44 billion, Tesla , the famous electric vehicle company, or even SpaceX , which can boast of selling spacecraft to NASA and providing internet access to several million people with its Starlink satellites.

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He The paradox that Musk works with Trump today is that he voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. and more surprising for Joe Biden , the candidate opposite Trump, in 2020. Some people think Musk changed radically, leaving the progressive for the conservative because of his feeling of injustice in the state of residence of his companies . California, led by Democrat Gavin Newsom , enacted several laws and regulations that impact Tesla and that Musk considers them unfair . It is for these reasons that in 2021, the billionaire decided to move to the very Republican state of Texas , more precisely to Austin, the capital. He increasingly showed himself in disagreement with former Democratic President Biden , accusing him of supporting unions demanding rights at his electric car company.

The topic of the Climate change was, for example, a domain of major disagreement between the two men. . In July 2022, Donald Trump called Musk a "fake artist" . To this exchange of epithets, the American president suggested that Musk came between 2016 and 2020, during the Republican's first term, to ask for money and federal subsidies for, according to Trump, "electric cars that don't drive enough, driverless cars that crash, or rockets that don't go anywhere" . Trump said himself on his Truth Social network, that The businessman "could have said, 'Get on your knees and beg,' and he would have done it." .

When now the two millionaires are holding out against attempts by the media outlets, according to Donald Trump, "separate[ing] them" . During an interview together on Tuesday on the unofficially Republican Fox News Channel, both men insisted that they like each other very much for their mutual support and that they will maintain this friendship despite everything.

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In a new paradox, Musk initially supported candidate Ron DeSantis , Trump's opponent, during the Republican Party primaries . The two politicians almost hated each other, attacking and insulting each other through different media outlets. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was able to count on Musk's initial support , which offered him a place to officially launch his candidacy, a presentation on his social network X , a presentation that he had to adapt to several technical problems. It is after his first assassination attempt that Musk joined the former president in office between 2016 and 2020. In fact, the two businessmen met for the first time at Donald Trump's residence in Mar-el-Lago, Florida, to officially declare their support for the "Make America Great Again" candidacy ("Let's Make America Great Again" in Spanish) in June. Musk told Hannity, after his support for Trump, "I was going to do it anyway, but that was a precipitating event" .

Elon Musk's political action committee, "Super PAC", has invested more than $200 million in the Republican candidate's election campaign . This financing plan intervened after having attended for the first time, in October 2023, a Donald Trump rally . In addition, the billionaire made its X platform available to the former president and candidate to try to amplify the messages and ideas supported by the Republican camp. The biggest problem with this widespread and unwanted propaganda by social network users.

After spending election night together at Donald Trump's personal residence, Mar-a-Lago, Proof that Elon Musk is "part of the family" for the newly elected president. The numerous photos of this evening, where you can see all the members of the Trump clan, Barron, the fifth son, Melania, the president's wife, or Ivanka and Kai, Trump's daughters together with Elon Musk, show the proximity between the two men .

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Right after his victory, the American president officially announced the position that his new best friend, Musk, was going to occupy within his administration. After several announcements, X owner was appointed in charge of DOGE , a new office tasked with drastically reducing federal government spending . Musk can also count on Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican candidate, to help him do his job.

During the famous interview between Sean Hannity, the emblematic presenter of Fox News Channel , Donald Trump, stayed behind a couple of times to give Hannity the chance to tell a narrative established by the Democratic Party and its important figures like Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. Most of the followers of the Party to the Bureau, and even a fringe of Republicans at heart, have a Musk's vision as an unelected man, who has no sensitivity and who would seek only to stabilize Western American civil society with the drastic taxes applied by the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The theatrical aspect of the interview between a journalist and a pair of men consisting of the president of the world's leading power and his collaborator, the most economically powerful man in the world , was emphasized on several occasions. The clearest example is when the two politicians-businessmen finished each other's sentences several times.

The first objective of the forty-seventh president of the United States, to give even more power to his friend Musk, was to help him fulfill the campaign promise he made to his constituents , "breaking the Deep State" . All of his nominations, the most recent ones, come to confirm this will. Kash Patel was appointed this Thursday, February 20, 2025, by Trump, to the position of director general of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Federal Bureau of Investigation in Spanish). This man known in the media as defender of the "deep state" theory , says he is fighting for his downfall and his appointment as head of the FBI is reason enough to worry about the agency's objectivity.

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Musk, for his part, is also accomplishing this goal by firing dozens of federal workers , closing or at least reducing the power and work of federal agencies , and cutting the size of government . One of the most striking examples is The auto magnate's closure of USAID (United States Agency for International Development in Spanish), the largest development and humanitarian aid agency in the world.

According to Elon Musk, "there is a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president" and added that from his point of view "What [the Americans] are seeing here is a kind of upheaval of bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people" . However, the altruistic nature of the businessman can be questioned, because since his arrival to the post of president, Trump signed several very lucrative government contracts for Musk's companies such as Tesla or SpaceX. These contracts with the Department of Defense, NASA and many other federal agencies and entities, offer the richest man in the world several tax benefits and subsidies over the years .

At the legal level, it is also very interesting for Mr. Musk . In fact, the administration of the newly elected president, Donald Trump, could relieve much of the pressure imposed by various regulations . Investigations into the accidents involving Tesla's partially automated vehicles are a source of multiple legal problems for Musk, so having the president of the world's leading power as his best ally and friend could help him a lot. At the same time, the criminal investigation into the responsibility of the businessman and Tesla for having exaggerated the autonomous driving capabilities of their cars could also be annulled after Pam Bondi , an ally of Trump and by extension of Musk, was appointed to head the department that started the legal proceedings, the Department of Justice .

So even if Musk insisted that he has "never asked the president for anything, ever," the Several evidence of conflicts of interest show that the millionaire businessman has certainly asked for benefits from Trump . Furthermore, even if the American president assured the people on multiple occasions that the owner of SpaceX "will not be involved" In areas where their government efforts and business concerns overlap, the concerns of MAGA opponents of government are legitimate when looking at the ties between the representative of economic power and his counterpart at the executive level .

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Incongruent with what has just been said, Trump's story could show how It is very likely that this friendship will end badly Mr. Trump himself said that he did not know Musk until recently and indicated: "I knew him a little bit through the White House originally" but before this, they were not that close friends , we could even say that they did not know each other.

Same, if both men say with certainty that They will never turn their backs on each other , history shows that those who were closest to the forty-seventh president of the United States end up being the people who receive the fiercest criticism .

This list is not exhaustive of all the cases in which several former friends of Donald Trump denounced him:

- Bill Bart , who was in the position of attorney general , denied the Republican's lies about potential fraud that would have allowed Biden to win the 2020 presidential election. This same Bart declared, before Trump won in 2024, that Never again the MAGA candidate "should be anywhere near the Oval Office" .

- Mike Pence , Trump's famous former vice president during his first term, declared that The former president had put his family in danger with the assault on January 6, 2021 , when Democrat Joe Biden was elected president. In addition, Trump's former friend testified to having received Pressure from Trump to violate the US Constitution .

- Michael Cohen , who worked as Donald Trump's lawyer for years, made a Testimony against his former client in a hush money case . In his statement to House committee members in 2019: "People who follow Mr. Trump, as I blindly did, are going to suffer the same consequences that I am suffering."

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These cases represent a tiny percentage of all the times Trump has taken revenge against people he considers traitors. More recently, the president of the world's leading power He downplayed the security risks to several former senior officials, most notably members of his first administration, such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff. These individuals saw their Secret Service protections end overnight when Trump takes office on January 6, 2025.

Donald Trump also demonstrated a couple of times that he did not like being eclipsed . Musk, who is seeking light, could be an obstacle to Trump's wishes of being the center of all media attention. His response when interviewed about the Time magazine cover showing Musk behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, Trump mocked the paper by saying, "Does Time magazine still exist?" This response, coming from the pride of a man who does not like to be in the background, demonstrates the faults that could appear and grow between the two men who for now show themselves as the best friends in the world.

On the contrary, several examples show us that with people he considers trustworthy and who he perceives as having been by his side, Trump can also be very loyal :

- Walt Nauta , Donald Trump's former butler , is working again in the White House after having been accused along with his boss in a classified documents case .

- Peter Navarro , former White House aide who He went to jail for having participated in the assault on the federal Capitol on January 6, 2021, He is working in the Oval Office again to assist in shaping U.S. trade policy.

- Trump He also offered, according to him, "around ten jobs" to his former national security advisers, Mike Flynn , whom the president pardoned after declaring himself Guilty of lying to the FBI .

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So, all the flattery that the two politicians-businessmen exchanged during the interview with Hannity Like when Musk said "I want the president, I just want to make it clear," they can be the proof of a strong friendship . But, However, we can remain skeptical about how long that will last. . The two men They could remain best friends during Trump's four-year term, until 2028, or they could end up hating each other. and hinder each other in the event that one of the two would take too much light, obscuring the other.

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