What caused the fallout between Trump and Musk? The unexpected trigger no one saw coming

Some said it was never going to work, that two ultra-Alpha males would clash heads like two tilting Easter Island statues... and they were right.

It didn’t last long before Donald Trump and Elon Musk parted ways from the White House, with the President having taken on the unelected South African in an unspecific ‘head role’ at DOGE, the task force designed to slash federal spending on ordinary Americans.

It all felt so real: Trump was flogging Teslas on the White House lawn as Musk chuckled in the passenger seat. The pair shared plenty of Oval Office moments together and Musk even got his own blackout MAGA cap, as well as a black eye.

Musk opposed Trump’s economic plans

Alas, the story was to end there, with tensions long bubbling under the surface over policy, ego, and public backing.

A key turning point in the bromance came when Trump announced his crazy tariff policy, a move that turned the world on its head. In a stunning press announcement, the President revealed an arbitrary equation that had been used to calculate the tariffs placed on almost every country on Earth, including islands only inhabited by penguins. Musk, an international businessman with ties across global supply chains, was said to be less than won over by this idea, and the US stock market tumbled as a result.

Further straining the relationship was Musk’s strong opposition to Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” legislation that experts warn could cripple the economy, increase national debt and cut healthcare for millions of hardworking Americans.

Musk’s calls for a new ‘third’ political force emerged after the bill passed, publicly signalling his complete rejection of it.

The fight breaks out: “We might have to put DOGE on Elon”

The fight has been taken online, with Mr Musk claiming that Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vance, before rolling back on the statement. He also tweeted that “Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame,” threatening that “they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

Trump also had his say on Musk’s rebellion, saying that “the poor guy’s got a problem," before even sending a message that the South African could be sent home: “We’ll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies.”

We’ve had the Gallagher brothers make a sensational return for a lot of money, so don’t rule anything out. But right now, with Musk lining up an ‘alternative’ to the two-party dominance in America, it feels a long way off for the two rutting stags to ever be seen at the same birthday party again.

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