In the US, it’s all showtime: A timeline of the twists and turns in the Trump-Musk relationship – and the show must go on

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have a business relationship, not a personal friendship.

The timeline of the relationship does not allow any other conclusion.

Musk was always a Democrat. He supported the Obama/Biden Administration and grew extremely wealthy, in particular, under the worldwide climate ideology favoring electric cars. Musk’s Tesla became the World leader in electric cars, and himself a mega billionaire  the richest man in the World (in terms of shareholder value). Tesla became a green argument of the US and, in particular of the Obama/Biden era.

This wealth was a result of politics and Musk understood this very well. His pure existence depends on politics, his businesses can only exist with state support: electric cars, space services, telecommunications and media. All these business have grown on the basis of direct government support and contracts. Eg Tesla was favored with tax incentives and green ideological subsidies – even worldwide, under US governmental input. Space X is almost fully depending on government contracts and his telecommunications firm was lately exposed in the war in Ukraine. Finally, his glamouros X (formerly Twitter) holding is as well politically sensitive.

In 2022, Musk has called upon Trump to stop politics (and business) and to retire, to “sail into the sun”. As soon as it became evident that the Democrat party and establishment was failing and collapsing (as the Candidate Biden did), Musk changed the political camp in 2024 and endorsed and financed the Trump Campaign. Musk spend USD 250 million on Trump’s Campaign and went with full force to push for Trump’s election. If it was because of Musk’s help or otherwise, that Trump did win in 2024, remains disputed. But Trump promised Musk a governmental position, ie. to become the head of DOGE (the new government efficiency agency). Musk hoped greatly to have influence and secure and grow his business with the help of the Trump Administration.

Trump and Musk played a kind of “good cop, bad cop” couple where Musk, as empowered government officer took radical decisions to reduce inefficient departments, save money and fire hundreds of thousands of state employees. Musk became the evil “bad cop”, even worldwide, as the cuts also targeted US soft power spendings globally – billions were cut and foreign countries suddenly lost nice incomes steams from the US.

Musk, as “bad cop” experienced in the US and worldwide a huge aggression. Mainly his car business was affected, by violence against Tesla dealers and cars – which were set on fire. Tesla’s sale broke down by up to 50% and the situation started to become a risk for Musk.

Earlier, in April 2025, Musk already put forward that he would quit DOGE, still remaining an aide to the Trump Administration. But also this did not help Musk’s popularity and Tesla did not improve.

As such, US showtime needs a loud big bang. Which just now happened: Musk (for unknown reason, unless his sudden discontent with a tax and savings bill can be taken for real) left the Trump Administration. He officially and loudly attacked Trump by all media means and even suggested that Trump was a client of the pedophile ring of Jeffrey Epstein (which is most unlikely, as such accusation would have been used before by Obama, Biden, Harris and all the Democrats to fight against Trump).

The big bang of Trump-Musk happened, but as per the last days, things became quite and the public attention has changed and drove away to the Los Angeles immigrants riots.

Let’s see if this show was sufficient to help Musk to get back on track with his business – it is also time for Musk to make his business government resistant and Trump will certainly help him (and Musk certainly will continue to help Trump).

The show must go on. And remember: Americans never say ‘thank you’. If you are not of value today, your yesterday’s services are already forgotten …