Elon Musk appears to extend an olive branch to JD Vance amid cold shoulder from Trump: 'VP is right'

WASHINGTON, DC: Billionaire Elon Musk appears to have thrown a lifeline to Vice President JD Vance—right when it looked like President Donald Trump was leaving him out in the cold.

Vance has lately been the subject of whispers that he's been iced out of Trump’s “inner circle.” And those murmurs only grew louder after Trump’s recent Fox News interview with Bret Baier, where he casually brushed aside the idea of Vance being the GOP’s heir apparent.

Elon Musk backs JD Vance amid cold shoulder from Donald Trump

When asked if he saw VD Vance as the next in line for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump didn't exactly roll out the red carpet. “No, but he's very capable. I think you have a lot of very capable people, so far, I think he's doing a fantastic job, it's too early, we're just getting started," he said.

Given Trump’s rocky history with former VP Mike Pence, the lukewarm response seemed to confirm speculation that Vance isn’t quite in his boss's favor.

But just when it looked like Vance was slipping into no-man’s land, Musk swooped in with a public stamp of approval, the Irish Star reported.

Vance had taken to X to unleash a 400-word tirade on the Ukraine war, arguing that Russia would have never dared to invade if Trump had been president in 2022. Musk—who’s been getting increasingly close to Trump (even appearing beside him in that now-famous Sean Hannity interview)—saw Vance’s post and gave it his full endorsement.

"VP Vance is right. NF offers no ACTUAL solution, besides continue the carnage that kills men every day for almost no change in borders. This conflict is heartless and cruel – a meat grinder feeding a money graft machine," the SpaceX and Tesla boss wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

JD Vance’s Ukraine rant

The whole thing started when historian Niall Ferguson posted a throwback quote from George HW Bush about standing up to aggression. 

"'This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait'--George H.W. Bush on August 5, 1990. Full quote from Jon Meacham's biography. Future history students will be asked why this stopped being the reaction of a Republican president to the invasion of a sovereign state by a dictator," Ferguson wrote.

But Vance wasn’t having it. He called Ferguson’s take “moralistic garbage” and torched the globalist approach to the war: "This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say."

“For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments: first, the war wouldn't have started if President Trump was in office; second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory. This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, it was true last year, and it is true today," he explained.

Vance said globalists like Ferguson are detached from reality.

"What is Niall's actual plan for Ukraine? Another aid package? Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans, or their even more depleted industrial base?" he asked. "Instead, he quotes from a book about George HW Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict. That's another currency of these people: reliance on irrelevant history," he stated.

On the other hand, he said that "President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts."

Upholding America's interest

According to JD Vance, Ukraine can’t win no matter how much the West helps.

"Russians have a massive numerical advantage in manpower and weapons in Ukraine, and that advantage will persist regardless of further Western aid packages," he wrote. "The United States retains substantial leverage over both parties to the conflict," he insisted, adding that "ending the conflict requires talking to the people involved in starting it and maintaining it."

Vance also noted that the war was draining American resources.

"The conflict has placed—and continues to place—stress on tools of American statecraft, from military stockpiles to sanctions (and so much else). We believe the continued conflict is bad for Russia, bad for Ukraine, and bad for Europe. But most importantly, it is bad for the United States," he continued.

Vance wrapped up by doubling down on his "America First" stance and declared that peace was the only logical path forward.

"President Trump ran on this, he won on this, and he is right about this. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as 'appeasement' every acknowledgment that America's interest must account for the realities of the conflict," he said.

"That interest—not moralisms or historical illiteracy—will guide President Trump's policy in the weeks to come... And thank God for that," Vance concluded.