| If you were off social media at the end of December, consider yourself lucky—the big story on X, at least, was a noisy and seemingly never-ending spat between Elon Musk and the MAGA-verse. What does this bode for the start of President-elect Donald Trump's second term? Bloomberg Businessweek's Max Chafkin breaks it down. Plus: the world's most on-time airlines. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. The holidays bring people together, which, of course, leads to the kind of vicious fights that can only happen within a family. Elon Musk, Donald Trump and a minivan full of MAGA characters came to virtual blows over the past week or so—previewing what could be an extremely messy four years. The vantage point of the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago Club suggests that the Musk-Trump relationship remains as strong as it's ever been. Musk was in Palm Beach, Florida, with the rest of the MAGA-verse on New Year's Eve, partying with one of his toddlers and one of the mothers of his children (Shivon Zilis, who also works for him at Neuralink). As usual, Musk was seated next to Trump and his wife, Melania. On the other side of the soon-to-be presidential couple was Maye Musk, Elon's mother. But within the world of right-wing media, there were signs of a fissure—one that reflects the ideological incoherence of the immigrant founder of Silicon Valley's most successful electric-car company attempting to play a role in an administration run by a man who's spent much of the past decade attacking all those things: electric cars, immigrants and Silicon Valley's elites. The trouble started just before Christmas, when Laura Loomer, the anti-immigration activist and Trump confidant, criticized the appointment of Sriram Krishnan, a tech investor and close ally of Musk, as an artificial intelligence adviser. Loomer called the Krishnan pick "deeply disturbing," noting he'd recently suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the advisory commission Musk chairs with Vivek Ramaswamy, should expand certain kinds of legal immigration. "It's alarming to see the number of career leftists who are now being appointed to serve in Trump's admin when they share views that are in direct opposition to Trump's America First agenda," Loomer wrote. This wasn't entirely true. Krishnan is no "career leftist." His politics, to the extent that he has strong views, seem to roughly coincide with the libertarian agenda of his previous employer, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which supports relaxed regulation of crypto and AI, lower taxes and, yes, fewer restrictions on companies that want to hire foreign tech workers.  Loomer. Photographer: Jacob M. Langston/The Washington Post/Getty Images But Loomer's point was correct in a larger sense: The issues that most exercise Musk and his allies aren't the ones that most appeal to Trump's base, which tends to favor more restrictions on immigration and isn't positively disposed to Silicon Valley billionaires. (Trump frequently dissed tech titans during his rallies, including Musk, whom he once called "another bulls--- artist," and Mark Zuckerberg, whom he suggested should "spend the rest of his life in prison.") It's possible the so-called MAGA Civil War would've fizzled quickly if not for what happened next, which was that Musk—as he almost always does when faced with sharp criticism—went absolutely berserk on social media. Between seasonal greetings, he tweeted insistently about the need for immigration reform in terms that were sometimes vulgar and offensive. He called his right-wing critics "subtards," and responded in affirmation to a tweet that suggested, using a slur, that right-wing American workers were too dumb to be employable. Musk later deleted that one. Further inflaming the feud, Loomer and a number of other Musk critics noticed that their verification badges on X had disappeared and claimed that this was evidence Musk was censoring them. "How can you call yourself a 'free speech absolutist' and then punish someone by restricting their speech?" Loomer wrote. "We need to have an honest conversation about Big Tech influence over MAGA." She also called Musk a "stage 5 clinger" and attacked him for his relationship with China's Xi Jinping and previous support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an occasional Trump rival. Steve Bannon, Trump's onetime campaign chief, picked up Loomer's critique, focusing several episodes of his popular War Room podcast on Musk and the extreme pro-tech philosophy known as Neoreaction. "Screw you, you clown," Bannon said on a Dec. 31 broadcast, referring to Musk. He added a political threat: Musk needed to back down, or "We're going to rip your face off." That Trump himself went on the record with the New York Post to approve of Musk's pro-visa politics doesn't seem to have stopped their antics. Loomer and Bannon, of course, are provocateurs. (You may remember her arrest in 2017 for disrupting a supposedly anti-Trump production of Julius Caesar during which she likened the cast to members of the terrorist group ISIS.) But their attacks on Musk bite in part because it's never been clear how cleanly Musk's politics fit with Trump's. Musk has a mandate to advise Trump on government spending cuts, but it will be impossible to hit his wildly ambitious $2 trillion goal without cutting Social Security, Medicare and the Defense Department, which are popular among Trump's voters. A more realistic possibility is that Musk will find ways to help his own companies, and Musk has already suggested as much, implying that DOGE will, among other things, legalize his still hypothetical self-driving car. In addition to an ideological divide, the MAGA-Musk conflict is also a fight for access—for the good seats at Mar-a-Lago, in other words. Loomer and her allies view Musk and the other tech supporters, like Krishnan and venture capitalist David Sacks, who's also poised to join the administration, as "Johnny-come-latelies" who have used their clout as donors to push their way into Trump's political circle. During an interview with Bannon on Dec. 30, Loomer said some Trump advisers felt "overshadowed" by Musk but were afraid to speak out because of Musk's wealth. She suggested one of the reasons her comments had gotten under Musk's skin is that she, like Musk, is close to Trump. (She traveled with him frequently during the campaign.) For now, Loomer and her fellow Musk critics show no sign of backing down, suggesting that the great holiday flame war of 2024 is merely a preview of political infighting to come. "I don't believe they actually want to cut government spending," Loomer told me in an interview this week, referring to Musk and Ramaswamy. She called Musk's efficiency commission "a f---ing scam" and accused it of trying to "redirect government spending into the pockets of the Silicon Valley elite." Musk's response has been to allow his proximity to Trump to speak for itself. On Wednesday, he posted a selfie from the New Year's party. "I have a good feeling about 2025," he wrote. More Musk-related headlines: |
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