If DOGE was supposed to cut the national deficit it’s a spectacular dud. Who says so? The head of DOGE, Elon Musk.
The article below is from the AP, edited at […]. I particularly love the part where Cheeto jesus gives make-up tips to Musk. Elon, listen to the Master of Blended Face Powder!
Also, who knew that multi-billion dollar government procurement contracts awarded strictly on merits and mil-specs can be blown-up by a bromance gone sour.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s alliance took off like one of SpaceX’s rockets. It was supercharged and soared high. And then it blew up.
The spectacular flameout Thursday peaked as Trump threatened to cut Musk’s government contracts and Musk claimed that Trump’s administration hasn’t released all the records related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is mentioned in them.
The tech entrepreneur even shared a post on social media calling for Trump’s impeachment and skewered the president’s signature tariffs, predicting a recession this year.
The messy blow-up between the president of the United States and the world’s richest man played out on their respective social media platforms…
Trump had largely remained silent as Musk stewed over the last few days on his social media platform X, condemning the president’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” But Trump clapped back Thursday in the Oval Office, saying he was “very disappointed in Musk.”
Musk responded on social media in real time. Trump…threatened to use the U.S. government to hurt Musk’s bottom line by going after contracts held by his internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his social media network.
“Go ahead, make my day,” Musk quickly replied on X.
Hours later, Musk announced SpaceX would begin decommissioning the spacecraft it used to carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA.
Musk also said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information, that Trump was “in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”…
After Trump started criticizing Musk, shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla plunged more than 14%, knocking about $150 billion off Tesla’s market valuation. Musk lost about $20 billion on his personal holding of Tesla…
Musk… sported a black eye that he said came from his young son but that seemed to be a metaphor for his messy time in government service. Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to zing his critics on appearance, brought it up Thursday.
“I said, ‘Do you want a little makeup? We’ll get you a little makeup.’ Which is interesting,” Trump said.
Musk has griped for days on social media about Trump’s spending bill, warning that it will increase the federal deficit…
…[Trump] said some people [Musk] who leave his administration “miss it so badly” and “actually become hostile.” “It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,” he said…
… Musk…shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticizing Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media.
“Where is the man who wrote these words?” Musk wrote. “Was he replaced by a body double!?”
