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    The Trump-Musk feud exposes America’s wealth-hoarding crisis | Gabriel Zucman

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    As the world watches Donald Trump and Elon Musk publicly fight over the sweeping legislation moving through Congress, we should not let the drama distract us. There is something deeper afoot: unprecedented wealth concentration – and the unbridled power that comes with such wealth – has distorted our democracy and is driving societal and economic tensions.Musk, the world’s richest man, wields power no one person should have. He has used this power to elect candidates that will enact policies to protect his interests and he even bought his way into government. While at the helm of Doge, Musk dramatically reshaped the government in ways that benefit him – for instance, slashing regulatory agencies investigating his businesses – and hollowed out spending to make way for tax cuts that would enrich him.Musk is just one example of the ways in which unchecked concentration of wealth is eroding US democracy and economic equality. Just 800 families in the US are collectively worth almost $7tn – a record-breaking figure that exceeds the wealth of the bottom half of the US combined. While most of us earn money through labor, these ultra-wealthy individuals let the tax code and their investments do the work for them. Under the current federal income tax system, over half of the real-world income available to the top 0.1% of wealth-holders (those with $62m or more) goes totally untaxed. As a result, billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have gotten away with paying zero dollars in federal income taxes in some years, even when their real sources of income were soaring.On the other side, millions of hard-working Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Their anxiety is growing as tariffs threaten to explode already rising costs.A broken tax code means unchecked wealth-hoarding. The numbers are staggering: $1tn of wealth was created for the 19 richest US households just last year (to put that number into perspective, that is more than the output of the entire Swiss economy). That was the largest one-year increase in wealth ever recorded. I have studied this rapidly ballooning wealth concentration, and like my colleagues who focus on democracy and governance, I am alarmed by the increasingly aggressive power wielded by a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals.The good news is, hope is not lost. We can break up this dangerous concentration of wealth by taxing billionaires. There is growing public support for doing just this, even among Republican voters. A recent Morning Consult poll found that 70% of Republicans believed “the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes”, up from 62% six years ago.With many of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy set to expire this year, legislators have an opportunity to reset the balance driving dangerous wealth-hoarding. Rather than considering raising taxes on middle-class Americans or even households earning above $400,000, they must focus on the immense concentration of wealth among the very top 0.1% of Americans. This would not only break up concentrated wealth, but also generate substantial revenue.One mechanism for achieving this goal is a wealth tax on the ultra-wealthy. The Tax Policy Center recently released an analysis of a new policy called the Five & Dime tax. This proposal would impose a 5% tax on household wealth exceeding $50m and a 10% tax on household wealth over $250m. The Five & Dime tax would raise $6.8tn over 10 years, slow the rate at which the US mints new billionaires, and reduce the billionaires’ share of total US wealth from 4% to 3%.While breaking up dangerous wealth concentration is reason enough to tax billionaires, this revenue could be invested in programs that support working families and in turn boost the economy. Lawmakers could opt for high-return public investments like debt-free college, helping working families afford childcare, expanding affordable housing, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, and strengthening climate initiatives.Ultimately, taxes on the ultra-rich could transform American society for the better and grow the economy by discouraging unproductive financial behaviors and promoting fair competition – leading to a more dynamic and efficient system.Critics will inevitably claim such a tax would stifle economic growth or prove too challenging for the IRS to implement. But in our highly educated nation, the idea that growth and innovation comes from just a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals does not withstand scrutiny. And while there are challenges for administering any bold proposal, America has always been up for a challenge.After witnessing the consequences of billionaire governance firsthand under this administration, Americans understand what’s at stake. We are seeing how unchecked, astronomical wealth has corrupted American democracy and stifled the economy. It’s not too late to act. Now it’s time for lawmakers who care about the country’s future to embrace solutions that empower everyone, not just the few at the top.

    Gabriel Zucman is professor of economics at the University of California Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics More

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      Will the Trump-Musk rift really change anything? | Jan-Werner Müller

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      Thinking about the constant stream of news about Elon Musk, one is tempted to adapt two of the most famous sentences from American literature. William Faulkner wrote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” What comes to mind about Musk is: “He is not gone forever. He has not even left.”It is profoundly misleading to frame Musk’s departure this past week as “disappointed reformer quits after finding it impossible to make bureaucracy efficient”, just as it is wrong to think of this week’s rift as “Trump regime changes direction”. After all, Musk’s people are still there; and Musk-ism – understood as the wanton destruction of state capacity and cruel attacks on the poorest – will continue on … what’s the drug appropriate to mention here? Steroids? Not least, Trump’s and Musk’s fates remain entwined.Plenty of personnel beholden to Musk are still around and doubling down on their chainsaw massacre. Continuing deregulation is still very much to Musk’s and other oligarchs’ liking. There is no dearth of bizarre Musk pronouncements about the universe, but his claim that the Doge ethos is like Buddhism must be somewhere near the top. Yet it reveals a truth: the mentality of blissfully destroying state capacity will persist, except that the practice is likely to become more systematic and less prone to PR statements about “savings” that can easily be debunked. Russell Vought, who directs the office of management and budget, knows what he is doing and has long been preparing to use “executive tools” creatively – read: illegally, according to plenty of constitutional lawyers. The level of cruelty is not much different from Musk’s “feeding USAID into the wood chipper”, but the process may well become smoother and less visible.After all, Musk’s own criticism of the budget is that it did not cut enough. The most sycophantic members of the Trump cult – such as the representative Andy Ogles – say the same: the bill is “not beautiful yet”; only senators making further cuts can make it so. As one of the world’s most influential political scientists, Adam Przeworski, has pointed out, budgets like this do not get passed under democratic conditions unless there is a major crisis (juntas in Chile and Argentina could make cuts of a similar magnitude with impunity). The potential damage to low-income families – not to speak of science – is so enormous that Reagan and Thatcher look like democratic socialists by comparison.The Trump-Musk rift will reveal much about what kind of regime the Trumpists are really creating, and how far governing as a form of personal revenge might be pushed. In principle, mutual vulnerability remains. Trump still has reasons to welcome help from Musk’s platform – and his money. The US is relying on SpaceX and Starlink in ways that give Musk leverage. Conversely, though, no matter how big the platform, a state can always pull the plug through regulation. Most important, Musk and Trump might know things about one another that should not become public.This, after all, is the underlying logic of what the Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar has theorized as a “mafia state”. In such a state, benefits go to what Magyar calls a “political family” (in Trump’s case, it of course includes the biological family); but in return there has to be absolute loyalty and omertà. A mafia state resembles Hotel California: you can officially check out, but you can never leave.This does not mean that nobody ever tries. Yet in conflicts between autocrats and a defecting oligarch, the latter tends to lose. Putin subjugated oligarchs who showed streaks of independence; Orbán defeated his former ally Lajos Simicska. When the latter broke with the Hungarian prime minister in 2015, opposition figures were giddy with excitement about juicy revelations and regime infighting. But financing big PR campaigns about corruption and an anti-Orbán party, as well as a large media empire, were not enough; today, the former oligarch concentrates on farming in western Hungary.Many commentators have called for inflicting reputational damage on Musk. It clearly has been an advantage for those willing to protest the Trump regime that Tesla provided a focal point for concrete action; it is much more difficult to rally against cabinet members who do not happen to have a dealership down the road, but rather abstract things like hedge funds.More important still are investigations, starting with the simple – but still unanswered – questions about who actually runs Doge, how it is structured and on what legal basis its actions proceed (the fact that the chair of the Doge caucus in the House keeps touting the entity’s commitment to “turning transparency into action” only adds insult to injury). If Congress ever rediscovers Article 1 of the constitution, and its duties of oversight in particular, it should not just hold hearings, but produce an analytical record of how an individual – unelected and supposedly without holding any office – could simply be handed a chainsaw and a key to all our data (a golden key was indeed a fitting gift from Trump). It will be difficult – in some cases, impossible – to undo the damage Musk and allies have caused; it will take less effort to dismantle the myth of “if only a business genius ran government, all would be well”. After all, evidence of how things turned out will be there.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

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      Trump warns Musk of ‘very serious consequences’ if he backs Democrats

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      Donald Trump warned Elon Musk on Saturday that he faces “very serious consequences” if he funds Democratic candidates following the pair’s epic public bust-up this week.The warning, delivered in an interview with NBC News scheduled to broadcast on Sunday, follows days of feuding and threats after Musk called Republicans’ budget legislation an “abomination”.Trump told interviewer Kristen Welker his relationship with the tech mogul was over and warned Musk against choosing to fund Democrats after spending close to $300m in support of Trump’s re-election last year.“If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump told NBC News. “He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” he added.Trump was also asked whether he had any wish to repair his relationship with Musk. “No,” he said. Asked whether he thought their relationship was over, he said: “I would assume so, yeah,” and said he had no plans to speak with his erstwhile sidekick.“I’m too busy doing other things,” Trump said, adding: “I have no intention of speaking to him.”But he predicted that the spat had helped to unify the Republican party around him, saying the “party has never been united like this before. It’s never been. It’s actually more so than it was three days ago.”Musk’s opposition to the Republican budget bill, formally the “one big beautiful bill act”, would not, he predicted, affect its passage through Congress. The bill narrowly passed the House and is now under consideration in the Senate. However, some conservative Republicans share Musk’s concerns about the need for significant spending cuts and are considering making changes.The bill extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and includes new spending for border security and the military. Republicans aimed to offset these costs with cuts to programmes such as Medicaid, food stamps and green-energy tax credits.Projections from the congressional budget office and independent analysts indicate that the bill would add between $2.3tn and $5tn to the deficit over the next 10 years. White House officials contend that the economic growth generated by tax cuts will offset the increased spending.Still, Trump told NBC he is “very confident” that the bill will pass the Senate before 4 July.“I think, actually, Elon brought out the strengths of the bill because people that weren’t as focused started focusing on it, and they see how good it is,” Trump said. “So in that sense, there was a big favor. But I think Elon, really, I think it’s a shame that he’s so depressed and so heartbroken.”He also accused Musk of being “disrespectful to the office of the president”.“I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president,” he said.Earlier, Musk deleted a post from X, the social media platform he owns, that asserted links between Trump and disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionQuestioned about the inflammatory post, Trump said: “That’s called ‘old news’, that’s been old news, that has been talked about for years. Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it. It’s old news.”Musk has also retracted a threat to begin “decommissioning” SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft used by Nasa to ferry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.The original threat came after Trump suggested he might cancel SpaceX’s federal contracts. On Saturday, the president said he hadn’t given the subject any more thought.“I’d be allowed to do that,” he said, “but I haven’t given it any thought.”Earlier on Saturday, JD Vance told interviewer and comedian Theo Von that Musk was making a “huge mistake” going after Trump, but downplayed Musk’s attacks as being made by an “emotional guy” who got frustrated.“I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear,” the vice-president said.But he added: “Look, it happens to everybody. I’ve flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours.”“I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine,” Vance said.David Smith contributed reporting More

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      JD Vance says Elon Musk’s attack against Trump is a ‘huge mistake’

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      JD Vance said Elon Musk was making a “huge mistake” going after Donald Trump in a storm of bitter and inflammatory social media posts after a falling-out between the two men.But the US vice-president, in an interview released on Friday after the very public blowup between the world’s richest person and arguably the world’s most powerful, also tried to downplay Musk’s blistering attacks as an “emotional guy” who got frustrated.“I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear,” Vance said.Vance’s comments come as other Republicans in recent days have urged the two men, who months ago were close allies spending significant time together, to mend fences.Musk’s torrent of social media posts attacking Trump came as the president portrayed him as disgruntled and “CRAZY” and threatened to cut the government contracts held by his businesses.Musk, who runs electric vehicle maker Tesla, internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX, lambasted Trump’s centerpiece tax cuts and spending bill but also suggested the president should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about Trump’s association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.“Look, it happens to everybody,” Vance said in the interview. “I’ve flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours.”Vance made the comments in an interview with “manosphere” comedian Theo Von, who last month joked about snorting drugs off a mixed-race baby and the sexuality of men in the US navy when he opened for Trump at a military base in Qatar.The vice-president told Von that as Musk for days was calling on social media for Congress to kill Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, the president was “getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon, but I think has been very restrained because the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk”.“I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine,” he added.Musk appeared by Saturday morning to have deleted his posts about Epstein.The interview was taped on Thursday as Musk’s posts were unfurling on X, the social media network the billionaire owns.During the interview, Von showed the vice-president Musk’s claim that Trump’s administration hasn’t released all the records related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is mentioned in them.Vance responded to that, saying: “Absolutely not. Donald Trump didn’t do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.”“This stuff is just not helpful,” Vance said in response to another post shared by Musk calling for Trump to be impeached and replaced with Vance.“It’s totally insane. The president is doing a good job.”Vance called Musk an “incredible entrepreneur”, and said that Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, which sought to cut government spending and laid off or pushed out thousands of workers, was “really good”.The vice-president also defended the bill that has drawn Musk’s ire, and said its central goal was not to cut spending but to extend the 2017 tax cuts approved in Trump’s first term.The bill would slash spending but also leave about 10.9 million more people without health insurance and increase debt by $2.4tn over the decade, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office.Musk has warned that the bill will increase the federal debt and called it a “disgusting abomination”.“It’s a good bill,” Vance said. “It’s not a perfect bill.”He also said it was ridiculous for some House Republicans who voted for the bill to later object to some parts and claim they hadn’t had time to read it.Vance said the text had been available for weeks and said: “The idea that people haven’t had an opportunity to actually read it is ridiculous.”Elsewhere in the interview, Vance laughed as Von cracked jokes about famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass’s sexuality.“We’re gonna talk to the Smithsonian about putting up an exhibit on that,” Vance joked. “And Theo Von, you can be the narrator for this new understanding of the history of Frederick Douglass.”The podcaster also asked the vice-president if he “got high” on election night to celebrate Trump’s victory.Vance laughed and joked that he wouldn’t admit it if he did.“I did not get high,” he then said. “I did have a fair amount to drink that night.”The interview was taped in Nashville at a restaurant owned by musician Kid Rock, a Trump ally. More

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      Federal prosecutor reportedly quit over concern Ábrego García indictment was politically motivated – as it happened

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      A career federal prosecutor resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Kilmar Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation of the Maryland resident became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration, ABC News reports.Ben Schrader, announced his resignation as the chief of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee in a LinkedIn post on 21 May, the same day the indictment of Ábrego García was signed by the acting US attorney for that district.Sources told ABC News that Schrader stepped down because of concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.“Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee”, Schrader wrote on LinkedIn that day. “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.”At a news conference on Friday, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to say exactly when the investigation that led to the charges was opened, but she told reporters that the indictment was based on “recently found facts” about a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, and that “thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Ábrego García, this investigation continued”.The indictment was signed by Robert McGuire, who has been the acting US attorney in Nashville since December, and three senior prosecutors from the justice department’s Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was created during the first Trump administration “to dismantle MS-13”.This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. Here are some of the latest developments:

      Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order, was returned to the United States and charged with the criminal smuggling of undocumented immigrants inside the United States.

      Ben Schrader, a career federal prosecutor, reportedly resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration.

      Donald Trump suggested that court orders to his administration to return Ábrego García to the US was a sign that “the judges are trying to take the place of a president that won in a landslide”.

      One day after his feud with Elon Musk exploded Trump claimed that he was far too busy to think about the billionaire donor who had accused him of sex crimes and called for his impeachment. That claim was undermined by the fact that Trump spent a chunk of his morning on the phone with at least three television reporters, gossiping about Musk.

      Two federal appeals court judges appointed by Trump overturned a lower court ruling to allow him to resume punishing the Associated Press for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by that name instead of the new one Trump gave it.
      Two judges appointed by Donald Trump to a federal appeals court ruled in his favor on Friday, allowing him to resume blocking the Associated Press from covering him at events in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in his Mar-A-Lago club.The 2-1 ruling was written by US circuit judge Neomi Rao, who served in Trump’s first administration, and joined by fellow Trump appointee Gregory Katsas.The divided ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit temporarily blocks an order by another Trump appointed judge, US district judge Trevor McFadden, who had ruled in April that the Trump administration had to allow AP journalists access to events while the news agency’s lawsuit moves forward.The AP sued after Trump banned the news organization for refusing to follow him in referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.The court left in place part of a lower-court order that required Trump to give AP access to events held in larger spaces, like the East Room of the White House.The Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on multiple locations across Los Angeles on Friday, clashing with the crowds of people who gathered to protest.Masked agents were recorded pulling several people out of two LA-area Home Depot stores and the clothing manufacturer Ambient Apparel’s headquarters in LA’s Fashion District.There has not yet been confirmation of how many people were taken into custody, but initial estimates provided by news helicopter reports shows roughly two dozen people were loaded into white vans and taken away.Armed agents clad in heavy protective and tactical gear, including some who wore gas masks, could also be seen pushing individuals and trying to corral large groups that congregated to challenge the raids, and smoke grenades were reportedly thrown near the crowds. Pepper spray was used as the federal officers attempted to clear the area.Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Donald Trump suggested that some sort of unspecified action needed to be taken against federal judges who ordered his administration to bring the wrongly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Ábrego García back from El Salvador.Trump continued to insist that the supreme court’s order requiring his administration to bring Ábrego García back to the United States was incorrect. “He should’ve never had to be returned”, Trump said. “Either way it’s a total disaster – this is a pretty bad guy.”In comments posted on YouTube by the Washington Post, Trump seemed to give insight into the political calculation behind his administration’s decision to bring Ábrego García back, as the supreme court had ordered, but first indict him on new criminal charges.“I could see a decision being made” Trump said, “‘bring him back; show everybody how horrible this guy is’”.He then returned to his outrage at federal judges for not allowing him to deport people like Ábrego García who have been accused of crimes without giving them an opportunity to challenge the evidence against them in court.“Frankly, we have to do something, because the judges are trying to take the place of a president that won in a landslide” Trump said. “And that’s not supposed to be the way it is”.Trump seems convinced that Ábrego García is so obviously a gang member that there is no need for a trial. However, the president demonstrated in April that he is deeply confused about at least one piece of the supposed evidence.In a social media post in mid-April, Trump held up a photograph of the tattoos on Ábrego García’s hand, symbols that one corner of the internet is convinced represent the letters and numbers M,S,1 and 3, to signify that he is a member of the gang MS-13.In an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News two weeks later, though, Trump revealed that he had been confused by the photograph, which added the letters and numbers as a form of annotation. “He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed”, Trump insisted to Moran. When Moran pointed out that the letters and numbers had been added to the photograph he held up to illustrate what people thought the four symbols represented, Trump made it clear that he had mistaken the annotation for part of the tattoo. “Go look at his hand”, Trump said.Now that Ábrego García is back in the United States and will be in court, new photographs of his hand will soon be available for Trump to inspect.During a brief news conference on Air Force One, en route to his golf course in New Jersey, Donald Trump told reporters that he has been far too busy to spend any time thinking about Elon Musk, his top donor and former aide who called for him to be impeached on Thursday.“Honestly, I’ve been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many things, I’m not thinking about Elon” Trump said. “I just wish him well.”The president’s comment, one day after Musk accused him of having been involved in his late friend Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, oddly echoed Trump’s response to a question about Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2020 when she was arrested and charged with helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse girls.Back then, when Trump was asked during a coronavirus briefing in the White House if he expected Maxwell “to turn in powerful men”, he responded: “I don’t know, I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.”“I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in jail the following year. Her prosecution was led by Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Williams later oversaw the indictment on New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, on corruption charges that were later dropped by the Trump administration.On Friday, Williams left the law firm Paul Weiss to join Jenner & Block, moving from a firm that struck a deal with Trump to one that fought him in court.Trump’s claim that he was far too busy on Friday to concern himself with Musk’s criticism was slightly undermined by the fact that he spent much of his morning at the White House talking about Musk to multiple reporters on the phone. When Jonathan Karl of ABC News called the president at 6:45 am, Trump picked up to talk about Musk and called him “a man who has lost his mind”. Trump also took time to tell Bret Baier of Fox, “Elon has totally lost it”. Trump also spoke to CNN’s Dana Bash, to insist: “I’m not even thinking about Elon, he’s got a problem, the poor guy’s got a problem”. Bash said that Trump also told her he wishes Elon well.Donald Trump, who is again enjoying a long weekend at one of his golf courses, took a moment to respond, obliquely, to Elon Musk’s unsourced claim on Thursday that the Trump administration has not released all of the files from the sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is implicated in his late friend’s crimes.During an Air Force One flight to New Jersey on Friday, Trump shared a comment from David Schoen, a lawyer who defended the president at his second impeachment trial in 2021, over the January 6 riot.“I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died”, Schoen wrote on Musk’s social media platform X on Thursday. “He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!”Following Musk’s post on Thursday, which was viewed more than 200 million times (according to Musk’s company), Schoen also wrote on the billionaire’s platform: “I can tell you unequivocally as someone who would know that President Trump never did anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.”A career federal prosecutor resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Kilmar Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation of the Maryland resident became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration, ABC News reports.Ben Schrader, announced his resignation as the chief of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee in a LinkedIn post on 21 May, the same day the indictment of Ábrego García was signed by the acting US attorney for that district.Sources told ABC News that Schrader stepped down because of concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.“Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee”, Schrader wrote on LinkedIn that day. “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.”At a news conference on Friday, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to say exactly when the investigation that led to the charges was opened, but she told reporters that the indictment was based on “recently found facts” about a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, and that “thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Ábrego García, this investigation continued”.The indictment was signed by Robert McGuire, who has been the acting US attorney in Nashville since December, and three senior prosecutors from the justice department’s Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was created during the first Trump administration “to dismantle MS-13”.In a new statement, Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who visited Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador, reiterated the point he made after his trip in April, when he said that he was “not defending the man” but “defending the rights of this man to due process”.Here is Van Hollen’s new statement:
      “For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States. As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
      This restates what Van Hollen said in an interview with ABC News in April, of the Trump administration: “Here’s where they should put their facts: they should oput it before the court. They should put up or shut up in court.”El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, joined the White House in attacking Senator Chris Van Hollen on social media with a post on Elon Musk’s X in which he referred back to a staged photograph of the Maryland senator’s meeting Kilmar Ábrego García in April.Referencing the release of Ábrego García from custody in El Salvador on Friday, Bukele wrote: we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse.”He added: “No more margaritas under custody”.On his return from El Salvador in April, however, Van Hollen accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself and Ábrego García as they met to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks.Those photographs were posted on X by Bukele, along with a caption that downplayed the seriousness of the situation by falsely claiming that the senator and the wrongly deported man had been “sipping margaritas” as they met.But the senator said that the drinks were placed there during the meeting by someone from the Salvadoran government before the photographs were taken and that neither he nor Ábrego García had touched them. Van Hollen pointed out that there was visual evidence for this in the photographs: the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar, but it was clear from the images that neither glass had been drunk from, since the rims were undisturbed.The US supreme court on Friday permitted the so-called ‘department of government efficiency’, or Doge, a team set up by former Trump aide Elon Musk to take a chainsaw to the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out, Reuters reports.At the request of the Justice Department, the justices put on hold US district judge Ellen Hollander’s order that had largely blocked Doge’s access to “personally identifiable information” in data such as medical and financial records while litigation proceeds in a lower court. Hollander found that allowing Doge unfettered access likely would violate a federal privacy law.The court’s brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the order.White House officials have wasted no time in using the newly announced criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego García to attack Democrats who objected to his deportation without due process in violation of a previous court order.Writing on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, the White House’s official account dedicated to partisan “rapid response” resurfaced an April post from Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat whose constituents include Ábrego García’s wife, to suggest that he should now be ashamed of having stood up for the undocumented Maryland resident’s due process rights.“A grand jury found his full-time job was human smuggling, Chris,” the White House account commented. “He spent his entire life abusing people – including women and children. This is who you spent so much time defending. Shame on you.”The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also using the platform owned by a former Trump aide who called for the president to be impeached just yesterday, claimed that the indictment against Ábrego García “proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools”.Apparently unaware that the allegations have yet to be tested in court, the president’s chief spokesperson insisted that “Democrat lawmakers” including Van Hollen, “and every single so-called ‘journalist’ who defended this illegal criminal abuser must immediately apologize to Garcia’s victims”.At a news conference, the US attorney general, Pamela Bondi, just announced that Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order, has been returned to the United States and charged with criminal charges related to smuggling undocumented immigrants inside the United States.Bondi said that the US government presented an arrest warrant for Ábrego García to El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.She also said that the grand jury indictment on 21 May was based on recently discovered facts and that the grand jury “found that over the past nine years, Ábrego García has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring.”“Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his country of El Salvador”, Bondi said.Bondi suggested that Ábrego García was involved in other crimes, based on what unnamed co-conspirators allege, but he was only indicted on two counts related to the alleged smuggling.In response to a reporter’s question, Bondi said that Ábrego García would serve a prison sentence in the US if convicted, on charges that carry a possible sentence of 10 years, and then be deported to El Salvador again.We are waiting for the start of a livestreamed justice department news conference, which is expected to deal with the indictment of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador and is reportedly on his way back to the United States to face new criminal charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee which prompted officers to suspect that he might have been transporting undocumented migrants.The criminal indictment, which was filed on 21 May, accuses Ábrego García of being “a member and associate” of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 and charges him with taking part in a conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants inside the United States.The reportedly imminent return to the United States of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order that he should not be sent there because he had a reasonable fear of persecution in that country, comes nearly two months after the attorney general, Pamela Jo Bondi, insisted that it would never happen.“He is not coming back to our country” Bondi told reporters at a news conference on 16 April. “President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story.”Asked if she could provide evidence that he was a member of the MS-13 gang, Bondi said only that the allegation was contained in a 2019 court hearing.Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to El Salvador, is on his way back to the US where he will face criminal charges, ABC News is reporting, citing sources.A federal grand jury has indicted Ábrego García for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the US, according to the report.The outlet, citing sources, reports that a two-count indictment, filed under seal in federal court in Tennessee last month, alleges that Ábrego García participated in a years-long conspiracy to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, according to the report. The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade, according to the report.A US trade delegation including three cabinet officials will meet with trade representatives from China in London on Monday “with reference to the trade deal”, Donald Trump has announced.He posted on Truth Social:
      I am pleased to announce that Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer, will be meeting in London on Monday, June 9, 2025, with Representatives of China, with reference to the Trade Deal. The meeting should go very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
      It comes a day after Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping held a “very good” phone call during which they discussed “some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal”, Trump said.Trump also said Xi had invited him to visit China, an invitation he aid he reciprocated.Xi said of the call that a “consensus has been reached”, adding that the two sides “should enhance consensus” as well as “reduce misunderstanding, strengthen cooperation” and “enhance exchanges”. “Dialogue, cooperation is the only right choice for China and the US,” the Chinese president said.Elon Musk may believe his money bought the presidential election and the House of the Representatives for the Republicans. But he is discovering painfully and quickly that it has not bought him love, loyalty or even fear among many GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill.Faced with the choice of siding with Musk, the world’s richest man, or Donald Trump, after the two staged a public relationship breakdown for the ages on Thursday, most Republicans went with the man in the Oval Office, who has shown an unerring grasp of the tactics of political intimidation and who remains the world’s most powerful figure even without the boss of Tesla and SpaceX by his side.The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who poured about $275m into Trump’s campaign last year, tried to remind Washington’s political classes of his financial muscle on Thursday during an outpouring of slights against a man for whom he had once professed platonic love and was still showering with praise up until a week before.One after another, Republican House members came out to condemn him and defend Trump, despite having earlier been told by Musk that “you know you did wrong” in voting for what has become Trump’s signature legislation that seeks to extend vast tax cuts for the rich.Troy Nehls, a GOP representative from Texas, captured the tone, addressing Musk before television cameras:
      You’ve lost your damn mind. Enough is enough. Stop this.
      It chimed with the sentiments of many others. “Nobody elected Elon Musk, and a whole lot of people don’t even like him, to be honest with you, even on both sides,” Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman, told Axios.“We’re getting people calling our offices 100% in support of President Trump,” Kevin Hern, a representative from Oklahoma, told the site.
      Every tweet that goes out, people are more lockstep behind President Trump and [Musk is] losing favour.
      Republicans were balancing the strength of Trump’s voice among GOP voters versus the power of the increasingly unpopular Musk’s money – and most had little doubt which matters most.“On the value of Elon playing against us in primaries compared to Trump endorsing us in primaries, the latter is 100 times more relevant,” Axios quoted one unnamed representative as saying.The Trump administration is preparing to make good on the president’s threat to strip “large scale” federal funding from California, an effort that could begin as early as Friday, according to CNN.The report says agencies have been directed to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from the state. A whistleblower reportedly told a congressional committee that the administration was planning to cut all research grants to California.The White House has not commented on the plans. The timeline remains speculative, and it is unclear what grants would be targeted.Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funding as a way to force states, institutions and universities to comply with his agenda. Last week, he said California could lose “large scale” funding “maybe permanently” if the state continued to allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports.The declaration appeared to be in reference to a transgender track-and-field star from southern California. On Saturday, she won two gold medals and a silver, which she shared with other teen athletes under a new rule by the state’s high school sports body.Trump had also repeatedly threatened to withhold federal disaster aid, assailing the state’s Democratic leaders for their handling of the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles earlier this year.More from House speaker Mike Johnson, who has told CNBC he has been texting with Elon Musk and hopes the dispute is resolved quickly.He said of the “big, beautiful bill”:
      I don’t argue with [Musk] about how to build rockets and I wish he wouldn’t argue with me about how to craft legislation and pass it.
      Johnson earlier issued a warning: “Do not second-guess and don’t ever challenge the president of the United States, Donald Trump.”He had also projected confidence that the Trump-Musk dispute won’t affect prospects for the tax and border bill. “Members are not shaken at all,” he said. “We’re going to pass this legislation on our deadline.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Elon Musk rift deepens as president says ‘poor guy’s got a problem’

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      Donald Trump appeared in no mood to patch things up with former top adviser Elon Musk on Friday, doubling down on his new hostility towards the Tesla and Space X tycoon with a number of disparaging statements.The US president appeared to deny reports of a potential peacemaking phone call with Musk, telling ABC News he was “not particularly” interested in talking to his former confidant right now.The president also spoke to CNN, saying: “I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” Trump told Politico that the relationship with Musk was “going very well, never done better”.Here are the key Trump administration stories of the day:Trump says Musk has ‘lost his mind’ Donald Trump appeared to dismiss a peace overture from his former close political ally Elon Musk, calling him someone who had “lost his mind” as the extraordinary falling out between the two men looked set to continue.The US president and the richest person in the world – who had been tasked with slashing the federal government – fell out in spectacular fashion on Thursday in a series of escalating social media posts that roiled the political world.Read the full storyKilmar Ábrego García returned to US to face criminal chargesKilmar Ábrego García – the man whom the Trump administration mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March – returned to the US on Friday to face criminal charges.In a press briefing, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said a federal grand jury in Tennessee had indicted the 29-year-old father on counts of illegally smuggling undocumented people as well as conspiracy to commit that crime.Read the full storyDoge allowed access to social security dataThe US supreme court on Friday permitted the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), a key player in Donald Trump’s drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to the personal information of millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out.The court’s brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented.Read the full storyUS jobs market slows amid Trump trade war uncertaintyThe US economy added 139,000 jobs in May, a slowdown compared with recent months as American businesses cope with uncertainty around Donald Trump’s continuing trade war.Read the full storyGOP senator employs aide fired over neo-Nazi imageryA staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.Read the full storyOutrage after Republican congresswoman disparages Sikh prayer in US HouseA Republican representative is facing a widespread backlash after saying that a Sikh should not have conducted a prayer in the US House.Mary Miller, an Illinois representative, on Friday published – then deleted – a post saying that Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey, should not have delivered the House’s morning prayer.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Enrique Tarrio, the former national leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, and four other members convicted of orchestrating the deadly 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack are suing the federal government for allegedly violating their rights.

      Russia is at war with Britain, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK has to respond by becoming more cohesive and more resilient, according to a former White House adviser.

      Senior US administration officials will meet with a Chinese delegation in London on Monday for the next round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, Donald Trump said on Friday.

      An event by the International Pride Orchestra this week swung from classical Gershwin favourites to choral patriotism to high drag in a rebuff to Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center and its subsequent snub of the LBGTQ+ ensemble.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 5 June 2025. More

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      Money can’t buy him love: Republicans give Elon Musk the cold shoulder

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      Elon Musk may believe his money bought the presidential election and the House of the Representatives for the Republicans. But he is discovering painfully and quickly that it has not bought him love, loyalty or even fear among many GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill.Faced with the choice of siding with Musk, the world’s richest man, or Donald Trump, after the two staged a public relationship breakdown for the ages on Thursday, most Republicans went with the man in the Oval Office, who has shown an unerring grasp of the tactics of political intimidation and who remains the world’s most powerful figure even without the boss of Tesla and SpaceX by his side.The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who poured about $275m into Trump’s campaign last year, tried to remind Washington’s political classes of his financial muscle on Thursday during an outpouring of slights against a man for whom he had once professed platonic love and was still showering with praise up until a week before.“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk posted to his 220 million followers on X, the social media platform he owns – and which he has used ruthlessly to reshape the political agenda.It was a variation on a theme from a man who has repeatedly threatened to deploy his untold millions in funding primary challengers to elected politicians who displease him or who publicly considered blocking Trump’s cabinet nominations.But a gambit that had been effective in the past failed to work this time – and might not be enough to sink the “big, beautiful bill” that Musk this week condemned as a deficit-inflating “abomination”.One after another, Republican House members came out to condemn him and defend Trump, despite having earlier been told by Musk that “you know you did wrong” in voting for what has become Trump’s signature legislation that seeks to extend vast tax cuts for the rich.Troy Nehls, a GOP representative from Texas, captured the tone, addressing Musk before television cameras: “You’ve lost your damn mind. Enough is enough. Stop this.”It chimed with the sentiments of many others. “Nobody elected Elon Musk, and a whole lot of people don’t even like him, to be honest with you, even on both sides,” Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman, told Axios.“We’re getting people calling our offices 100% in support of President Trump,” Kevin Hern, a representative from Oklahoma, told the site. “Every tweet that goes out, people are more lockstep behind President Trump and [Musk is] losing favour.”Greg Murphy, a North Carolina Republican, called Musk’s outburst of social media posts – that included a call for Trump’s impeachment, a forecast of a tariff-driven recession and accusation that the president is on the Jeffrey Epstein files – “absolutely childish and ridiculous”. Musk had “lost some of his gravitas”.There were numerous other comments in similar vein.They seemed to carry the weight of political calculation, rather than principled sentiment.Republicans were balancing the strength of Trump’s voice among GOP voters versus the power of the increasingly unpopular Musk’s money – and most had little doubt which matters most.“On the value of Elon playing against us in primaries compared to Trump endorsing us in primaries, the latter is 100 times more relevant,” Axios quoted one unnamed representative as saying.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother said: “Elon can burn $5m in a primary, but if Trump says ‘that’s the person Republicans should re-elect,’ it’s a wasted $5m.”Trump said on Thursday that he would have won the battleground state of Pennsylvania even without his former benefactor’s significant financial input.But it is also evidence-based. In April, Musk discovered how finite his influence was when a Republican judge he had backed with $25m of his own money lost by 10 percentage points in an election for a vacant supreme court seat in Wisconsin.It was a chastening experience that bodes ill for any hopes he has of persuading Republicans to change their minds on Trump’s spending bill.Yet Musk still has his sympathisers on Capitol Hill, even if they are a minority.With the “big, beautiful bill” still likely to pass through the Senate, Thomas Massie, a senator for Kentucky – who has been labelled “a grandstander” by Trump for his consistent criticism of the legislation – was unambiguous when CNN asked which side he choose between Trump and Musk.“I choose math. The math always wins over the words,” he replied. “I trust the math from the guy that lands rockets backwards over the politicians’ math.”It was a rare case of economics trumping politics on a day when political self-interest seemed paramount. More

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      The Guardian view on the Trump-Musk feud: we can’t rely on outsized egos to end oligopoly | Editorial

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      It would have taken a heart of stone to watch the death of the Trump-Musk bromance without laughing. Democrats passed the popcorn on Thursday night as the alliance between the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest imploded via posts on their respective social media platforms.Less than a week ago they attempted a conscious uncoupling in the Oval Office. Then Elon Musk’s attacks on Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending plan escalated to full-scale denunciation of a “disgusting abomination” – objecting to its effect on the deficit, not the fact it snatches essential support from the poor and hands $1.1tn in tax cuts to the rich.The president said that Mr Musk had “gone crazy” and was angry that electric vehicle subsidies were being removed, claimed he had fired him, threatened to terminate his government contracts, and mocked the billionaire’s recent black eye. Steve Bannon chipped in, suggesting that Mr Musk should be deported.Mr Musk said Mr Trump should be impeached and alleged the government had not released files on the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein because the president was in them. He threatened to immediately start decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft – now key to Nasa’s programme – and suggested it was time for a new political party. The ultimate insult: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” he wrote.Mr Musk later appeared minded to limit the damage, backing away from the spacecraft threat – not surprising, perhaps, when he had just watched $152bn wiped off Tesla’s value. Each man knows that the other could hurt him, via government fiat or political war chest. Yet both are so unpredictable that the row could still reignite.Two narcissists used to imposing their will were never likely to coexist happily for long, despite the advantages of doing so: this was less a marriage of convenience than of naked self-interest. Mr Trump loathes sharing the limelight; the Tesla boss frequently grabbed it. The president is surely as resentful of as he is dazzled by Mr Musk’s spectacular wealth. He was angered to discover that Mr Musk had arranged private briefings on the Pentagon’s plans for any potential war with China – not only a blatant conflict of interest, but perhaps more upsettingly, a sign of his growing power. Mr Musk’s behaviour has also appeared increasingly erratic. A recent New York Times report alleged he took large amounts of drugs including ketamine while advising Mr Trump prior to the election. Mr Musk has described the story as “bs”.His departure from the president’s orbit is good news. Mr Musk implausibly claimed he would save $2tn annually – approaching a third of the federal budget – by taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy. Wild decisions by the so-called department of government efficiency are mired in the courts. But he has nonetheless caused real damage which will not easily be remedied, gutting agencies and departments which took decades to build. People are dying because of his demolition of USAID.Yet while the bond between the peak of power and the peak of wealth has been severed, politics remains in thrall to money. Mr Trump’s approach is particularly noxious, turning wealth directly into political favours and power, and power into further wealth. This is the new oligopoly. He oversees a cabinet of billionaires, and has directed his real estate tycoon friend Steve Witkoff, a man with no diplomatic experience, to bring peace in the Middle East and Ukraine. But though megadonors are heavily skewed towards the Republicans, Democrats too depend on billionaires. Mr Musk is a symptom of the underlying malaise. Democracy requires better safeguards against the unhealthy marriage of wealth and power than the rampant egos of those who command them. More

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      Musk and Trump are enemies made for each other – united in their ability to trash their own brands | Jonathan Freedland

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      The scriptwriters of Trump: the Soap Opera are slipping. The latest plot development – the epic falling-out between the title character and his best buddy, Elon Musk – was so predictable, and indeed predicted, that it counts as the opposite of a twist. Still, surprise can be overrated. Watching the two men – one the richest in the world, the other the most powerful – turn on each other in a series of ever-more venomous posts on their respective social media platforms has been entertainment of the highest order. X v Truth: it could be a Marvel blockbuster.But this is more than mere popcorn fodder. Even if they eventually patch things up, the rift between the president and Musk has exposed a divide inside the contemporary right, in the US and beyond – and a fatal flaw of the Trump project.Naturally, much of it is personal. That’s why so many declared from the start that this was a star-cross’d bromance, whose destiny was only ever heartbreak. Even as Musk was declaring, back in February, that “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,” wiser heads knew it was doomed. The egos were too large, the narcissism too strong, for their love to survive. In the Trump universe, as in the Musk galaxy, there is room for only one sun.In their case, the personal combines with business. On this reading, Musk’s disenchantment began in his pocket, his opposition to Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, or “BBB”, currently before Congress, fuelled chiefly by the legislation’s axing of a $7,500 tax credit on the purchase of electric vehicles. With Tesla sales plunging, Musk needed that incentive to lure potential Tesla customers and was furious with Trump for scrapping it. That’s certainly the story Trump is telling. “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted … and he just went CRAZY!” Trump posted.The suggestion that Musk’s driving motive was profit seems to have particularly antagonised the billionaire, prompting him to call for his former paramour to be impeached and to claim that Trump is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files, in effect implicating the president in a paedophile ring. Musk wants to present his objection not as self-serving but as ideological, casting himself as the fiscal conservative appalled by Trump’s “disgusting abomination” of a bill because it will increase the already gargantuan US deficit by trillions of dollars.Who’s right? It seems a stretch to argue that Trump’s hostility to electric cars was the problem: as Trump himself pointed out, Musk knew about that when he jumped on the Maga train last year. As for ballooning the deficit, you can see why that would irritate Musk. Adding trillions in red ink makes a mockery of the “cost-cutting” drive he headed up with his so-called department of government efficiency.The billionaire was already smarting from the failure of Doge to cut anything like the $2tn in spending he promised would be easy. All he succeeded in doing by, for instance, feeding the US agency for international development, or USAID, into “the wood chipper” was to take the lives of 300,000 people, most of them children, who had depended on that agency and its grants, according to a Boston University study. Even if you are minded, charitably, to accept Musk’s own estimate, he only shrank the federal budget by about $150bn. To watch as that effort was cancelled out by a $600bn tax cut to people earning more than $1m a year would be a humiliation indeed.Whatever its true cause, the Trump-Musk spat has illuminated a fault line in the right – and not only in the US. Battered and quieted by the Trump phenomenon, there still remain a few old-school conservatives with a vestigial presence in the Senate, for whom fiscal rectitude remains an article of faith. While Democrats oppose the “BBB” because its cuts to Medicaid will deprive more than 10 million Americans of basic health cover, these traditional Republicans are queasy about the Liz Truss-style risks of a massive unfunded tax giveaway. Overnight, Musk has become their champion.Ranged against them are the forces of nationalist conservatism, embodied by former Trump strategist and ex-convict Steve Bannon. They don’t have a libertarian yearning for a minimal state; on the contrary, they quite like muscular displays of state power. Witness Trump’s insistence on a Pyongyang-style military parade to celebrate his birthday, and note Bannon’s response to Musk’s impudence in challenging the ruler – he called for Musk’s businesses, Starlink and SpaceX, to be nationalised. Indeed, nationalist conservatism might not be quite the right term for what Bannon offers: nationalist socialism might be more apt, though something close to that has already been taken.There have been other manifestations of this divide. Musk opposed Trump’s tariffs; Bannon is for them. Musk wanted to see the US remain open to high-skilled, tech-savvy immigrants; Bannon wants to shut the door on them. These, then, are the two camps. (You can see similar faultlines on the British right, dividing Thatcherite Conservatives from Reform UK.) For a while, the anti-woke loathing of DEI policies was strong enough to keep the opposing blocs – free traders and protectionists; deficit hawks and big spenders – together. But that glue, as Trump said of Musk, is “wearing thin”.That has some serious implications for US politics and Trump’s presidency. It is conceivable that Trump won’t have the numbers to pass this bill, his central legislative goal, in its current form: the Republican majority in the House is wafer-thin, and one more defecting Republican could sink the proposal in the Senate. Musk has given would-be dissenters cover. The gazillionaire had promised to spend big to help Republicans in the November 2026 midterm elections. Much can happen between now and then, but Trump may now need to look elsewhere for a patron. Who knows, Musk might even follow through on his threat to fund the president’s Democratic opponents. Even if he does not go that far, he controls a prime platform of the right: X could soon become hostile territory for Trump. The point is, Musk is not your usual Trump antagonist. He has as loud a megaphone, and more money, than the president.It all adds up to a sad tale of two men who once had so much in common – perhaps one thing above all. Each has been lucky enough to find themselves in charge of a brand that once enjoyed global admiration and clout – and each man has systematically set about trashing that brand in the eyes of the world. Musk has done it more than once. He bought what had become an admittedly imperfect meeting place of some of the planet’s most influential people, Twitter, and turned it into a sewer of bigotry and lies, X. He built a company, Tesla, whose most obvious customers were high earners concerned about the planet and repelled them by association with a nationalist authoritarian who wants to “drill, baby, drill”.Trump, meanwhile, has taken the US, once a magnet for talent from across the globe, and done his best to dismantle all that made it attractive: its stability, its protection of free speech, the independence of its institutions, the quality of its science and universities. This week’s moves – the travel ban, the suspicion of overseas students, the war on Harvard – to say nothing of the ongoing hostility to democratic allies and coddling of foreign dictators, are just the latest instances of Trump doing to the US brand what Musk has done to Twitter and Tesla. No wonder Trump and Musk have broken up: they were always far too alike.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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