Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Elon Musk: Is It Time to Create a New Political Party in the Mid-Atlantic?

President Trump on Thursday said he was surprised that his former adviser Elon Musk is scorching the Republican megabill advancing most of Trump’s biggest domestic policy priorities, but said he thought Musk was wrong and conflicted in his criticism.

Later in the month, Musk revealed he had created and was funding a super PAC “to promote the principles that made America great in the first place.” He had previously said he wouldn’t donate to either presidential candidate. He donated around $277 million in the election cycle.

Use social media as anirritant. On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Musk posted a poll on X, asking whether it was time “to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle.” More than 80 percent of the nearly two million respondents so far have voted “yes.” Mr Musk said that he agreed with a post suggesting that Trump should be impeached. (It was not entirely clear whether he was agreeing with impeachment or with another part of the post.)

As if that isn’t enough, the two of them have been thick as thieves for at least a year now. The current beef involves a lot of public information. The allegations that the files weren’t released because of Trump and Musk’s friendship is new. I wonder just how much dirt they have on each other, and what the effects will be on that information.

Musk and Ramaswamy went to Capitol Hill to pitch their idea of eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a 75% reduction in the workforce, and a $2 trillion cut to federal spending. Ramaswamy left the project before Trump took office.

Investigate Mr. Musk’s immigration status and drug use. Mr. Bannon called on Thursday for a “formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.” Mr. Musk is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in South Africa. Mr. Musk was asked for an investigation into his drug use and his efforts to be briefed on military plans involving China.

Musk was similar to other former White House staffers who left to become critics according to Trump.

Musk was among several tech billionaires who attended Trump’s inauguration. He performed a salute that was linked to the Nazis at another event.

After lengthy technical delays, the conversation mostly followed the contours of Trump’s campaign speeches, and the two men talked past one another.

Musk was withTrump at the campaign trail. The billionaire wearing a hat with “Make America Great Again” written on it predicted the election will be the last if Trump was not elected.

Musk also took the stage at another Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, and held a series of $1 million giveaways to voters in swing states.

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago was the location of election night in November. The morning after, he celebrated by posting an apparently AI-generated image of himself saluting the American flag, captioned, “It is morning in America again.”

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Late 2024Trump announced Musk and former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” focused on curbing federal spending. At that time, no one knew whether the entity would be inside or outside the government.

After the inauguration, Musk joined the White House as an unpaid presidential advisor. His “special government employee” status gave him a 130-hour day clock. He quickly became the most visible face of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — which, despite its name, is not an official congressionally-created federal department. Musk was the de facto leader of DOGE, even though the Trump administration repeatedly tried to argue in court that he was not.

“The people voted for major government reform, and that’s what people are going to get,” Musk told reporters. They’re going to get what they voted for.

Concerns were raised that Musk’s companies had conflicts of interest as they have business with and are regulated by some agencies.

A week later, Trump took the rare step of publicly reining in Musk. On March 6 he told Cabinet members that they were in charge of cutting jobs at their agencies not Musk.

Asked by a journalist about reports that some agency heads were unhappy with Musk’s slash-and-burn approach, Trump asked, “Is anybody unhappy?” His question was met with laughter.

March 2025Trump and Musk took the unprecedented step of turning the White House lawn into a temporary Tesla showroom. Trump sat in a red Model S with Musk and announced he was going to buy a car from the company, in a show of support for Musk who has caused controversy in both the U.S. and Europe by promoting far-right parties.

Musk, who was the leader of the Trump administration’s government-slashing unit until he left last week, had been attacking the mega bill for a few days.

Trump said he took away the EV Mandate and that Elon “went crazy” after he was asked to leave.

On Thursday, their disagreements over the Republican mega-bill advancing most of Trump’s biggest domestic policy priorities erupted into personal attacks, with the two men using their respective social media platforms to hurl insults.

He said Musk knew the inner workings of the bill better than most other people, and never had a problem after he left. Musk claimed that the bill had never been shown to him.

There have never been legislation that was both big and beautiful in the history of civilization. “Everyone knows this! Either the bill is big and ugly, or it is slim and beautiful. It’s Slim and Beautiful.

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“They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamor is gone. The whole world is different, and they become hostile, I don’t know what it is,” Trump said.

After Trump spoke, Musk posted on X that “without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”

The meltdowns are just beginning and May is over. Right now, we’re watching two men with leverage over each other fight with vague threats and public information. But that fight just keeps escalating, and the stakes could not be higher.

A member of Musk’s coterie of baby mamas decided to weigh in on the social media site. If you need any breakup advice, please let me know and I’ll give it to you.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are attempting to subpoena Musk. Nancy Mace suspended the hearing to give Republicans time to vote against the subpoena. Should Trump demand it, it’s easy to imagine another vote happening — one that hauls Musk in front of Congress.

Who’s winning? The stock ofTesla declined 14 percent today to close at $284.70. Trump can hurt Musk imminently, and not just with the spending bill. The Washington Post reported that Musk began his career in the US by working illegally. If that were to happen, it could make him eligible for revocation of his citizenship by the Trump government. Would that be legal? It appears that ICE doesn’t care.

Then, just after the market closed, Musk posted, “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.” The SpaceX Dragon is used to fly cargo and crew to the International Space Station.

Why Elon Musk and the New York Times crossed the Rubicon when Donald Trump pounced on social media: A statement of discontent about the White House

I would not use the word “went” in that sentence. That is an actionable threat. (Also jawboning, though at this point who’s keeping track?) It would probably fuck up the remnants of NASA in a significant way.

Now, both of these men are excellent at commanding attention, and this is a reality-TV squabble playing out on social media. It’s also very close to being sad. But a government contractor, one whose business empire is extremely dependent on federal contracts, posting about the deficit is serving up a nice volley. It was spiked by Trump.

The reporter is interested in technology, money and human behavior. She was an editor at The Verge when she joined. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.

Elon Musk “crossed the Rubicon” when he echoed sentiments on his social media platform X, calling for President Trump to be impeached, says former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

In the congressional investigation of Donald Trump, Bannon went to prison for refusing to testify. He also has pleaded guilty to crimes in New York state. In January, Bannon stated to NPR he thought Trump would listen to the populism that helped him secure two presidencies over billionaires backing his inauguration.

I think that you just said one thing that I had never heard before. You believe that Elon Musk had asked for an extension of his time as a special government employee?

Steve, I think this is not personal now. We have a national security issue in our country, that is what I think. We have an individual that The New York Times has said has a massive drug problem, and that has not been refuted. We have a person with a deep financial and business relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. We know he is requesting private briefings of top secret information. He’s also somehow involved in this invitation to President Xi Jinping to come to the inauguration. You have someone whose legal status is in question. It is not feasible to deport people from all over the world because the Third World countries that came here at the invitation of the Biden regime, such as a white South African, may be here illegally. It’s just not right.

He crossed the limits of acceptability. One thing to state is that spending on the bill is not right. There’s something else about what he did. You can’t try and destroy the bill while you sit there. The most significant legislative occurrence of this first term, number one, can’t be killed. Number two, he crossed the Rubicon by this outrageous comparison to the Epstein files about saying President Trump should be impeached, replaced by JD Vance. This is unbelievably out of line. The line has been crossed. He’s crossed the Rubicon and there’s no going back.

Digital and Radio Between the Black Hole and the Star-Formation”: Treye Green and Reena Advani

This digital story was edited by Treye Green. The radio version was edited by Reena Advani and produced by Barry Gordemer, Julie Depenbrock and Nia Dumas.