Just in time for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to Washington, Democrats enjoyed a healthy helping of schadenfreude as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s feud went nuclear in real time.
“The big beautiful breakup?” Rep. Sarah McBride asked in response to a question from The Independent Thursday about Trump and Musk’s spat, a reference to the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Trump’s centerpiece legislation that seeks to extend the 2017 tax cuts, slash social spending and ramp up immigration spending.
The first inklings of a crack in the partnership that started when the Tesla CEO bankrolled Trump’s return to the White House and blossomed as he took on the DOGE role of slashing government spending, came on Tuesday, when Musk called Trump’s bill an “outrageous, pork-filled, disgusting abomination.”
“You ever see that meme of the guy's face, like, when the person, the worst person in the world, you actually agreed with?” Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said to The Independent, in reference to a popular Clickhole article headlined “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point.”
“That's kind of what I feel right now,” Gallego said.
Sen Raphael Warnock of Georgia could not help but laugh.
“It is proof positive that even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Warnock said.
Musk’s words plunged Senate Republicans into chaos as they seek to pass the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act after the House passed their version last month. But on Thursday, Musk went scorched earth, tweeting that Trump “is in the Epstein files,” and saying that is why they had not been released.
“That is the real reason they have not been made public,” the Tesla billionaire tweeted. “Have a nice day, DJT!”
Musk turned up the heat even higher when he endorsed Trump’s impeachment.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, who led the second Trump impeachment, said he had missed Musk’s tweet calling for Trump to be impeached.
“Well, he must know a lot more information,” about Trump’s ties to Epstein, Raskin told The Independent.
Democrats have spent the early months of the Trump administration depicting Musk as a shadow president who spent $290 million to elect Trump and whose Department of Government Efficiency slashed vital services.
For a while, it seemed like Trump and Musk would be a perfect match, with Musk dubbing himself “First Buddy,” wearing his “Dark Ultra MAGA” hat and carting his son X around the Oval Office. But some Democrats said that the fallout was inevitable.
“It was always going to happen,” Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida told The Independent. “I didn’t expect it to happen at the same time like it is now.”
Musk became a villain in Democratic attacks in the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, given that Musk’s political action committees poured in millions. Shortly thereafter, Musk said he would refrain from giving money.
But Musk did little to dispel the idea that he played a role in winning Trump the presidency on X.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said. “Such ingratitude.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, an outspoken critic of Trump, agreed with Musk.
“If Elon didn't help Donald Trump, he wouldn't be he wouldn't be president, he'd be in prison,” Swalwell, told The Independent.
Progressives said that the fight between a president who largely ran on the premise that he was an incredibly wealthy businessman versus the world’s richest man showed the dangers of wealth concentration.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist from New York, said that the fight validated the message she and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had spread across the country in their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.
“I don't think that the whole state of the country should be with two should be concentrated in two guys with massive egos that are fighting with each other,” the progressive firebrand Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.
When asked if she enjoyed the feud, AOC said, “I mean, it was a long time coming.”
Trump has sniped back in kind, saying, “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave,” further saying: “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
For other Democrats, the fallout shows that Musk and Trump deserve each other.
“They both got what they paid for,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the DOGE subcommittee to House Oversight, told The Independent.
But Musk’s impact on the Trump administration will last longer than the feud. As Stansbury descended the steps, she clutched a folder with the DOGE logo.
