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Sales of popcorn are set to spike across the US as people sit down and strap in to watch the spectacular, vicious, but not in any way unpredictable, end to the oligarchical marriage of convenience/“bromance” between Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Fighting like rats in a sack, the two are now exchanging threats in a spiteful but highly enjoyable spectacle of last-word one-upmanship between two individuals seemingly incapable of demonstrating grace, humility or any sense of caution around what their social media outpourings reveal about what the two of them have really been up to together.
Unwittingly spotlighting the real quid pro quo of their relationship, Trump posted: ”Elon was wearing thin, I asked him to leave, I took away his [electric vehicle] mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
Before adding that the "easiest way to save money" in his signature tax bill is to "terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts”.
Musk responded to Trump’s threat to terminate government contracts for his companies by saying: "Go ahead, make my day…"
He then suggested in a new post on X that Trump appears in unreleased files held by the government related to late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Not the first time that convicted felon Trump has been embroiled in such a scandal, of course, having been convicted of “sexual abuse and forcible touching” in the case brought by E. Jean Caroll, whom Trump insisted he did not know.
He has not yet denied knowing Elon Musk, but the spat is in its early stages.
Elon Musk's DOGE reward
Musk backed Trump’s election campaign to the tune of $200,000,000 and in return was given responsibility for cutting government expenditure through his DOGE initiatives.
He initiated mass sackings and wholesale elimination of departments such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID), claiming to have saved $180bn, although that number has been disputed, and is well short of his initial claim to be able to cut spending by up to $2tn.
As high-profile break-ups go, it’s shaping up to feature at the higher end of a scale that runs from ‘amicable’ to ‘revenge killing’, but they’re not the first high-profile leaders to engage in a mud-slinging contest.
For those on the outside looking in, it’s high value for rubber neckers, but for those in and around the exchange of fire it can get serious and potentially damaging.
High profile leadership rows
Leadership feuds - especially ones this theatrical - reveal the fault lines of power, ego, communication and trust. When they happen inside companies, they threaten morale, disrupt succession plans, and undermine strategy. And they’re rarely isolated incidents.
The classic, and well-cited example is sportswear giants Adidas and Puma, which likely became the shorthand for such a falling out because it involved two brothers.
Adolf and Rudolf Dassler ran Gebrüder Dassler together in 1920s Germany, but by 1948, personal and political rifts had turned them into bitter rivals.
They disbanded the 25-year-old company, which had made shoes for legendary athlete Jesse Owens among others, and formed rival manufacturers on opposite sides of the river Aurach, which runs through the centre of Herzogenaurach.
Adidas and Puma were born out of that schism, and their rivalry shaped not just their businesses but their workforces and even their hometown of Herzogenaurach, where employees from opposing brands used separate pubs and shops.
"The split between the Dassler brothers was to Herzogenaurach what the building of the Berlin Wall was for the German capital,” said one local journalist.
See also Steve Jobs and John Scully. Apple co-founder Jobs was (depending on who you believe) either fired or quit following a row with Scully. He went to found NeXt, which was later bought by Apple and returned Jobs to the fold.
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When toxic relationships go bad
When senior leaders clash, the tension doesn’t always stay in the boardroom. It spills out, often taking entire departments with it.
Even the closest relationships can hit the rocks for any number of reasons, but in all cases it can be mitigated against by a set of shared values and goals. Alignment in other words.
The problem with Musk and Trump is that are aligned around the shared values of self-interest, greed, ego, and an elbows-out need to be seen as the biggest boy in the room. Toxic relationships between toxic people inevitably turn toxic.
Such is the unpredictable nature of the pair, that is difficult to know with any degree of certainty what will happen next. And in any normal group of people the concern would be around what happens to the circle around them getting caught in the crossfire.
Unfortunately, they are part of another potentially entertaining sub-plot, in which few, if any, of the leading characters will illicit much sympathy.
In any normal organization HR would be thinking about mediation, coaching, external intermediaries perhaps, check-ins and counselling for employees, and succession planning. But this is not a normal administration and too much power is in the hand of each of the rival parties.
Leadership is rarely a smooth ride. But when it turns into a public demolition derby, it’s often HR that’s left cleaning up the debris. Trump and Musk’s war of words might be entertaining from the sidelines, but inside any organization, such feuds can cost millions in lost talent, damaged brand value and strategic drift.
Where there’s such obvious ego at play, there needs to be structure, foresight, and a firm hand on the culture wheel.
Who knows? If Adidas and Puma had today’s HR toolkit to hand, their hometown might not have needed two bakeries.
