June 5, 2025 • 14 mins
Minutes after Trump accused Elon of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and Elon claimed "Without me, Trump would have lost the election," we are joined by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Josh Green for a special emergency podcast to talk about whether this breakup will last. Could Elon and Trump reconcile over a less big, less beautiful tax bill? Could Elon flip parties again and join the Democrats? We game out the possibilities.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Utson Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are out.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
They in four.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Post We are meant for great things in the United
States of America, and Elon reminds us of that we
don't have a fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Welcome to Elon, Inc.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Max Chafkin here joining you for a special emergency edition
of the podcast. It's about one o'clock on Thursday, as
June fifth, as we're recording this, and Donald Trump has
been making comments about Elon Musk in the Oval Office.
They were so explosive, so negative, that we wanted to
(01:00):
get here quickly and talk about them. If you've been
listening to the podcast, the question of how long will
this relationship last? How long can these two men who
have different egos, different ideological points of view, has been
kind of something we've talked about for basically a year
and we have been saying all along, at least I
have been saying that they need each other and that
(01:20):
for all of the kind of tension and some of
the signaling that we've seen on Twitter or whatever from Musk,
that it's basically no big deal. And I have to
say David Papadopolis, who has been taking the opposite position,
looking a little bit more like he was right on
this one, wanted to bring in Josh Green, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
(01:43):
political reporter, friend of the show, author of The Devil's
Bargain to talk about this.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Josh, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Doing great? Just sitting down here in DC amidst all
the drama.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
As somebody on Twitter said, it's like we've reached the
mom and dad or screaming at each other in the car.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Phase of the divorce. So it's a really exciting moment
to be joining.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You, all right, So about that, So let's just first
of all, Trump is in the Oval with Friedrich Murrz,
the new Chancellor of Germany. He's getting asked all sorts
of questions about Vladimir Putin and so on, and then
someone asked him about Elon Musk, who has you know,
basically for three four days now, just been essentially tweeting
NonStop about how the big beautiful bill, as Trump calls it,
(02:25):
I guess that's the formal name, how terrible it is.
And let's listen to a little bit about what Trump
had to say about that.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it
better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem
until right after he left. And if you saw these
statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can
get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said
the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said
bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next.
But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elan a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It would have been possible, I guess, for Elon to
try to kind of patch things up here, but instead
he has been going off on Twitter. He actually responded
to this one, saying false, this bill was never shown
to me even once, and was passed in the dead
of night, so fast that almost no one in Congress
could even read it. A little bit later, he said
Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House,
(03:14):
and Republicans would be fifty one forty nine in the Senate.
You know, Trump has kept talking. Let's listen to one
more clip.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
He's not the first people leave my administration, and they
love us, and then at some point they miss it
so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some
of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is.
It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome. I guess they call it.
But we'd have it with others too. They leave, and
(03:44):
they wake up in the morning and the glamour's gun,
the whole world is different, and they become hostile. I
don't know what it is. Someday you'll write a book
about it, and you'll let us know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Josh, you have written about this extensively, the extent to
which people in Trump's orbit can sometimes become quote hostile,
as President calls. It's what's kind of your reaction to this?
I mean, I feel like you all along have been
predicting this, and I think all along I've been saying
I I don't know, and here we are. I feel
like that your predictions have finally been born out.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I mean like they certainly have, just by the evidence
of the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But I don't want to.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I don't want to spike the football because I thought
this would happen back in like January. Like I'm I'm
still amazed that the bromance lasted as long as it did,
because as we're now seeing play out in the ugliest
form in Twitter and in the Oval Office, both of
these guys have tremendous egos. They have to be the
main character. There isn't room for a co star. And
(04:46):
you know, Elon is hurt. I think that the Doge
effort was largely a failure. Now he's going back to
deal with his private companies, including Tesla, that are reeling.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He's obviously nursing wounds over.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Over some of the in the big beautiful Bill, and
it's just decided to have a big, ugly public tantrum.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
About it, which is kind of what we come to
expect from him.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, and Trump mentioned this, I mean, he said, Elon's
problem with the bill is these ev subsidies. These are
the tax credits that essentially made Tesla's cars and the
cars of other EV makers cheaper.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
And Trump's right. He was on the.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Campaign trail saying this, like every single day, we're gonna
end the ev mandate. We're gonna end the ev mandate.
And somehow Elon Musk like looked past it or something.
It's it's a very it's a strange thing.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Trump also said that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
The reason he pulled Jared Jared Isaacman's nomination the nomination
for the head of NASA was because this is a
friend of Elon Musk and he thought it was inappropriate.
So so it's kind of like, both these guys are
now discovering things that I think we're sort of obvious
all along.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, you know, I think that's right.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
I mean, the other the other factor about the v
Man eights is I believe at some point Elon was
asked about this and indicated he was fine with it,
you know, back back when the stuff was bouncing around
during the campaign. You know, I think he's sort of
grasping for any weapon in hand to try and criticize
Trump and express his deep unhappiness over I guess how
(06:11):
his tenure went in Washington, what his relationship with Trump
and the Trump.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
White House is like.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
And I think really what he wasn't able to accomplish. Remember,
he went in originally's going to cut a trillion dollars,
and he came out in Madison Square Garden and said no, no, no,
two trillion dollars. And you know, the first legislative manifestation
of those cuts is about to come before Congress and
it's a pitdlling nine billion dollars and it's not even
clear that that's going to pass. I mean, they're talking
(06:37):
about wiping out NPR and Big Bird in Sesame Street,
and even that might not get over the finish line.
So I think it kind of underscores the degree to
which Elon has failed in the goals that he set
out for himself. And again that public failure is just
sort of spilling out across Twitter.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
I think he does care about these EV mandates.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And my take, and I should say, Elon, in this
barrage of tweets that he's been firing off over the
last hour, so did say, whatever, keep the EV in
solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Gas subsidies are touched.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Parentheses, very unfair, double exclamation point, but ditch the mountain
of disgusting pork all in all caps in the bill.
So he's saying, look, I'm willing to let the EV
subsidies slide. I do think, Josh, that there's been a change,
because back when Elon was sort of okay with this
tesla's finances looked way way better, and now you have
(07:37):
this like huge demand problem, the idea that he's facing
having to make his cars seventy five hundred dollars more expensive,
which is the potential upshot. I think I think the
state of play has changed maybe a little bit, and
that could be part of it.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
But I also think you're right.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I mean, he just he you know, he set up
almost this impossible task for himself. You know, there were
lots of people at the time saying there's no way
he's ever going to be able to cut two trillion
or one trillion or even less than that. And now
like he sort of confronted with the essential failure of
this Doge project.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, he has.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And there's been a movement on the right in MAGA
circles among Elon's enemies for a few weeks now.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
He was surely ramped up in the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Steve Bannon on his podcast yesterday was saying, Elon, you
promised us freight fraud, waste and interviews show us the receipts.
There's no fraud that meaningful fraud we can detect in
Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, like show.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Us the goods.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
And I think another reason the big Beautiful Bill is
so fat and ugly, as Elon put it was he
just wasn't able to come up with these compensating cuts.
And so you have the Congressional Budget Office coming out
yesterday and saying, yes, this bill is going to add
two point four trillion dollars to the deficit. So in
terms of an offset for all the spending that that
Trump and Republicans want, they were really counting on Elon
(08:58):
to deliver that and he failed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, County, Like pretty unrealistic. But yes, I mean again,
like I know, he's sort of left holding the bag.
I mean in terms of in terms of blame. And
now you can see all of these people like Bannon,
like you know, trump allies in Congress kind of turning
on him and making him out to be the bad guy. Okay, Josh,
let's talk about where this goes. I mean, this is
going to continue to unfold. We'll talk about this at length,
(09:22):
I know, you know, on future podcasts, but they're so
sort of seemed like two possibilities to me. Like, one
is they could patch things up at some point, you know,
Trump and.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Even though they're even though they're you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Know, at each other's you know, to see each other
on Twitter, Trump was kind of saying he hasn't been
attacking me. There seems to be just the faintest crack
for them to somehow reconcile, though it seems like it's
getting harder and harder by the minute. The other thing
is like, could eln embrace the Democrats or does he
just sort of ally with the kind of super hard
(09:56):
right deficit Hawk Thomas Massey ran a faction of the
Republican Party, like I assume, and he's he's sort of
said like he's gonna throw the bums out. Sounds like
he's still gearing up to spend money during the midterm,
but like where does that money go?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, it's not exactly clear to me. I'm not sure
it's clear to him either.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I mean, he just started having an emotional crisis, like,
you know, loud and proud out across exit.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Twitter for all of us, all of us to see.
I mean, I personally have thought that like the devastating.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Move that some trollish, enterprising, high profile Democrat would make
is to get out there, like right now and start
publicly banging the drums and saying, these ev tax credits
are good, we need to get them back in the
bill and get rid of those oil and gas credits
and see if you could kind of tempt Elon into
jumping over to your side and maybe attacking Elon even more.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Maybe somebody like a.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Gavin Newsom or a Rama manual or somebody out there who's.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Good at rokana even who's kind of doing it just
the tiniest bit, although you know, I'm not sure that
he's on the level of the Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Think Roquoid has the fire in the belly and the
kind of like implicit trollish personality that would be required
to kind of carry this off at the highest level,
because you would also need to kind of anger Trump
and turn this into like a big fight, like a
big thing.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
But it's it's it's certainly doable.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I mean, I've been getting texts like all day long
from Democrats being like, oh my god, I can't believe
this is happening.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They've finally broken up.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Mom and dad are fighting Washington is riveted, So ain't
could kind of happen from this point on?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, and I I don't think what you're suggesting is crazy.
He's fickle and and he you know, he will go where,
you know, where he sees advantage. And I think the
one issue, the one thing that's kind of stopping this
is that he's carving out an ideological position that is
pretty incompatible with like Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It's like, hey, we need to cot Medicaid more.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's not so So that's the That's that's what makes
me wonder if maybe there is a chance of a reconciliation.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, look, I would.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Say on the on the policy front, I mean Elon,
like Trump, doesn't seem to be a man of like
fixed principles when it comes to like the full panoply
of like yet US public policy that cares. Certainly cares
about ev mandates. You know, that's that's important for his business.
But you know, whether he could be tempted to come
around and maybe forswear Medicaid cuts.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
For something else, you know, who knows.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I think the bigger problem for Democrats is that if
you sidle up to Elon Musk, you can anger a
lot of the base because Musk is now I think
even more unpopular among Democratic voters, and Donald Trump himself is.
And we saw the fall out of that in Wisconsin
Supreme Court raised a couple of months ago.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, and we and you know, it's possible that he's
just going to find himself in some kind of weird,
uncanny valley where no one likes him, where the Trump
voters are mad at him, the Democrats are mad at him.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's where my money would Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He I just just one more piece of late breaking news.
He has stopped following Trump advisor Stephen Miller on X.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Well that that's I mean, that was his greatest ally
and perhaps his last ally in the Truff administration. So
that is that is quite a blow, and that will
lead to all sorts of gossip in Washington about whether
it's just to fallout with Trump or whether there's some
other story behind the scenes. We're not privy too about
why Steven Miller would be so angry at elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I'm sure we will talk about all that more on
a later episode.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Josh Green, thanks for joining us. I really appreciate it all.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It's pleasure.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
This episode was created, produced, conceived, supervised by Magnus Hendrickson,
our supervising producer, edited by Anamazakis. Our executive producer is
Brendan Francis Newnham Stage Bauman Heads Bloomberg Podcast. If you
like this episode, please rate and review it. We will
really appreciate it and we will see you at our
regularly schedule time next week
Let me tell you we have a new star.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
A star is born Elon pumped up on Mars Utson Kennedy.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
He is the Thomas Edison plus plus plus of our age.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.
I feel for the guy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I would say ninety eight percent really appreciate what he does.
But those two percent that are nasty, they are out.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
They in four.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Post We are meant for great things in the United
States of America, and Elon reminds us of that we
don't have a fourth branch of governments called Elon Musk.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
Welcome to Elon, Inc.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Max Chafkin here joining you for a special emergency edition
of the podcast. It's about one o'clock on Thursday, as
June fifth, as we're recording this, and Donald Trump has
been making comments about Elon Musk in the Oval Office.
They were so explosive, so negative, that we wanted to
(01:00):
get here quickly and talk about them. If you've been
listening to the podcast, the question of how long will
this relationship last? How long can these two men who
have different egos, different ideological points of view, has been
kind of something we've talked about for basically a year
and we have been saying all along, at least I
have been saying that they need each other and that
(01:20):
for all of the kind of tension and some of
the signaling that we've seen on Twitter or whatever from Musk,
that it's basically no big deal. And I have to
say David Papadopolis, who has been taking the opposite position,
looking a little bit more like he was right on
this one, wanted to bring in Josh Green, Bloomberg BusinessWeek
(01:43):
political reporter, friend of the show, author of The Devil's
Bargain to talk about this.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
Josh, how are you doing?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Doing great? Just sitting down here in DC amidst all
the drama.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
As somebody on Twitter said, it's like we've reached the
mom and dad or screaming at each other in the car.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Phase of the divorce. So it's a really exciting moment
to be joining.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
You, all right, So about that, So let's just first
of all, Trump is in the Oval with Friedrich Murrz,
the new Chancellor of Germany. He's getting asked all sorts
of questions about Vladimir Putin and so on, and then
someone asked him about Elon Musk, who has you know,
basically for three four days now, just been essentially tweeting
NonStop about how the big beautiful bill, as Trump calls it,
(02:25):
I guess that's the formal name, how terrible it is.
And let's listen to a little bit about what Trump
had to say about that.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it
better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem
until right after he left. And if you saw these
statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can
get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said
the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said
bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next.
But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elan a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It would have been possible, I guess, for Elon to
try to kind of patch things up here, but instead
he has been going off on Twitter. He actually responded
to this one, saying false, this bill was never shown
to me even once, and was passed in the dead
of night, so fast that almost no one in Congress
could even read it. A little bit later, he said
Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House,
(03:14):
and Republicans would be fifty one forty nine in the Senate.
You know, Trump has kept talking. Let's listen to one
more clip.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
He's not the first people leave my administration, and they
love us, and then at some point they miss it
so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some
of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is.
It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome. I guess they call it.
But we'd have it with others too. They leave, and
(03:44):
they wake up in the morning and the glamour's gun,
the whole world is different, and they become hostile. I
don't know what it is. Someday you'll write a book
about it, and you'll let us know.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Josh, you have written about this extensively, the extent to
which people in Trump's orbit can sometimes become quote hostile,
as President calls. It's what's kind of your reaction to this?
I mean, I feel like you all along have been
predicting this, and I think all along I've been saying
I I don't know, and here we are. I feel
like that your predictions have finally been born out.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I mean like they certainly have, just by the evidence
of the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But I don't want to.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I don't want to spike the football because I thought
this would happen back in like January. Like I'm I'm
still amazed that the bromance lasted as long as it did,
because as we're now seeing play out in the ugliest
form in Twitter and in the Oval Office, both of
these guys have tremendous egos. They have to be the
main character. There isn't room for a co star. And
(04:46):
you know, Elon is hurt. I think that the Doge
effort was largely a failure. Now he's going back to
deal with his private companies, including Tesla, that are reeling.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He's obviously nursing wounds over.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Over some of the in the big beautiful Bill, and
it's just decided to have a big, ugly public tantrum.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
About it, which is kind of what we come to
expect from him.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, and Trump mentioned this, I mean, he said, Elon's
problem with the bill is these ev subsidies. These are
the tax credits that essentially made Tesla's cars and the
cars of other EV makers cheaper.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
And Trump's right. He was on the.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Campaign trail saying this, like every single day, we're gonna
end the ev mandate. We're gonna end the ev mandate.
And somehow Elon Musk like looked past it or something.
It's it's a very it's a strange thing.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Trump also said that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
The reason he pulled Jared Jared Isaacman's nomination the nomination
for the head of NASA was because this is a
friend of Elon Musk and he thought it was inappropriate.
So so it's kind of like, both these guys are
now discovering things that I think we're sort of obvious
all along.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, you know, I think that's right.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
I mean, the other the other factor about the v
Man eights is I believe at some point Elon was
asked about this and indicated he was fine with it,
you know, back back when the stuff was bouncing around
during the campaign. You know, I think he's sort of
grasping for any weapon in hand to try and criticize
Trump and express his deep unhappiness over I guess how
(06:11):
his tenure went in Washington, what his relationship with Trump
and the Trump.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
White House is like.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
And I think really what he wasn't able to accomplish. Remember,
he went in originally's going to cut a trillion dollars,
and he came out in Madison Square Garden and said no, no, no,
two trillion dollars. And you know, the first legislative manifestation
of those cuts is about to come before Congress and
it's a pitdlling nine billion dollars and it's not even
clear that that's going to pass. I mean, they're talking
(06:37):
about wiping out NPR and Big Bird in Sesame Street,
and even that might not get over the finish line.
So I think it kind of underscores the degree to
which Elon has failed in the goals that he set
out for himself. And again that public failure is just
sort of spilling out across Twitter.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
I think he does care about these EV mandates.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And my take, and I should say, Elon, in this
barrage of tweets that he's been firing off over the
last hour, so did say, whatever, keep the EV in
solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Gas subsidies are touched.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Parentheses, very unfair, double exclamation point, but ditch the mountain
of disgusting pork all in all caps in the bill.
So he's saying, look, I'm willing to let the EV
subsidies slide. I do think, Josh, that there's been a change,
because back when Elon was sort of okay with this
tesla's finances looked way way better, and now you have
(07:37):
this like huge demand problem, the idea that he's facing
having to make his cars seventy five hundred dollars more expensive,
which is the potential upshot. I think I think the
state of play has changed maybe a little bit, and
that could be part of it.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
But I also think you're right.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
I mean, he just he you know, he set up
almost this impossible task for himself. You know, there were
lots of people at the time saying there's no way
he's ever going to be able to cut two trillion
or one trillion or even less than that. And now
like he sort of confronted with the essential failure of
this Doge project.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, he has.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
And there's been a movement on the right in MAGA
circles among Elon's enemies for a few weeks now.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
He was surely ramped up in the last forty eight hours.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Steve Bannon on his podcast yesterday was saying, Elon, you
promised us freight fraud, waste and interviews show us the receipts.
There's no fraud that meaningful fraud we can detect in
Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, like show.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Us the goods.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
And I think another reason the big Beautiful Bill is
so fat and ugly, as Elon put it was he
just wasn't able to come up with these compensating cuts.
And so you have the Congressional Budget Office coming out
yesterday and saying, yes, this bill is going to add
two point four trillion dollars to the deficit. So in
terms of an offset for all the spending that that
Trump and Republicans want, they were really counting on Elon
(08:58):
to deliver that and he failed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, County, Like pretty unrealistic. But yes, I mean again,
like I know, he's sort of left holding the bag.
I mean in terms of in terms of blame. And
now you can see all of these people like Bannon,
like you know, trump allies in Congress kind of turning
on him and making him out to be the bad guy. Okay, Josh,
let's talk about where this goes. I mean, this is
going to continue to unfold. We'll talk about this at length,
(09:22):
I know, you know, on future podcasts, but they're so
sort of seemed like two possibilities to me. Like, one
is they could patch things up at some point, you know,
Trump and.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
Even though they're even though they're you.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Know, at each other's you know, to see each other
on Twitter, Trump was kind of saying he hasn't been
attacking me. There seems to be just the faintest crack
for them to somehow reconcile, though it seems like it's
getting harder and harder by the minute. The other thing
is like, could eln embrace the Democrats or does he
just sort of ally with the kind of super hard
(09:56):
right deficit Hawk Thomas Massey ran a faction of the
Republican Party, like I assume, and he's he's sort of
said like he's gonna throw the bums out. Sounds like
he's still gearing up to spend money during the midterm,
but like where does that money go?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, it's not exactly clear to me. I'm not sure
it's clear to him either.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
I mean, he just started having an emotional crisis, like,
you know, loud and proud out across exit.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Twitter for all of us, all of us to see.
I mean, I personally have thought that like the devastating.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Move that some trollish, enterprising, high profile Democrat would make
is to get out there, like right now and start
publicly banging the drums and saying, these ev tax credits
are good, we need to get them back in the
bill and get rid of those oil and gas credits
and see if you could kind of tempt Elon into
jumping over to your side and maybe attacking Elon even more.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Maybe somebody like a.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Gavin Newsom or a Rama manual or somebody out there who's.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Good at rokana even who's kind of doing it just
the tiniest bit, although you know, I'm not sure that
he's on the level of the Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Think Roquoid has the fire in the belly and the
kind of like implicit trollish personality that would be required
to kind of carry this off at the highest level,
because you would also need to kind of anger Trump
and turn this into like a big fight, like a
big thing.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
But it's it's it's certainly doable.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I mean, I've been getting texts like all day long
from Democrats being like, oh my god, I can't believe
this is happening.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They've finally broken up.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Mom and dad are fighting Washington is riveted, So ain't
could kind of happen from this point on?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, and I I don't think what you're suggesting is crazy.
He's fickle and and he you know, he will go where,
you know, where he sees advantage. And I think the
one issue, the one thing that's kind of stopping this
is that he's carving out an ideological position that is
pretty incompatible with like Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It's like, hey, we need to cot Medicaid more.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's not so So that's the That's that's what makes
me wonder if maybe there is a chance of a reconciliation.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, look, I would.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Say on the on the policy front, I mean Elon,
like Trump, doesn't seem to be a man of like
fixed principles when it comes to like the full panoply
of like yet US public policy that cares. Certainly cares
about ev mandates. You know, that's that's important for his business.
But you know, whether he could be tempted to come
around and maybe forswear Medicaid cuts.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
For something else, you know, who knows.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I think the bigger problem for Democrats is that if
you sidle up to Elon Musk, you can anger a
lot of the base because Musk is now I think
even more unpopular among Democratic voters, and Donald Trump himself is.
And we saw the fall out of that in Wisconsin
Supreme Court raised a couple of months ago.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah, and we and you know, it's possible that he's
just going to find himself in some kind of weird,
uncanny valley where no one likes him, where the Trump
voters are mad at him, the Democrats are mad at him.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
That's where my money would Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He I just just one more piece of late breaking news.
He has stopped following Trump advisor Stephen Miller on X.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Well that that's I mean, that was his greatest ally
and perhaps his last ally in the Truff administration. So
that is that is quite a blow, and that will
lead to all sorts of gossip in Washington about whether
it's just to fallout with Trump or whether there's some
other story behind the scenes. We're not privy too about
why Steven Miller would be so angry at elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I'm sure we will talk about all that more on
a later episode.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Josh Green, thanks for joining us. I really appreciate it all.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
It's pleasure.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
This episode was created, produced, conceived, supervised by Magnus Hendrickson,
our supervising producer, edited by Anamazakis. Our executive producer is
Brendan Francis Newnham Stage Bauman Heads Bloomberg Podcast. If you
like this episode, please rate and review it. We will
really appreciate it and we will see you at our
regularly schedule time next week
Host
David Papadopoulos
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