Many hypotheses going around concerning the Musk / Trump split. From what I can see they are as follows:
- Elon Musk was a Trojan Horse
- Trump and Musk are colluding
- The OBBB is a Trojan Horse that will destroy the economy
- Elon is a special guy with a potential drug problem who is under attack and prone to going haywire (like over H1B last Christmas)
After reviewing the arguments, I am personally going with hypothesis #4, though #2 would also explain the situation as a way of creating an obvious rift between Trump and Musk (for Musk's and his companies' long-term survival). But the viciousness of the attacks by Musk seemed particularly manic and hysterical. His unique personality combined with a drug-induced vulnerability would be a wide open target for 4D STS to sew division and chaos into MAGA. He has
admitted to Don Lemon that he uses prescription Ketamine to deal with mood issues, and there are rumors that his drug use is getting out of control (take 'em with a grain of salt). Combining drug use with 16 hour workdays, running several companies, and launching an all-out assault on corruption in one of the most corrupt governments on earth is a recipe for psychic catastrophe, if you ask me.
The reason I have trouble going with hypothesis #1: Elon Musk has done a lot to open up the pathways for free speech across the world and in dismantling the vast hydra-like apparatus of the deep state's USAID. I am doubtful that the truly insidious powers in our world would ever have an agent that shines light on their absolute corruption via DOGE and his posts on X. So he would be an obvious target for the powers and principalities, biasing me again towards #4.
The reason I have trouble going with hypothesis #3 is as follows:
Let's just start with the overview from the Trump team (
13:20 timestamp) on the
Big Beautiful Bill and the role it has in the MAGA agenda:
The President ran and won a landslide making certain promises to the American people that need to be kept, and this is a bill, not a budget resolution, mind you. This is not a bill that is our full budget picture. This is a procedural bill that is allowed to get through the Senate and avoid the Senate filibuster in which you want to get as much of your agenda into it as possible.
Per Stephen Miller, if this bill were not to pass (
29:38 timestamp):
- Overnight everyone's tax rates would go up 50/60/70 percent.
- The funding for border and immigration security would never happen because you would have to then get it through a 60 vote process and Democrats are never going to give it to you. In fact worse than that the Democrats will use the appropriations to starve ICE and starve Border Patrol funds to try to shut down the border and immigration enforcement.
- You would have to deal with the debt ceiling breach separately. If not dealt with it would lead to radical spiral up in interest rates, which would then cause an explosion in the deficit. The rise of interest rates payments would go up exponentially, which would cause deficits to go exponentially, which would cause interest rates to keep going higher and you would end up with a debt bomb unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Summary of a few major criticisms I've seen against it and their counter-arguments:
- The bill prohibits state / local governments from regulating AI (good Thomas Massie interview on it)
- Supporters argue this is an attempt to ensure that California is not able to control AI regulation, though it's not like the federal government is any more trustworthy so I count this as deep state politics as usual
- The bill increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion
- Rand Paul says he's fine with the rest of the bill, but the debt ceiling component needs to be removed
- Per Stephen Miller the options were either:
- [Vote for debt ceiling] with Chuck Schumer at 60 votes (which means higher taxes, higher spending, liberal wishlist)
- [Vote for debt ceiling] in reconciliation at 50 votes (which means permanent tax cuts, permanent welfare reform, permanent border security).
- It will add $2.5 trillion to the deficit. (Musk stated, "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing"
- Numbers are based on "watch dogs" like Congressional Budget Office, which use formulas that, per Trump team, are "artificial, unrealistic" (9:50 timestamp)
- Frankly not good, but the Trump team's argument is that tariffs themselves are estimated to reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion and that this is not their budget plan or even a glimpse of what they plan to do to fix the budget
- Some are angry that Doge cuts aren't codified in this bill, but this is a confusion due to the fact that this bill is not the kind used to remove previously allocated funds
So the bill is primarily for tax cuts, welfare reform, implementing the POTUS' immigration agenda, and dealing with the debt ceiling in a politically convenient manner. There are a few "pork" items that are brought along, which look like extremely political items needed to gain the right votes. And the debt ceiling issue has been used as political theater for generations. Though I believe that Elon Musk, Thomas Massie, and Rand Paul (among others) are right that the debt HAS to be reigned in, from what I can tell this bill is not the place to deal with it. It may be some politics as usual, but not when it comes to their intent to actually honor promises to the people who elected them.
Clearly this is not an exhaustive review of the thousand page bill and maybe some incredibly important item was missed. But based on what I've seen so far I find it difficult to view it as a MAGA Trojan Horse, and feel confident doubting the doomsday predictions regarding it, seeing as how all of these predictions rely on arcane figures from bureaucratic orgs and a lack of context.
So back to hypothesis #4. Musk got in with a bunch of snakes and they're trying to eat him alive. Trump has thick skin, MAGA is as very forgiving movement, and Musk has bounced back from worse, no doubt. He's already showing some signs of being somewhat apologetic for his outbursts.
Hopefully the MAGA team continues to learn lessons about transparency and how lack of it makes it easy to sew confusion and attack vectors amongst even their own allies and supporters.
and 
