91. Musk vs. Trump: The Breakup

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Katie Kay, welcome back to the REST's Politics U.S.

You were missed, Katty.

What happened to holidays?

What happened to vacation time?

Yeah, no, but nothing's going on in the world while you're trying to have a holiday.

As you know, nothing is going on.

Can I just take one week off?

One week.

That's all I'm asking for.

I want to bring you up to speed, if you don't mind.

Our good friend Elon Musk, who, of course, we've done this beautiful mini-series about, last episode to drop this coming Tuesday.

is gone hard at Donald Trump.

And so lots of tweeting.

People on probably know what the tweeting is, but some of the big bombs is that Trump is involved in the S.

Epstein files.

He's agreeing that Trump should be impeached and replaced by J.D.

Vance.

And there's a few more colorful ones there.

But the bombing has started.

Trump is also fired back.

Steve Bannon, my dear friend Steve Bannon, has got himself involved.

He says Elon Musk is an illegal alien.

He's got to be thrown out of the country and all of his contracts should be canceled.

So listen, you know I'm a gloater.

So let's just get right into it because I love gloating.

And, you know, I love telling my kids I told you so and shit like that.

So you know I'm a little bit of a gloater.

But I mean, was this not predictable?

Yes or no, Gaddy K.

Okay, so this was what was interesting about this relationship was that you and I said it would last about

three to six months, I think is what we gave it.

And now we are in four and a half months.

So I think that's right in our time frame.

I think both of us were a little surprised that actually they seemed to manage initially to end this amicably,

partly because of the amount of money Elon Musk has and the number of Twitter followers he has.

And so that gives him a lot of power.

And we had seen that Donald Trump wanted to keep Elon Musk on side.

And the other thing that has surprised me is the speed with which this has all unraveled.

So we went from that press conference a couple of days ago in the Oval Office.

Everything seemed to be fine.

As Donald Trump has just said in the last few minutes, look, we seem to be getting on fine and now suddenly we're not getting on fine.

And what precipitated this, ostensibly from Elon Musk's point of view, and I want to get your thoughts on this, was the budget bill that Elon has been criticizing for the last couple of days, saying this is going to add far too much money to the American deficit.

No one can call themselves a conservative.

He's dug up old tweets.

I love that he's using Donald Trump's old tweets against him.

Anyway, he's dug up Donald Trump's old tweets about the budget deficit when Donald Trump was criticizing

Democrats and others for spending far too much money.

So, but this has just unraveled in lightning speed.

I mean, it looked like they were going to finally manage this breakup in a way that was going to suit both of them.

Elon Musk would get out, get back to his companies, and Donald Trump could get rid of this guy whose approval ratings are even lower than Donald Trump's.

And then I don't know why, and I'd love your thoughts on this, why has Elon

gone full attack mode on Donald Trump so quickly?

I mean, because Trump is a bad guy.

I mean, so you have to understand, like, you can't.

Elon Musk has been with this guy for the last year and a half.

It's not like Donald Trump has changed.

But when, no, no, no, he hasn't been there.

Come on.

He started with Trump in August and he got too close to the sun.

And anybody that gets, if you are skirting around the electron orbits of Donald Trump, let's say you're out by Uranus.

We'll use that planet because that seems to be a good word for this type of activity.

So if you're out by Uranus, no problem.

But if you're in close by Mercury, you're going to get scorched by the guy, and you're also going to see the guy's true malevolence.

And so I said

when Stephanie was on

as a guest, that Elon got fired.

And, you know, how did I know that he got fired?

Some sources inside the administration.

Also, the leaking started, you know, the Susie Wiles leaking.

The ketamine drop came from inside the administration, right?

We all know that because you know how Washington works.

And so I think that inflamed Elon.

And then the secondary thing, I think, is the

ridiculousness of it all.

And I said this to you, and I'll just remind people: I said, he thinks Trump is an idiot.

And why?

Because he was tweeting that Peter Navarro was as dumb as a box of rocks.

And then, of course, he sent out a secondary tweet.

I got to apologize to the box of rocks.

I didn't mean to make the comparison, right?

He apologized to the box of rocks.

It was quite a funny tweet sequence.

It was pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's good at this.

And so, so, but when you have a digital fingerprint, trading tariff fingerprint identical, Trump and Navarro, you're saying through your Aspergery code, Trump is an imbecile.

And so he couldn't hold back anymore.

And

he went away from the White House and said, I am done.

Okay.

And now

he's opened up a seam.

And when Trump hit him back, Elon, God bless him, he should be a New Yorker.

Because when Trump started hitting me back, I fired right back at him.

I'm not going to take this stuff from Donald Trump.

Remember, we're still in America.

These people work for us.

We don't work for them.

But he hit him back with something that was so below the belt, Caddy, that Trump would bring, if it wasn't true, Trump would bring a lawsuit.

George Stephanopoulos said a few things about Donald Trump.

He brought a lawsuit.

And by the way, ABC News settled that lawsuit.

If Donald Trump is not in the Epstein files, he's going to fire off a tweet saying, I'm suing Elon Musk for libel

because you're making this outrageous allegation.

Even though I'm a public figure, I think I'm going to beat you in the libel lawsuit.

See what I'm saying?

But so far, we haven't heard peep from that.

Now my sources inside are telling me Trump is trying to figure out a way to de-escalate.

He does not like having this guy sitting out there with $300 or $400 billion.

Does not like it.

Okay.

It's very distracting.

And the communications tool that he has.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

And

the algorithm.

But I got to tell you, I am here for this.

And I'm also here for the tweet where he says the second half of the year, we're we're going to go into a major recession as a result of these tariffs.

That's something you and I have been telling people.

Of course, all the misinformation about the Trump administration, they're not saying that, but that's what's going to happen.

And so listen, Elon Musk, okay, is telling the truth.

Mad Mags is saying, engage smug mode.

I am smug tonight.

I have to be honest with you.

I'm sitting here in Switzerland and I'm as smuggy as smug could be because I got my ass kicked by this process eight years ago, and it took approximately 11 and a half scaramucci for Elon Musk to go through the Trump grinder, and they're going to grind him down now.

They're going to be dropping bombs on him left and right from inside the administration.

And you know, all these journalists are going to be

running there for access, so they'll print whatever the administration wants.

And it's not going to go well

unless Trump de-escalates.

Someone is asking here that I look five years old.

I'm wearing makeup from earlier today.

Yeah, I'm not wearing makeup.

By the way, I'm in France in the Alps.

I just jumped out of bed to do this.

So I'm definitely not wearing makeup.

So Answer's looking a hell of a lot better.

Rory Stewart and I went for makeup.

I just want to let everybody know, if you guys think I look down, you should see Rory Stewart with his makeup.

The guy looks fabulous, okay?

he came with me to the makeup studio I spruced him up Caddy the guy looks fabulous

you're actually in my grandmother's hometown which is kind of fun um but look I mean the question so now we're watching as we're talking Tesla's share price is falling so this is the escalation and this is a question if this character if it is if nobody de-escalates And I think they both have a vested interest in de-escalating because

part of the reason that

he left the government was to attend to the companies that he's meant to be running whose share prices were falling.

And now, this fight that he's got into publicly with the President of the United States is making his share price fall even further on top of that New York Times article about the amount of drugs that he's taking at the moment, the ketamine and the magic mushrooms that he's been taking since he's been working with Donald Trump, which can't be helping his share price either.

So he has an interest in this de-escalating.

There's Steve Bannon loving this and winding up, you know, Trump to start immigration investigations, as we're speaking, into Elon Musk.

And is he there illegally?

Is he there in the United States legally or is it legally what's his immigration status?

He's a U.S.

citizen.

But Bannon wants to get involved in this.

Of course, Bannon wants to get involved in this.

But I don't, I mean, how does Trump is, this is an interesting one for Trump because Trump would normally assume, as he did with you, that he's just the biggest lion in the pride and he can win this one.

But he's also got to be conscious.

And I'm so looking forward, by the way, guys, to recording the final episode of our Elon Musk series.

I think they've done all of this just for Anthony and me as a kind of treat to give us a great twist plot twist at the end.

I mean, what great timing.

But Trump has...

Trump is in a slightly unusual position, which he's always been in, which is that Elon does have these followers on X and he does have a huge amount of money.

And

whilst it didn't work out for him in Wisconsin with the Supreme Court race, he can still weigh in on primaries, even if he says he's not going to be involved in politics anymore.

So they both have an interest in de-escalating this one, right?

I mean, they, I don't think

you know that Trump wants to go full attack against Elon Musk.

Yes.

So

I'll say this.

What I got wrong, at least, is that I thought that their personalities would be contained

given how badly the situation would be for each of them if it blew up.

And so now it looks like it couldn't be contained.

But believe me, when a guy's tweeting that you're in the Epstein files, and by the way, Caddy, if the guy that is in the Epstein files is actually in the Epstein files, you're going to want to de-escalate.

So I'm going to make a prediction on this little short podcast that we're doing, this short live podcast, that they're going to find a way to de-escalate this.

I can't imagine.

Because they don't want mutually, I mean, as you guys are pointing out,

people watching this, this is mutually assured destruction if they don't.

Because Elon is now threatening to do things with, and I realize Tesla is not the issue for the government, but if he starts, you know, looking at SpaceX and if he starts looking at satellites, then that has an impact for

the U.S.

government's security.

But let's talk about this, though.

If they cancel all of his projects,

all the government projects on SpaceX, They're making $5.5 billion right now just on the Starlink.

That's net profitability just on Starlink.

I don't think they want Elon selling this rocket tree to other countries.

I mean, there's no way they're going to cancel these contracts.

They could threaten to cancel the contracts, but is Donald Trump for a personal fight with Elon Musk going to disrupt the whole trajectory of NASA and all the different military things that SpaceX is doing on behalf of the Pentagon and the United States.

I mean, maybe, but if he does that, he's jumping the shark.

So I want to make three predictions here quickly, and then I would like you to react to all three.

Okay, prediction number one, they're going to de-escalate.

I predict before the end of the weekend, there'll be some type of peace treaty between these two

looney tunes.

Okay, number two, okay, I...

And I could be wrong on this, but I really believe that Elon Musk is going to start a third party.

I do believe that.

I do believe that he's going to spend the $50 to $60 billion, something crazy like that, with a group of his friends to start a third party because he's talking about that.

He's out there talking about that.

Is there a way to set up an endowment for a third party that's outside of the two parties that are running the country off the cliff in terms of the outside spending?

So that's prediction number two.

And then the last prediction is that Trump is now a decaying political asset.

And you can mark today, the day before the Normandy invasion anniversary, the 5th of June.

Trump is now a decaying political asset because you've got Elon is going to pull the plug on the algorithm.

Elon's going to put pressure on him in ways that people cannot imagine, even if they declare a truce.

And he's going to get wounded in a way that people are going to be surprised by because Elon has a lot of followers in Silicon Valley.

They're going to start writing checks to non-MAGA people.

And the Republicans are going to shift gears as Trump goes into the midterms as a decaying asset.

So those are my three predictions.

What say you?

I think there's a slight contradiction between the

de-escalation, which I agree with.

I think they both find, at least in the short term, a way to de-escalate.

And I think they do it quickly.

It's interesting that as we're speaking,

oh, I've got lots of balloons.

That's fun.

Is it your birthday, Kat?

I don't think so or not.

It's, it's, no, and I'm not any older.

I promise everybody I'm not older.

I don't know why there are balloons.

I think he does.

They definitely tried to de-escalate.

And it's interesting that you and I are speaking, and Elon Musk has already not tweeted for the last whatever hour or something.

So there could be some thinking going on around Elon Musk to take it and it maybe to do with the stock price, Tesla's stock price dropping, as he tweeted, that he's going to take his finger off the trigger for a little bit.

But they've both, he in particular, Elon Musk, has thrown so much stuff out there that he does make it harder for Donald Trump to de-escalate.

But Trump is capable of de-escalating when he wants to.

He's also capable of taking people who have been enemies and bringing them back into the fold.

I mean, he's, you know, countless people that he has done that with.

So I think he's capable of getting over this.

He'd rather have Elon Musk pissing, you know, inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.

Maybe Elon Musk tries to start a third party.

I suspect part of him is also going to think, as he has said in the last week or two, you know what, this politics business doesn't really get you very far.

And he was better off when he was focusing on his engineering and better off when he was focusing on, you know, SpaceX and Neuralink and also on Tesla.

And does he really want to get involved in politics?

He's been burned by this process.

He's seen what comes out when you get into this.

I mean, the New York Times article is probably just the beginning of what would happen if he was really going to start a third party and run for president.

So does he really want to get involved in politics more than he has been?

I don't know.

I think they do try to de-escalate.

I'm not sure that he tries to start a third party and I'm not sure how far that would go anyway, however much money he has, just the system is so stacked against it.

But

yeah, so I think I that's I'm iffy on the third party thing.

Because I don't know that he really wants to do more politics.

What's in it for him to do more politics?

He was having a much more, I mean, I know, look, anyone who's listened to our series, and please do listen to it because it gets into all of this.

He doesn't have much filter.

He likes drama.

He loves risk.

And I guess, you know, politics would be the ultimate drama factor for him.

But he's also made it pretty clear that the political game was was not what he thought it was going to be.

And so what are the upsides from that?

Now, if Trump was to turn around and really cancel a whole load of

Musk-related asset contracts in government, then that might spur him to try to do something as he, you know,

got one of Musk's cronies out of NASA.

So maybe that was partly what this is all about too.

I'm going to keep watching

the

tweets, see if any more of those come out.

Watch what happens over the course of the next couple of days and how both of these men, because I was watching Donald Trump, I watched that video in the Oval Office and he looked stressed by this.

This was not Donald Trump in happy mode.

He didn't look like he liked being in this position.

He realizes the risk to him.

And Elon is not Trump, but he still has a lot of power with MAGA.

I was just saying that

talking about watching Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Anthony, and how stressed Trump looked.

He did not look like somebody who was in joy.

This was not Trump taking on Zelensky.

He looked much less happy taking on Elon Musk than he looks taking on Zelensky.

He knows the risks and how this put he would he would rather have Musk on side than offside.

And I think that that is not where he is at the moment.

I think

Anthony warned me that his

Wi-Fi in Switzerland, my dear dear home country, I can't believe I'm saying this, was not as good as he would like it to be.

So I think we have lost Anthony for the rest of the evening.

But guys, next Monday, we are going to be recording the final episode of our Elon Musk series.

And we will know more by then.

But my God, we couldn't have asked for a more extraordinary twist for the final moment of the Elon Musk saga.

So join us if you're not members.

It's at the restispolitics.

Go to therestispoliticsus.com.

The restispoliticsus.com to sign up and become a founding member.

And we will dive deeper into this.

And by Monday, I hope we'll have more of this.

And we'll see whether Anthony's predictions come true and whether we may have to wait a bit to see on that third party.

I'm a little suspicious about that.

Third parties are very difficult in America, and I'm not sure Elon has the stomach for yet more politics.

They obviously didn't pay the Wi-Fi bill.

I was just about to say that.

They obviously didn't pay the Wi-Fi bill at my hotel.

I'm sorry.

Keeps bouncing off.

I was just wrapping up, Anthony.

So give us your.

All right,

I'll let you wrap up.

We're going to save it for Monday.

I think he's ambitious on the politics.

I think he's got the fever now.

So we'll see.

But you may be right.

You're more reasonable than me.

I'm a little bit more

irrational.

By the way, I tried to order popcorn for room service here.

They don't have popcorn on the menu here in Switzerland.

Switzerland.

No.

Thank goodness they don't have popcorn on the menu.

Anyway, if you haven't got anything else to do, wander around into Lachen.

It's where I spent all of my holidays growing up.

And I'm very glad you went to Cafe Shu, which was where I used to go every day.

It was actually a very nice cafe.

It's very nice.

I thought of your grandmother.

I thought of your grandmother when I was in there.

We missed you.

We missed you on the podcast this week.

By the way, you know, when Michael Steele

did a wonderful job, it was so good.

I just want to know.

I just want you to know when Michael Steele joins the podcast, I don't hear, Anthony, I missed you on the podcast.

I don't know.

Maybe.

No, I don't really know.

So needy.

So needy.

Needy.

Needy.

Needy.

Guys, great, have a great week.

Bye, guys.

Okay, and we will get back to you Monday.

I promise you, we'll have the last episode, and then we'll be back next week on Friday,

of course, with our regular episode as well.

I suspect we know what we're going to be talking about.

Okay, take care, everybody.

I'm having a good time.

I hope you guys are too.

That's all I have to say.

Yeah.

Have a great week.

That is one happy Anthony Scaramucci.

I am very happy right now.

Very happy.

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