The inconvenient truth about Trump and Musk’s bromance

To borrow the question famously posed by the late Caroline Aherne in character as Mrs Merton: “What first attracted Donald Trump to the multi-billionaire Elon Musk?” And, indeed: “What first attracted Elon Musk to the next prospective president of the United States?”

These are legitimate questions, and their implications should trouble anyone concerned about the future of democracy in the United States, and, by extension, where freedom has so far managed to survive elsewhere on the planet.

To be fair to this odd couple, they have some things in common. Both have outsized egos, with that of Mr Musk now grown too large to be accommodated on a single planet, Earth. In normal circumstances, the collision of two such over-confident, self-obsessed and sometimes deranged personalities would cause something of an explosion.

But in this case, there seems only love, tendresse and, certainly in Mr Musk’s case, a near-slavish devotion, witnessed by anyone with the inner emotional resilience to have made it through their lengthy “conversation” on Mr Musk’s very own social media channel, X (now a MAGA propaganda machine, as well as host to some troubling racism).

Areas where there might have been some conflict, such as electric vehicles – ridiculed by Mr Trump, manufactured by Mr Musk – were smoothed over. After the first assassination attempt on Mr Trump, Mr Musk has gone “all in” for him.

The man behind SpaceX and Tesla, previously a mildly progressive Democrat who mostly steered clear of politics, is now posting frequent support for the Trump campaign, has appeared jumping for joy at a Trump rally, and is now organising a contentious million-dollar-a-day lottery aimed at mobilising the Trump “base”, to get out and vote in Pennsylvania, a swing state. A million bucks may be life-changing for many Pennsylvanians; yet it hardly registers for a man worth some $257bn.

Ideologically, the primary bond is a shared revulsion at so-called “woke” culture and an abhorrence of trans rights. Quite why a sense of social and racial injustice, which is all “woke” amounts to, should drive these comfortable, wealthy men to distraction isn’t entirely clear, but it is very real. Mr Musk calls it “the woke mind-virus” and views it as an existential threat to civilisation in America. He shares with Mr Trump a taste for slashing the size – and budgets – of the federal government.

Mr Musk, himself an economic migrant, shares the disgust that former president Trump (who happens to be married to another economic migrant) evinces at the arrival of the murderous pet-eaters at the border. Mr Trump’s protectionist, tax-cutting, expansionist economic policies would probably balloon the deficit, inflate the currency, and trigger a trade war with China, but both men prefer to gloss over such inconvenient truths.

They are, then, broadly united in their outlook, albeit with some suppressed differences, but this partnership is also driven by a confluence of mutual self-interest – a relationship thoroughly corrosive to good governance. Mr Trump has, as ever, an insatiable demand for flattery and campaign funds, and the $45m-plus per month Mr Musk is giving to the Trump cause is obviously coming in handy.

It can’t disguise the alarming and mysteriously sudden decline in Mr Trump’s cognitive performance, but, combined with the backing of X and the lottery, might well make the difference between winning and losing in places such as Pennsylvania. Put at its crudest, Mr Musk is helping Mr Trump buy and bribe his way to the White House in a manner unprecedented in the history of the Republic.

In return? Nothing so crude as a quid pro quo, but it would be a surprise if Mr Trump, the proud author of a bloviating book entitled The Art of the Deal, wasn’t going to look after his ally. He has already suggested that he would appoint Mr Musk to his administration to carry out, presumably, the same erratic, wild cost-cutting he has periodically inflicted on Tesla and Twitter.

It would equally be a surprise if Mr Musk didn’t find a way to advantage his own commercial interests, via trade policy towards China, the relaxation of federal oversight and regulation of SpaceX and, perhaps, a reliable flow of federal contracts. From what we know of Mr Musk’s views, he would have no objection to Mr Trump’s policies on abortion, trans rights and consigning millions of settled but undocumented migrants to concentration camps to await deportation.

The reality of an American government headed by Mr Trump, propagandised by Steve Bannon and JD Vance and run by Elon Musk, hardly bears contemplation. With the restructuring of the Supreme Court, emasculation of the Federal Reserve, the promise to clear out the civil service and wreak revenge, there would be virtually no guard rails on a second Trump administration. Far from being “America First”, it would be “Donald and Elon First”.

Mr Musk would be allowed to conduct any number of crazed experiments on the US government, regardless of the law or the consequences for average Americans. It would be a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires. American democracy itself, at least as we have come to know it, might not survive.

The sooner the pair head off to Mars, the better.