Which Side Are You On? (Political Edition)
How Far Does This Feud Go? All the Way to Caesarism?
Well that happened. Trump and Musk went from the best of buddies to bitter enemies within two days. And unlike prior feuds between Trump and his advisors and supporters, I’m unsure which side I’m on—or ought to be on1 because I can’t really tell exactly what this feud is about.2
Just as with my “Which Side Are You On” essay with regard to deciding whether the Pope is liberal or traditional, while I’m leaning in a direction, I’m not going to pick a side definitely. It’s too confusing to do so—yet.
But what’s going on and what caused the feud?
The Interpretations
Here are the current interpretations available to us:
If I’m to believe Trump’s words, this is about Elon throwing a tantrum over not receiving subsidies for Tesla.
If I’m to believe Musk’s words, this is about the Trump-supported “Build Back Better err.. Big Beautiful Bill” bankrupting the country—and perhaps, maybe, or maybe not, that Trump is a pedophile who’s visited Epstein Island.
If I’m to believe Trump’s supporters, this is about Elon and those who back him trying to sink an American Nationalist bill that will thwart the Peter Thiel/David Sacks/Larry Ellison’s plan to launch an American surveillance state. For them, this spat occurred because Musk is secretly in cahoots with the CIA/Palantir deep state and Trump is the only real American patriot who can get us out of our current mess.
If I’m to believe Elon’s supporters, this is about Trump turning on his mission and undoing everything that Elon did to support him and trim government waste through D.O.G.E. For them, this spat occurred because Trump is secretly in cahoots with the deep state and Elon is the only real American patriot who can get us out of our current mess.
Or if I’m to believe outsiders and the left, this is about two guys with big egos in a competition for supremacy of which there can only be one on top. Perhaps, one could say, both are bad?
Evaluating the Options
I’ve seen valid deeper arguments for all of these positions, and I can’t fully decide which argument is most likely.
(1) Seems weak as Musk is rich enough and has enough revenue streams across his other companies that subsidies for the well-established Tesla don’t seem to be a big enough motivator for Musk to have gone as ballistic as he did yesterday against Trump. Why waste a relationship when Musk has larger goals than electric cars? I think Trump is either guessing or lying here.
(2) I agree a lot with this one, I admit. Elon’s arguments about how the national debt, unchecked, will destroy us, are part of why he signed up to support Trump last year in the first place.
(3) Yes, there are major concerns with Musk, especially his wearing satanic costumes in the past, his gross immorality and sexual practices, etc. not to mention his connections to Silicon Valley tech companies pushing mass surveillance technologies that could lead to social credit scores, mass eugenics, and transhuman monstrosities. There were premonitions of discord between Musk’s interest and the MAGA coalition, of course, as with the Great Christmas H1B war of December where Musk took a pretty hard, and angrily defended stance separating him from most Trump supporters. But Musk at least seems to have followed through on his word over the last five months to a far greater degree than Trump and is sticking by his stated principles, even as Trump seems to be caving—at least as regards fiscal responsibility.
(4) Pretty much all the same concerns about Elon also apply to Trump in about the same degree, some more, and some less: immoralities, being pushed by special interests, and being connected to all the same transhumanist tech bros. What’s particularly true about Trump that isn’t about Elon is that Trump has greatly waffled recently on many of his core campaign principles, and isn’t governing the way he was back in January.
(5) It’s undeniable that both have big egos. Perhaps that’s all there is to it. They simply can’t get along with each other and there’s no particular reason why this started beyond pride and a mimetic contagion of online posts engulfing the two and their supporters in angry mutual recriminations. Or, on the other hand, perhaps the cause was the incongruous priorities of the the two factions within the MAGA coalition, the Tech Right and the Populist Right, financial stability vs. controlling immigration.
Again, I can’t decide. I’m leaning slightly Elon here, 60% to 40% in my support, but mostly because I’ve just always wanted to go to Mars… and I see financial Armageddon on the horizon if we don’t do something about our debt.
But What Does It Mean to Choose A Side?
But in choosing a side, it seems we’re only asking the moral question of which of the two is in the right here? Trump is president until January 2029 and Elon constitutionally can’t hold the office, so there’s nothing practical to the debate, right—ought Elon just leave as he already has and we all move on to wish the best out of Trump that we can?
If you’re Team Trump, it is as simple as that. Keep moving forward with Trump, keep Elon, disgraced and having thrown an unjustified tantrum, out of power, and keep moving toward making America Great Again, someday. Yes, there have been some hints at reconciliation, but as Mike Solana, a tech CEO who is close to Musk, noted on his podcast over the weekend, Musk will never be trusted back in Trump’s inner circle.
So even if Musk is in the right, it’s meaningless, right?
Musk Can’t Back Down
Of course he could back down and leave politics for good. But does anyone really think Elon Musk, having come so far, having a big ego and having as many goals with an unstoppable will to accomplish them could ever stop after what he’s started do now?
He’s made waves about starting an independent third party, but these have a poor track record and he can’t hold office. And even if he could become president, what’s the point? He was given a lot of power delegated by Trump and couldn’t accomplish much in the face of a seemingly intractable Congress, so what’s the point?
Form a third party staffed with politicians like the ones we have today, ask people to vote harder in hopes of getting a handful of them into Congress and then ask them to vote harder when they get into office? Really? Haven’t we tried that game before? Oh, yes. That was Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 and it now seems that Trump has given up, compromised with Congress, or never really had the battle in him this time around and compromised with the Deep State.
I say all this, because if you’re Team Elon and you actually want to accomplish fixing the things you’re throwing tantrums about today, you’ve got to be thinking about something else.
The Coming Caesar(s)?
Following the example of
, I’ve thought of our present situation as analogous to the late stage Roman Republic. Comparing Trump to one of the Gracchi brothers, elites who turned on most of their friends in order to win the adulations of the plebians as populist reformers is one fair comparison. But another analogy is that we’re paralleling the first Triumvirate, the de facto rule of Rome by Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar, but with Trump modelling Pompey, the popular, battle-hardened leader, Musk modelling Crassus, the richest man of his time, and JD Vance?, perhaps, Caesar.
Haywood, on the other hand, has made similar comparisons on his site The Worthy House, but more frequently draw comparisons between Musk and Caesar.
Whatever the specific comparison, his point, is that our political situation is similar to the gridlock and disfunction of the corrupt imbecilic late stage Roman republic with the situation being that a man of destiny, a Caesar if we’re to use a Roman analogy, a Napoleon, if we’re to use a French, or a Cromwell if we’re to use a British one takes over the reins of power by overthrowing literally the old political order.
And we’re not talking tyranny here necessarily, for such a leader comes at the behest of a people too decadent and corrupt to exist under the shackles of their present system. Caesar’s rise comes through violence, but his arrival is the real will of the people expressed through extra-constitutional means overthrowing a corrupt constitutional system.
While Trump still has years to try to fight the constitutional system and reform it from within, if you’re Team Elon, or Team Trump, or just someone who wants an American future that’s not a “global-homo” deep state central bankster tyranny ad saecula saeculorum, you’ve got to be thinking, as Charles has, of the possibility of a future that goes beyond our current political order.
And if you’re Team Elon, thinking that Elon is right in his feud with Trump, you’re in a place, having seen that that the system has ground down even rebels like Trump to inaction, stasis, and submission, you’ve got to be thinking about all your options.
We’re probably not talking about a Musk launched, Blackwater PMC executed coup just this second. But for a man like Elon Musk, if he’s right, or even just a man as motivated as he is, even if he’s in the wrong, such a possibility is the only way now of achieving what he wants.
Of course, if Elon Musk is really the deep state Palantir affiliated devil-worshipping man he could be, such a future would be pretty dark. But since we’re not really—barring a sudden turn around in Trump’s willingness, or ability, to press forward more forcefully with his agenda—on a path towards anything different as it stands, a regime change movement of some type over the next few years led by someone like Elon Musk isn’t necessarily worse than where we’re headed anyway.
If we’re to believe Musk, this is his ambition:
And it’s a mission that I’m all for, almost entirely regardless of what it would take to make it happen.
In fact, I actually hope that some sort of Musk move happens. Now that Trump and Musk are misaligned, and because neither will back down due to their massive egos, one of them needs to make a move or the two will politically cancel each other out. Other than striving after total power in America, any move Musk might make within the current political system will lead to dominance by the left in the next election if Musk and Trump were to lead opposing “conservative” factions, thereby splitting the vote and allowing the leftists to win.
Of course, a Musk launched coup would require a couple rounds of escalation before we get there. So would, a countermove by Trump in attempting to become our era’s Caesar. I just see Musk as being far more likely to make a move as Trump, seriously, seems to have backed down and become far more complacent over the last three months after his initially blazing pace. The fact that Musk can’t take office constitutionally, and has realized that he can’t realize his ambitions without holding power himself would also seem to inspire him to seek, well… alternatives.
We’re also presuming here of course that a Musk coup could succeed. I don’t pretend to be able to game out every possible set of dynamics, but it would obviously have to happen after an escalating amount of chaos, out of which Americans desire the restoration of order through… alternatives to our current system. Any move before that would be crushed by the weight of public opinion and the force that would follow that same public opinion.
Of course the escalating violent stand-offs this week between ICE agents and protestors could create the necessary chaos for events to begin escalating far further. The anti-deportation violent protests and the popular demand for Law and Order, at least in the short term, seemingly will shift more political capital towards the America First, populist right and towards Trump over the financial concerns of the tech oriented right and Musk’s allies.
Or perhaps, over the long run, as happened in the first Roman triumvirate, two of the members will duke it out and a third, perhaps Vance in our age’s version of the historical pattern, will rise to the top?
Don’t Choose—Yet
But even as I’m saying a lot of pro-Elon things, I again haven’t taken and won’t take a definitive stand. Neither do we need to make one, at least not yet. If events demand it, and there are partisan groups fighting it out between the two, then yes, we’ll need to, but at present there’s no “team” or “side” to join, merely two egoistical powerful men feuding, a king and his former minister, and we need to, even more fundamentally, pray for their conversion, wisdom, and prudence in these ever more chaotic times. Perhaps more information will come out that clearly shows one to be in the right over the other, or on the other hand, that both are in the wrong.
Satirically Simplified Version
But since switching up the context is a best way to understand what’s close to us, I present to you a satirically simplified version of the Trump/Musk feud here:
My friends at the Alternatively podcast also present some good clear thoughts on the situation here:
But what do you choose? Team Trump or Team Elon? Let me know below.
The idea that we have to choose a side in every debate immediately is one that mimetic social pressure gives us. Mimesis makes us want to choose the side that our peers take in order to retain our social standing with them because of our peers and not necessarily because of rational argument.
To me this illustrates the subjective nature of history, and even more so as it happens. Since history is a reductionist science, attempting to reduce a fundamentally complex reality down to a simple narrative, any narrative will be partly false because it simply left things out and overgeneralized down to a single smaller set of principles than those which exist in reality.
Since we can’t test the future before it happens, we can’t truly test these theories out until we get more data.
Meanwhile Panantir slips in the door…
Seems like just a distraction. Let's transplant our issues to a far flung rock with no viable atmosphere and 99.9% chance of death