While there was nothing unexpected about Elon Musk leaving DOGE and going back into the ersatz private sector of corporations receiving government contracts, and X (that is, ex-Twitter), the manner of the disemployment is a bit startling.
Paul Jacob covered the first hints of the schism in late May. It was something Elon Musk said in an interview, here reproduced as one of this site’s Thoughts of the day:
But then things got weird. As summarized by The New York Times, the schism played out first at the White House, as “Mr. Trump said that Mr. Musk, the billionaire leader of Tesla and SpaceX, was ‘upset’ that the pending legislation would roll back subsidies for electric vehicles. Then he got in a particularly sharp jab, asserting he would have won the 2024 election without the millions of dollars Mr. Musk spent to support him.” Then it went mostly to social media (X and Truth Social):
But Trump “also maintained that Mr. Musk knew ‘every aspect of the bill,’ saying that the tech executive did not have a problem with the measure until he left his government post.”
Then Elon pulled out all the stops:
Responses to the schism have been all over the map. Here are two dissimilar takes, from comedians Steven Crowder and Dave Smith:
Why conclude with comedians? It could be that comedians tend to be much clearer than other commentators.
Or it could be that this is all really funny.
