I have to admit, I did not expect us to get to impeachment and deportation by Thursday.

 [Dictated to my phone late at night then proof read by ChatGPT. Apologies in advance.] Pretty much every Musk watcher I know expected it to get ugly eventually. From the very first days of the administration, it was obvious that two vindictive narcissists with Messiah complexes would not make for a stable co-governing arrangement. We even expected things to fall apart fairly quickly when the cracks started to show, but damn... Still, other than the speed, none of this is surprising. The first thing you have to remember is that both of these men have anger issues, but Elon's are far more extreme. Journalists who have followed him closely (setting aside those inclined to softball questions and puff pieces) have been telling stories of random rage firings and unpredictable tantrums going back for decades. I assume everyone here remembers how, in response to a mildly critical comment, Elon accused a heroic diver of pedophilia, and how, a few years later, he responded to a drop-off in advertising at his newly purchased Twitter by sitting on stage in a crowded auditorium and telling those businesses to “go f*** yourself.” Musk is also, like Trump, notoriously thin-skinned, and the past couple of weeks have seen all sorts of insults and injuries—from the New York Times piece (with obvious WH sources) exposing his heavy drug use to the proposed budget virtually guaranteeing that Tesla will never again be a profitable car company. It was probably inevitable that he would lash out and that Trump and his allies would reply in kind, but the escalation has been something to see. Other than the speed, perhaps the most remarkable thing about this flame war is how exhaustive it has been. I’ve been following these stories way too closely for my own mental health, and I’m having trouble thinking of any major stone left unturned. In addition to calling for his deportation, Trump and his allies have threatened to destroy Musk’s business empire and turn the investigative force of the government against him. Musk has been even more thorough—in addition to calling for impeachment, he has gone after the budget, used Trump’s own language against him, suggested that the tariffs were about to cause a recession, and even briefly threatened to sut off the space station. The part about impeachment is particularly interesting given JD Vance's role in the White House. Vance was always the princess in the arranged marriage, there to seal the alliance between Trump and the PayPal Mafia. Though it would be extremely difficult to force him out of office, it's hard to imagine him not being frozen out of the administration for the rest of the term. [Quick question for the audience. While there have been cases of presidents and vice presidents being rivals and having ideological differences—think Reagan-Bush or Kennedy-LBJ, going all the way back to Adams and Jefferson—I'm trying to think of a situation quite this extreme. Does anyone have any suggestions?] We will see how this plays out and whether or not things calm down over the weekend. It's difficult to imagine them maintaining this intensity, but it's also hard to see how some of these bridges can be unburned. If Musk loses his security clearance, if we are seeing the bubble finally pop with Tesla, or if the budget talks—which are already incredibly unpopular with voters—fall apart, things will not be going back to the way they were.

 

 Ahem...

 

'Sore subject': White House confirms physical brawl between key Trump allies 

A physical altercation between Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent precipitated the Tesla founder's quick ouster from the Trump administration, according to a report.

The incident was previously reported as a "screaming match" between the two men, but the physical aspect has since been confirmed by The White House.

The U.K.'s Daily Mail interviewed former Trump adviser Steve Bannon about the DOGE-related scuffle.

"'Scott Bessent called [Musk] out and said, 'You promised us a trillion dollars (in cuts), and now you're at like $100 billion, and nobody can find anything, what are you doing?'' Bannon recounted. "And that's when Elon got physical. It's a sore subject with him. It wasn't an argument, it was a physical confrontation. Elon basically shoved him."

The altercation was confirmed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday, the Mail reported.

Retribution: The final frontier. [image or embed]

— George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 10:30 AM

Big balls showing up at work tomorrow: [image or embed]

— James (@gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 1:04 PM

Matt Yglesias, Ro Khanna and the Abundance Boys better start hitting the books so they can figure out how holding billionaires accountable for blatant crimes is bad, actually. [image or embed]

— e.w. niedermeyer (@niedermeyer.online) June 5, 2025 at 1:51 PM

You can't make it upCongressman Scott Perry voted for Trump's "disgusting abomination" billNow he's lambasting it and calling on the Senate to stop itHow do MAGA Republicans live with their rank hypocrisy [image or embed]

— Adam Cohen (@axidentaliberal.bsky.social) June 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM

MACO? (Musk always chickens out?) The SpaceX ceo softened his stance on decommissioning Dragon after a user on X told him to basically chillax… www.cnbc.com/2025/06/05/m... [image or embed]

— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 7:50 PM

He is now calling for Trump to nationalize SpaceX lmao [image or embed]

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 3:12 PM

  I'm sure that's all the reassurance Trump will need. 

Vance spox on Musk's tweet: “It’s insane for anyone to even remotely suggest this. America is blessed to have President Trump leading our nation. He has delivered on promise after promise to the American people, and he has no bigger supporter than Vice President Vance.” [image or embed]

— Jacob Gardenswartz (@reporterjacobg.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 5:58 PM

 

If this ever happens, it will be due to Martin Eberhard, Tesla's founding CEO and inventor of core tech in Tesla EVs, raising the issue in his lawsuit after Musk ousted him from the co. iirc @plainsite.org made those legal records available + @washingtonpost.com did *outstanding* in-depth reporting. [image or embed]

— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM

Tesla is a small and imploding car company, overvalued by at least a factor of 20. The only reasons to buy it, other than a stunning faith in the greater fool theory, are the belief that some combination of three things will happen: robo-taxis will largely replace driving and Tesla will dominate the market despite being far behind on the technology; people will spend trillions of dollars on humanoid robots, and once again, Tesla will dominate that market despite again being far behind on the technology; the Trump administration will dump unprecedented amounts of money into the company. Up until recently, the third possibility was the only halfway realistic one. Now there is no rational reason for buying the stock.

Musk was supposed to be "focused" on Tesla after his DOGE special government employee period ended. Today, the company shed $152 billion in market cap (its worst single day hit ever) after Musk feuded with Trump. www.cnbc.com/2025/06/05/t... [image or embed]

— Lora Kolodny (@lorak.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 2:17 PM

I think I’ve recognized that I don’t like Matt Yglesias because it makes me anxious when I can’t tell whether someone is mocking themselves or not [image or embed]

— Uncovered The Human Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 3:43