On Monday morning, anonymous hackers played a video on screens throughout the Department of Housing and Urban Development HQ in Washington, D.C. The AI-generated video jankily portrayed President Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet, with an overlaid caption reading: “Long live the real king.” It reportedly played on a loop for five minutes before the baffled building staff eventually scrambled to each floor and turned off the TVs manually.
As amusing as it may have been for some to see a high-tech protest depicting a low-status Trump, amusement is all this protest has to offer. Those looking for, or trying to manifest, cracks in the president’s relationship with the world’s richest man still have their work cut out for them. Despite Trump’s historically mercurial affinities, and a distaste for being overshadowed, his alliance with Musk appears a lot sturdier than many predicted.
The AI-generated video that played at HUD is hardly the first public attempt to drive a wedge between the president and the tech oligarch. Media figures such as Rachel Maddow, politicians including Senator Bernie Sanders, and random social media users have all been part of a sprawling concerted effort to turn Trump against “President Musk.” Rolling Stone even reported in December on conversations taking place within the Democratic National Committee about party leaders describing Trump as subservient to Musk, in order to activate Trump’s ego.
It’s easy to see why they might have thought this strategy would succeed. During Trump’s first term, he quickly soured on the people in his orbit. In 2017 alone, 34% of his top aides either resigned, were fired, or transitioned to different positions; a record amount of turnover for a president in his first year. By the end of that term, among the most influential positions within his administration, the rate of turnover reportedly reached 92%.
Beyond past precedent, there were other reasons to believe the relationship would quickly combust. Both men clearly enjoy being the main character of the internet; perhaps the world stage wouldn’t be big enough to contain both egos. On top of that, their apparently tight bond got off to a rocky start. After his political pivot to the right, Musk initially threw his weight behind Governor Ron DeSantis in 2022, since Trump would be “too old” by the end of a second term. Trump, for his part, called Musk a “bullshit artist” around the same time.
Any differences between the two, however, now seem confined to the past. During a joint appearance on Fox News’s Hannity last week, Sean Hannity asked Musk and Trump about the push to break up their partnership. In response, Trump confirmed he’s aware of those efforts, saying: “Elon called me. He said, ‘You know they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’ You know, they said, ‘We have breaking news: Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a Cabinet meeting tonight at 8 o’clock.’ And I say—it’s just so obvious. They’re so bad at it.”
Perhaps it was a calculated move to present a unified front in the face of so much wishful thinking for a falling out. But there are plenty of reasons beyond the Hannity interview to suggest that a divorce won’t be coming any time soon.
Trump and Musk’s shared vision
Trump and Musk appear to be on the same page about how the U.S. should be governed, for one thing. As Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency decimates headcount in federal offices around the country, he is on the brink of achieving what Trump set out to do in his first term. Soon after taking office in 2017, Trump signed an executive order placing a hiring freeze across the executive branch. It lasted 79 days, during which then-head of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney developed a long-term plan for workforce reduction. Trump would go on to spend the rest of his term fuming about the “rogue bureaucrats” of the so-called Deep State who thwarted some of his plans. Now, Musk is as animated about "> taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy as he was about doing so upon taking over Twitter.
The pair similarly see eye-to-eye on the classic conservative hobbyhorse of deregulation. While Musk has long lamented all the irksome government rules standing in the way of his business plans, Trump bragged in his 2021 farewell address that he had “slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration ha[s] ever done before.”
On top of everything else, Musk and Trump seem equally credulous when it comes to fringe conspiracy theories. Even Musk’s own AI chatbot Grok admits the X head honcho spreads the most misinformation on that platform—although it recently blocked some criticism of Musk and Trump—and farfetched concepts like Fort Knox’s supposed missing gold now tend to quickly spread from a Musk tweet to a Trump press conference. Considering both have also professed intense animosity toward legacy media and wokeness, one imagines the two would find plenty to talk about over deskside Diet Cokes in the Oval Office.
The money factor
Although Tesla stock has dropped 37% from its high in December amid backlash, Musk and his various companies stand to profit immensely from his new government adjacency. DOGE has already made cuts at agencies that oversee some of Musk’s products, for instance, among other potential conflicts of interest. But Trump may stand to benefit even more.
Beyond the $277 million Musk contributed to his campaign efforts, what Trump has gained from this symbiotic relationship is a new cudgel against non-compliant members of his party. Back in December, Musk warned Republicans in the House and Senate that he would fund primary challengers against anyone who stood in the way of Trump’s agenda. That threat lingered in the air throughout the confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet, during which any objections to even the most controversial picks—like Robert Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard—eventually vanished. Musk’s role in keeping party members in line is not something Trump would lightly sacrifice.
Another headline sponge
During his first term, Trump’s wild-card unpredictability, social media proclivity, and authoritarian-like bearing brought him constant negative press coverage. With a jubilant Elon Musk testing the limits of his newfound power, though, Trump now has a spare lightning rod for bad headlines. Trump’s critics and adversaries among the Democrats, opinion columnists, and random social media users now have a second Trumpian figure—with his own unique modus operandi—to focus their attention on, siphoning ire that might otherwise go solely to Trump.
Still, that ire is very much real. Polls in recent weeks have shown Musk’s popularity plummeting, and Trump’s slipping as well. Angry town halls seem to be making some Republicans nervous about how to defend Musk and DOGE’s actions to their constituents, while conflicting advice about handling Musk’s recent ultimatum for federal workers–that they submit five bullets about what they accomplished the previous week or forfeit their jobs–suggests fracturing support for DOGE within the administration.
But the situation would likely have to deteriorate dramatically further before bringing about a divorce—if for no other reason than spite. While the same vanity that allowed Kamala Harris to easily bait Trump into ranting about crowd sizes during their debate last fall does not seem as susceptible to the “President Musk” taunts, it just might help prolong the president in denying his detractors an outcome they so clearly desire.
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