Far be it from me to judge anyone enjoying the feud between Donald Trump and his benefactor Elon Musk over Trump’s signature legislation, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But in the conflict between the president and the world’s richest man, the public is the most likely loser.
Four days ago, Musk described the bill as “disgusting,” “pork-filled,” and an “abomination.” He also suggested that Trump was ungrateful, claiming that Republicans would have lost the 2024 election without all the money he had spent supporting GOP candidates. Trump fired back in a post on his network, Truth Social, saying, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” Musk then accused Trump of being in “the Epstein files,” referring to the late financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, whom both men have ties to. Musk later deleted that post, as well as another calling for Trump’s impeachment.
If all this seems painfully stupid, it is, and it was all made possible by the erosion of American democracy. The underlying issues, however, are significant despite the surreal nature of the exchange.
As it happens, Trump and Musk’s dueling criticisms are each, in their own ways, at least partially valid. The bill is an abomination, although not because it’s “pork-filled.” And much of Musk’s wealth does come from the federal government, which he has spent the past few months trying to dismantle while preserving his own subsidies. According to Axios, among other things, Musk was angry that the bill cuts the electric-vehicle tax credit, which will hurt the bottom line of his electric-car company, Tesla.
But neither billionaire—one the president of the United States and the other a major financial benefactor to the president’s party—opposes the bill for what makes it a monstrosity: that it redistributes taxpayer dollars to the richest people in the country by slashing benefits for the middle class, the poor, and everyone in between. The ability of a few wealthy people to manipulate the system to this extent—leaving two tycoons who possess the emotional register of toddlers with the power to impoverish most of the country, to their own benefit, speaks ill of the health of American democracy, regardless of the outcome.
Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” would make the largest cuts to food assistance for the poor in history, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, eliminating $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at a time when inflation is still straining family budgets. Some 15 million Americans would become uninsured because of the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, also the largest reductions to that program in history, and because of cuts to the Affordable Care Act. The CBPP estimates that about “22 million people, including 3 million small business owners and self-employed workers, will see their health coverage costs skyrocket or lose coverage altogether.” Not everyone would suffer, however, as the bill does offer significant tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America while adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. Whatever meager benefits there are to everyone else would likely be eaten up by the increase in the cost of food and health care caused by the benefit cuts.
For all the insults flying between Trump and Musk, they are both fine with taking from those who have little and giving generously to those who have more than they could ever need.
For years, commentators have talked about how Trump reshaped the Republican Party in the populist mold. Indeed, Trumpism has seen Republicans abandon many of their publicly held commitments. The GOP says it champions fiscal discipline while growing the debt at every opportunity. It talks about individual merit while endorsing discrimination against groups based on gender, race, national origin, and sexual orientation. It blathers about free speech while using state power to engage in the most sweeping national-censorship campaign since the Red Scare. Republicans warn us about the “weaponization” of the legal system while seeking to prosecute critics for political crimes and deporting apparently innocent people to Gulags without a shred of due process. The GOP venerates Christianity while engaging in the kind of performative cruelty early Christians associated with paganism. It preaches family values while destroying families it refuses to recognize as such.
Yet the one bridge that connects Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to Donald Trump is slashing public services while showering tax cuts on the rich. This is the Republican Party’s most sacred, fundamental value, the one it almost never betrays. Whatever else Trump and Musk may fight about, they are faithful to that.
The post Musk and Trump Still Agree on One Thing appeared first on The Atlantic.
