A few weeks ago we published a report entitled “Elon Musk and DOGE at a Crossroads”, in which we discussed how Elon Musk was considering leaving DOGE, and the reasons why he might do so, which to most people seemed unthinkable at that stage. In reality, on 31 May, Musk and President Trump held a joint press conference announcing Musk’s departure from DOGE, even as Trump said that “Elon’s not really leaving.” Musk went to the Oval Office with a black eye, which he attributed to a punch from his son X, but which Steve Bannon attributed to a “physical confrontation” with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, most likely on the provisions of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” (“BBB” for short).
Just a few days later, Musk couldn’t take it anymore, and described the BBB as a “pork-filled…disgusting abomination,” which would massively increase the level of US public debt (the independent Congressional Budget Office estimates a USD 2.4tn increase in debt by 2034), thus nullifying the results of budget savings deriving from the work of DOGE. Trump attributed Musk’s opinion to the fact that the BBB cut the incentives to EVs, and to the fact that Jared Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut and Musk’s protégé to lead NASA, was pulled from consideration by the current administration.
From that, the skirmishes between the two egotistical personalities escalated in a full-blown feud, with reciprocal accusations being made. Musk threatened not to support Republican candidates in the mid-term elections, and to form a new centrist party instead. He also wrote that Trump was in the Epstein files (“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk said) – before reportedly deleting these posts subsequently; Trump retaliated by saying that the government could cancel all public contracts with Musk, as the easiest way to save money. Bannon threatened to deport Musk as an illegal alien.
Apart from the personality clash, we believe that this feud is revealing something much deeper about the real content of the BBB. First, the BBB contains highly controversial provisions on fiscal matters, including Section 899 on the extra tax on dividends or interest charged to foreign investors from “discriminatory foreign countries,” which could lead to a “buyer’s strike” on US assets.
Second, there are provisions that have nothing to do with fiscal matters, such as the ban on any state regulation on AI for 10 years, which seems to be a big gift to the tech giants that are supporting the US Administration. That provision is so egregious that even Marjorie Taylor Greene, the ultra-Trumpian Republican representative from Georgia, said that she would oppose the bill when it returns to the House after the Senate. Other provisions are even more controversial, such as the limits imposed on courts to hold various parties in contempt, if they didn’t respect their orders. The nearly 1000-page BBB clearly contains dozens of similar provisions, which have nothing to do with budget, but seem to be the legislative translation of Project 2025, written by the Heritage Foundation, which constitutes the blueprint for Trump’s consolidation of power in the executive branch.
Some commentators see an additional layer to all this: Musk responded “yes” to Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysia-based right-wing writer with , who on X wrote: “Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.” Imagine this were to actually happen: Peter Thiel, the big sponsor behind JD Vance’s ascension to the vice presidency, would finally install his protégé as president, completing the take-over we discussed in previous columns, after Palantir, his company, has been granted the task of building a national database of all Americans, with the data extracted by Musk’s DOGE. If this sounds like conspiracy, it may be an under-representation of the real dynamics behind the scenes. Meanwhile the National Guard has been asked by President Trump to be deployed in California against what JD Vance called “insurrectionists,” which could be the first step for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would suspend the rule of law in the US.
One thing is certain: this is the beginning of a new phase of Trump’s second presidency, and many more changes are probably in store for the future.
