Only in Washington could a legislative process called “reconciliation” actually drive President Donald Trump and his erstwhile ally Elon Musk apart.

Less than a week after Musk stepped away from his role at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency, with a seemingly gracious exit from the Trump administration, a full-on feud finally broke out.

Within a few hours on the afternoon of June 5, Trump accused Musk of going crazy and mused on social media about pulling the tech billionaire’s government contracts. Musk took to X to accuse Trump of being named in the Epstein files, claiming it was the real obstacle to their promised public release, and seemingly endorsed a post calling for Trump’s impeachment and replacement with Vice President JD Vance.

The proximate cause of their split was the so-called big, beautiful bill, through which the bulk of the Trump second-term agenda was to be enacted by Congress in straight party-line votes. This includes making the Trump tax cuts permanent and new funding for immigration enforcement, as well as new deficit spending, budget forecasters projected, raising Musk’s........

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