It’s been less than a week since the explosive, extremely public breakdown in relations between Donald Trump, the most powerful person on the planet, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Trump and his team have weighed various forms of vengeance against the billionaire for turning on the president and his agenda — but some have started to think twice about making an enemy of the man they granted largely unrestrained access to the inner workings of the administration.
In the days since the MAGA melodrama erupted, six Trump advisers, senior administration officials, and others close to the president have told Rolling Stone that an anxiety shared among some of the Trump brass is that Musk may know too much — and that it could come back to bite them considering his bitter, explosive exit. One Trump adviser wondered aloud what might be in “Elon’s burn book,” and if the Tesla chief would ever feel compelled to deploy its contents if the name-calling between Trump and Musk, or potential retribution from the administration against Musk, ever got truly out of hand.
It is unclear how many senior Trump officials actively considered the implications of inviting Musk into the fold five months ago, given that Musk is a notably mercurial man who has switched political allegiances before, and maintains a very public track record of aggressively and abruptly turning on people over real or perceived slights. It apparently didn’t matter to the Republican Party or Team Trump, who granted Musk an unprecedented level of access.
The sources note that in the brazenly authoritarian opening months of Trump’s second term, Musk was given a front row seat to much of what unfolded behind the scenes, both in and out of the White House. He was often in the room when the TV cameras were off — with the president, with Cabinet members, with other GOP bigwigs and policymakers, and with some of the people now expressing their concerns about it to Rolling Stone.
On a whole host of policy, personnel, and other issues, Musk was allowed such a high level of access to sensitive information, and nearly unfettered proximity to executive power, that it is unclear even to several top Trump advisers the precise extent of what he does and does not know about the administration. As one Trump administration official rhetorically asks: “What does he have on us?”
Musk is still, to some extent, one of the keepers of the nation’s secrets. He also has a notorious tendency to run his mouth online, perhaps even more loosely and impulsively than Trump. He wrote last week as their feud exploded, for instance, that it was “time to drop the really big bomb” before claiming that Trump “is in the Epstein files” and “that is the real reason they have not been made public.”
Musk’s unpredictability combined with what he knows about the administration is one of the reasons why some of the Trump officials who loathe Musk and hope they never see him again — and boy, are there quite a few of those — have now internally advocated for a less emotionally satisfying approach to dealing with the conflict. As much as they’d enjoy seeing Musk humiliated, they’ve come to the conclusion that in the longer term, it’s a much better idea to counsel Trump into reaching a detente of sorts with Musk, who also just so happens to be one of the Republican Party’s most crucial mega-donors, sources tell Rolling Stone.
Musk did not respond to messages seeking comment on this story.
“The bedwetters who would rather use the failing Rolling Stones as a therapy session to anonymously pontificate their feelings to the press, rather than help the president, are not living in reality and expose their pettiness more than their commitment to serving the president,” White House Spokesperson Harrison Fields wrote in a statement. “The White House is not interested in lending any attention to these baseless hypotheticals.”
The high-profile falling out came after Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump elected last year, and then for months oversaw the so-called Department of Government Efficiency as it gutted critical federal agencies, fomented large-scale chaos and dysfunction across the government, and led Trump’s effort to access and consolidate control over Americans’ sensitive personal information and critical government systems.
Musk was not officially part of the administration, instead serving as a temporary “special government employee.” Musk’s status expired late last month, after which he joined Trump in the Oval Office for a chummy farewell press conference.
The relationship crumbled days later, though, as Musk railed against the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the keystone of Trump’s legislative agenda, calling it a “disgusting abomination” and leveling a series of attacks against the president during a wild social media posting spree. Musk even endorsed a post calling for Trump to be removed from office and replaced with Vice President J.D. Vance. Trump responded by threatening to cancel the lucrative government contracts buoying Musk’s business empire, and Rolling Stone reported that at least some figures in the administration were also intrigued by the idea of restarting the many federal investigations into Musk’s companies.
Musk has since deleted his social media attacks against Trump (and even said he “regrets” the post and that they “went too far”), while publicly supporting the administration’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles. The president has said he has no interest in repairing the relationship, although he recently told the New York Post he has “no hard feelings” despite being “surprised” and “disappointed” by Musk’s attacks.
When asked if the MAGA duo could ever reconcile, the president said: “I guess I could.”
www.rollingstone.com
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