The Trump-Musk feud shows Republicans are in a prison of their own making 

President Trump has a Tesla he would like to sell to you. 

That is only a minor consequence of the spectacular fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk in recent weeks. Their exchanges on their respective social media platforms certainly did not lack entertainment value.

Last week, there were signs of reconciliation, with Musk saying, “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.” But that was after much damage had been done. 

Among the bitter recriminations was Musk’s endorsement of Trump’s impeachment and his replacement with Vice President JD Vance. 

He then wrote that it was “time to drop the really big bomb. @realDonald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.” Musk later deleted this tweet and put out his remorseful statement. 

Trump, who never ignores an insult, quickly responded in kind: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” Trump’s threat was no idle one. The Washington Post estimates that Musk’s business empire is built on a staggering $38 billion in federal contracts.  

Still, the threat to his business empire caused Musk in the moment to take the gloves off. Writing on his social media platform X, Musk accused Trump of ingratitude, claiming: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Democrats would control the House, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”  

It was Musk’s opposition to Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill that had sparked his initial outburst. “I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote to his 220 million followers on X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” 

It wasn’t just the projected $2.4 trillion deficits that Trump’s legislation would create that angered Musk. It was also Trump taking direct aim at one of Musk’s most prized companies, Tesla, by eliminating the tax credits contained in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that reduced the cost of these expensive vehicles. 

But the Trump-Musk feud represents something more than pettiness between two bilious billionaires with gigantic egos. Today, Trump, Musk, the Republican Party and even Trump’s supporters find themselves locked in an elaborate prison which each has helped construct.  

Deconstructing this prison would be an impossible task. For example, any tearing apart of Musk’s intertwining web of financial and security relationships with federal agencies poses its own security risks. 

SpaceX, to take one example, received $3.8 billion in federal contracts in 2024. Ending that relationship would jeopardize the Pentagon’s ability to conduct classified missions and provide support for NASA’s astronauts. 

Musk also has his own hold on the Republican Party. At one point, he threatened to create and fund a third party, which he dubbed “America’s Party,” that he claimed would “represent 80 percent in the middle.” For Republicans, any third-party effort sponsored by Musk could spell the difference between victory and defeat.  

But Musk represents not merely a threat to Trump but to the long-term interests of the Republican Party. As Musk wrote on X: “Some food for thought: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years.” 

For his part, Trump countered that any funds Musk might contribute to Democratic candidates would have “serious consequences.” Still, the threat remains. 

The feud also highlights the imprisonment in which congressional Republicans find themselves. While Musk is highly disliked by the general public, substantial majorities of Republican voters approve of both men. Not surprisingly, Republicans called for a truce. Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) posted: “WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER!! CEASE FIRE FOR GOD’S SAKE.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) likened the situation to a bitter divorce “where you’re just saying, ‘I really wish mommy and daddy would stop screaming.’” 

Ironically, Trump finds himself locked in his own form of self-imposed imprisonment. While Trump’s core supporters share his grievances, no deviation can be tolerated. 

For example, when Trump bragged in 2020 that his Operation Warp Speed produced a “miracle” with the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, Trump urged his supporters to get it.  

But Trump’s supporters resisted. In 2021, Trump was booed (in Alabama of all places) when he urged his rallygoers to become inoculated. By 2024, Trump opposed virtually all vaccine mandates, telling his incoming Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to “go wild” on health, a comment sure to please his most devoted supporters.  

The Republican Party’s acceptance of the alternative universe created for it by Trump means that any chance of executing a jail break is unlikely to succeed. Discomfort with the facts and adherence to founding principles are to be avoided at all costs. 

In 1962, John F. Kennedy highlighted our uneasiness with the truth. Addressing the graduates of Yale University, Kennedy said: “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” 

He continued: “Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

Trump and his acolytes have constructed a comfortable imprisonment. Any discomfort created by an electoral loss is comforted by a belief that elections are stolen. The discomfort of nominating a convicted felon is comforted by a belief that the judicial or prosecutorial system is controlled by a corrupt “deep state.”

Any discomfort of losing the popular vote is comforted by an unwieldy electoral college that skews in the Republican Party’s favor. And any discomfort elected Republicans show toward Trump in private is comforted by their continued hold on power.  

John Kenneth White is a professor emeritus at the Catholic University of America. His latest book is titled “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.”