No, it is not only a disagreement of a character nature. The clash between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has decidedly relevant structural aspects, which could have heavy repercussions for the US defense sector. But let’s go in order.
That between the two there was some tension had already emerged in April, when the CEO of Tesla, at the time still at the head of the doge, had criticized the duties promoted by the White House. However, the open clash broke out in June, when Musk had launched Bordate against the expenditure law, strongly desired by Trump: a law that, to say the CEO of Tesla, would have excessively aggravated the already conspicuous US debt. On the occasion, the magnate went to the president’s attack: he ventilated the hypothesis of supporting an impeachment against him, he claimed that his name was present in the notorious Jeffrey Epstein files and not excluded the possibility of founding his own party. Trump, even if he said, replied hard, threatening to tear the contracts of Musk companies with the US government apparatuses.
The crisis of June at the end came back. Moreover, the role of Pontiers had been carved out not only a few big pieces of the Republican Party but also figures linked to the American financial hexablishment, such as Bill Ackman. A truce, that between Trump and Musk, which lasted a few weeks, however. Yes, because in July, as the definitive approval of the expense law at the congress approached, Musk resumed to shoot uncomfortable balls against the tenant of the White House. He returned to put him under pressure on Epstein’s files and, above all, officially announced the birth of his own party, called America Party. The definitive approval of the law did not make the tension between the two, making a series of nodes that are anything but irrelevant come to the comb. One of the structural reasons that led to the conflict lies above all in the different economic philosophy married by the quarrels. Musk is a minimum state proponent: he is inspired by the Argentine president Javier Milei and, not surprisingly, he symbolically resorted to the chainsaw to promote his decisive cuts to public spending from the chief of the Doge. In this sense, America Party squeezes the eye above all to the Libertarian current of the Republican Party: to those parliamentarians, that is, that, like Senator Rand Paul and the deputy Thomas Massie, not only have opposed the expenditure law of Trump but are also proponents of a drastic downsizing of the federal government. It is always in this perspective that Musk has criticized the duties in the past, strongly desired by the American president. Trump, for his part, is so favorable to cut some chapters of public spending, but it has never been a minimum proponent. On the other hand, the philosophy based on “miniarchism” is not exactly easy in the management of an empire like the American one. The same use of rates is, for Trump, more a measure linked to national security than to the economy in the strict sense.
A second aspect of the clash between the tycoon and the president concerns the electric car. By defending the spending law, Trump claimed to have promised the abolition of what he himself called the “obligation” of electric vehicles in the election campaign. Not only that. The US trade Department has recently declared that it will impose 93.5 percent anti -dumping duties on the graphite imported from China. According to Bloomberg News, Tesla tried to block the measure: this is because graphite is an essential material for the realization of the batteries. More generally, during the election campaign of last year, Trump had conducted a real crusade against the electric car, being perfectly aware of the hostility that it aroused among the metalworkers of a key state like Michigan.
However, you have to be careful. Net of the differences, Musk and the American president cannot probably afford a truly irreparable break. In fact, the real point concerns the defense sector. According to the Washington Post, Musk companies, in twenty years, would have received a total of 38 billion dollars between subsidies, loans and contract contracts with the US government systems: of this figure, 22.6 billion would have gone to Spacex, which boasts the greatest ties with the government, especially as regards the NASA and the Department of Defense. And this is where we arrive at the heart of the matter. Ultimately, Musk cannot realistically do without his connections with Pentagon and Nasa, as well as Pentagon and Nasa, in turn, cannot do without Musk’s technology.
And this is all the more true if we consider the growing geopolitical competition of Washington towards Beijing: A competition that Trump himself has known at the center of his political agenda.
«Spacex is known above all for its high -profile crew missions to the International Space Station and for its ambitious Starship program. But the United States depends more and more on the company for crucial and sometimes secret spatial operations. This relationship is now jeopardized by the growing feud between the founder of Spacex, Elon Musk, and President Trump “underlined National Public Radio in early June. “The rupture between Musk and Trump seriously dangerous the programs of NASA and Pentagon,” the Washington Post reported in those same days.
In this context, always in early June, the CNN stressed that an effective divorce between the two would be “complicated”given that Spacex “not only provides NASA rockets, but also has the Internet Starlink system, fundamental for the Pentagon and proposed as an option to improve coverage in the rural areas of America”.
In short, the government apparatuses related to the defense and the space sector are particularly concerned about the clash in place between the President and the CEO of Tesla. And there are equally important pieces of the American economic-financial establishment: which explains for what reason, in June, a financier like Ackman had spent himself to try to make the two quarrels reconcile. The same manager of the White House for artificial intelligence, David Sacks, asked the CEO of Tesla (of which he is a friend) to reconsider his initiative to found a new party. The knot, therefore, is not simply personal but is of a systemic nature. And be careful: this interdependence between Musk and the apparatuses could also prove to be problematic for its political ambitions. As mentioned, his America Party aims to wink at the Libertarian and, perhaps, to propose their candidates for the midterm of 2026 (instead they are excluded presidential maneuvers, given that the Tesla CEO, having been born in South Africa, is not candidate for the White House). Well, despite the contingent convergence on the opposition to the expense law desired by Trump, it is all to be demonstrated that the alliance between Musk and Libertarian in the long regga.
The latter, in their crusade against Big Government, have two great enemies: the Fed and that pentagon with which Musk, we said, entertains close ties. Not to mention that, given the rigidly bipartytic system in force overseas, the “unbroken thirds” have never had too easy life from an electoral point of view in the United States. Here, who knows that these political considerations and the pressures of the American “system” do not convince, in the end, Trump and Musk to bury the ax of war.
In this respect, it is important to emphasize that Musk’s same conversion to the Via del Trumpismo occurred between 2022 and 2024in the broader framework of a political repositioning of the US defense apparatus: apparatuses which, especially after the Afghan crisis of August 2021, had been deeply disappointed by the Biden Administration and the Democratic Party.
On a systemic level, it is probably not anyone’s interest, in the United States, that the dispute between the American president and the Tesla CEO goes on, transforming itself into an incurable fracture.
Then the two manage to put aside pride and divergences of opinion, is another matter. However, it was Trump himself, on July 24, who declared: “I want Elon and all the companies in our prosperous country”. And he added: “The better, the United States goes better.”
