Ever since the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, threw his financial weight behind Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and appeared hopping around idiotically behind the candidate at a rally stage, political observers have wondered what would instigate the two men’s inevitable falling out.

Would it be a matter of competing egos, with each man resenting the power and influence of the other? Would it be a matter of clashing cultures, with Trump’s sleaze rubbing the wrong way against Musk’s Silicon Valley creepiness? Would it be an ideological clash, with the paleocon nationalists of Trump’s dwindling inner circle turning against Musk’s cadre of teenage Doge hackers and cosmopolitan techno-reactionaries?

It was bound to be something. Trump, after all, is not known for his ability to maintain cordial alliances – not even with those who have been as useful as Musk has been. Trump’s first term, to say nothing of his pre-presidency career, was marked by soured alliances, public remonstrances against onetime partners, and brief, disastrous tenures by employees and advisers who quickly left, angry. Musk, meanwhile, is known for his uncommonly odious personality, a management style that is euphemistically called “mercurial”,........

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