And they seemed like such a happy couple …

In reality, few are surprised by the public divorce between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Trump, the master showman, does not like to share the spotlight and he has a long history of turning against and denouncing his former allies and subordinates. Not for nothing is his most famous phrase, from reality-TV show The Apprentice, “You’re fired!”

Elon Musk and Donald Trump speak in the White House on March 14.Credit: AFP

Having only just departed the White House, Musk has lost no time airing his grievances against the Trump administration. Not only has he publicly dubbed the United States president’s “one, big, beautiful bill” as a “disgusting abomination”, he has now claimed that Trump is named in undisclosed government files on the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The president, according to Musk, writing on his social media platform X, “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

The only surprise is that the Trump-Musk bromance lasted as long as it did before coming to an abrupt end before the first year of Trump’s second presidency was half over.

Elon Musk jumps on stage as Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in October.Credit: AP

After Musk endorsed Trump for president in July 2024, he spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the Trump campaign. It is doubtful that Musk’s money made any difference in the outcome, given the unpopularity of Kamala Harris and the long-term shift of working-class voters in swing states towards the Republicans.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of his second term Trump made the billionaire a “special government employee” and put him in charge of something called DOGE (Department of Government........

© The Sydney Morning Herald