In 1976 I backed Lloyd Bentsen for president in the Democrat primary. He was a US Senator. I liked his conservative politics. He was a Democrat. His top aide was a good friend. I met privately with Senator Bentsen before I started working on his campaign. He told me a funny story.
John Connally had been a Democrat most of his career, including his time as governor in the 1960s. He had left the Democrat party during the Nixon administration. He had friends and enemies on both sides of the aisle. Senator Bentsen told me John Connally had told him “Lloyd, I’ll come out for you or against you – whichever you think will do you the most good!”
I thought back on that conversation and anecdote when the “spat” between Musk and Trump arose. I’ve been around politics long enough to know there are such things as contrived spats.
What is to gain from this public disagreement between Trump and Musk? Why would each do this?
I prefer to believe it is part of a plan and they’re both playing their roles. Connally had alienated Democrats by jumping ship and becoming part of Nixon’s Cabinet. He was famous for saying “I didn’t leave the Democrat party – they left me.” It’s a view I have embraced. When you quit the Democrat party, they hate you worse than they hate anyone. It does not matter what you may have done, you will be hated the way they hate Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Musk was a darling of the Democrats for years. He made rockets. He made Electric Vehicles that were fast, and sleek, and not at all yucky like some of the EVs out there. He made EVs that were considered cool, classy, and upper class. Then Musk did the unthinkable: he bought Twitter and stopped it from being a gulag to the political right. He stopped the endless Democrat/Leftist propaganda and exclusion of right points of view. That made him an enemy of the far left.
Then came the ultimate betrayal when Musk got behind Trump in a big way. He was as responsible for Trump winning the Battleground States as any one person other than Trump.
Next came his leadership of DOGE, where Musk and his team ferreted out corruption in the Deep State and the Democrat hold on various agencies which used OUR money to fund all sorts of rotten, crooked NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). These groups were getting billions of our money and were run by people like George Soros and Tracy Abrams – Democrat Agents of lies and mayhem.
After Musk revealed that millions of bogus accounts were getting Social Security money they did not have coming, and he became Enemy Number One to the wicked leaders of the Democrat party. They went on the warpath against Musk, and his Tesla company. They encouraged violence against his cars and their owners. They tried to hurt the stock value, and succeeded in the short term. Of course, Democrats have the attention span of a gnat, and the wandering fits of poorly parented two year old.
Musk left the Trump community a few months after he arrived in Washington, D.C. to identify and expose the crooks. They were livid and vengeful with him. That made it a good time for a rift to occur between Musk and Trump. A very public one, with each man doing is part.
What does Trump gain? Trump loves his Big Beautiful Bill and wants it passed, but he’s not happy with some of the Big Not So Beautiful pork barrel spending some of the congress critters have larded the bill up with. Trump knows that if every dollar voted is spent, it will be inflationary and it will increase the national debt due to deficit spending. I believe Trump will shelve many projects to help curb the excess pork barrel portions. Meanwhile, Musk gets the hateful Democrats and their media storm troopers off him as he goes forth to do his business. But at the same time, Musk warns that the bill as written increases Debt and is potentially inflationary. Trump has Musk say things Trump cannot say about the Big Beautiful Bill.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
Copyright 2025, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.
