Elon Musk and Donald Trump's friendship on the brink of collapse as ‘cracks’ emerge amid tariff drama

WASHINGTON, DC: It looks like the bromance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk might be heading for a messy split.

They’ve been attached at the hip for months — sharing stages and swapping compliments — but now it seems things are getting tense.

Elon's bank account recently took a $30.9 billion hit following Trump's latest tariff hike. According to Radar Online, things aren’t so rosy anymore between MAGA-land’s power couple.

Tariff trouble between Trump and Elon Musk?

Trump recently unleashed a tariff bomb, slapping a 10% baseline tax on all imported goods and turning the heat all the way up with "individualized" tariffs as high as 50% for certain countries. 

The move may have pleased some America-first hawks, but it torpedoed Musk's net worth.

That tariff trainwreck might be the final straw. According to Vanity Fair's top brass — editor-in-chief Radhika Jones, executive editor Claire Howorth, and hive editor Michael Calderon — Trump and Musk may soon be headed for a very public uncoupling.

“It’s only a matter of time before the bromance between Trump and Elon goes south, and it does seem like there are some cracks showing in his relationship with the Trump administration as recently as the last few days,” Jones spilled on Vanity Fair’s "Inside the Hive" podcast.

From liberal darling to MAGA mascot

Elon Musk didn’t always flaunt the red MAGA hat. In fact, Zoe Bernard, contributing editor at Vanity Fair, pointed out that Musk used to be more on the liberal end of the spectrum.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that any of these billionaires that supported Trump are happy right now. Elon Musk included,” she said. “But I think I don’t know what he will do politically, given that he’s put all of his chips in the Trump corner at this point. So, I mean, he can’t go back to the liberal side.”

Bernard also dug into the why behind Musk’s MAGA migration. She said the shift happened around 2020, when tech titans in California started hitting regulatory walls left and right. Then came the controversial moment as California health officials temporarily shut down Tesla’s factories.

Suddenly, he was fuming on the Joe Rogan podcast, ranting about “globalists.”

Bernard noted that this “convergence” of regulatory battles and media distrust pulled Musk away from his liberal roots.

“Those are all very (right-wing) terms now, and I feel like that interview was a seed,” Howorth suggested.

“I think it was a convergence of, you know, hating the media and seeing institutions like the media as this arm of liberalism and the Democratic Party, and then also bumping up against these regulations that made it increasingly difficult for him to innovate with Tesla,” she explained.

Joe Biden’s snub and Trump’s embrace

But the real pivot point came in 2021 when then-President Joe Biden hosted an electric vehicle summit and snubbed Tesla entirely. Musk was not amused.

“He thought Tesla should be there, and apparently they were not,” Calderon noted.

That moment reportedly pushed Musk closer to Trump, who at least pretended to roll out the red carpet - until recently, that is.

Now, the bromance seems to be cooling off fast. 

According to RadarOnline, Trump has not only thrown tariffs at Musk like dodgeballs, but he also allegedly restricted him during a private meeting, hinted at removing him from the Department of Government Efficiency, and is said to be already tired of him, at least according to one body language expert.

Family feud and fractures with the Trump camp

Even Musk’s own brother Kimbal isn’t on board the Trump train anymore. He publicly slammed the tariffs, calling them a “permanent tax on the American consumer.”

Trump's economic advisor, Peter Navarro, recently threw shade at Tesla, calling it just a “car assembler” instead of a “car manufacturer.” Elon fired back, calling Navarro a "moron."

Perhaps the harshest take came from Claire Howorth, who didn’t mince words when reflecting on Musk’s legacy.

“It’s actually kind of sad because his legacy could have been that of a climate change evangelist who made a beautiful, efficient, and relatively affordable vehicle and helped astronauts explore space and expanded medical understanding of the brain. And now he’s gonna go down as a chainsawing maniac," Howorth fumed.

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