Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

The bromance that brought Donald Trump and Elon Musk together seemed like an unlikely combination from the start. The real estate mogul turned politician, and the technology entrepreneur turned richest man on the planet both tended to absorb all the oxygen in any room they inhabited. It was hard to envision that both could occupy the same space at the same time for long.

Still, the speed and violence of the inevitable explosion of the relationship was breathtaking. In the space of a single day, the man who wreaked havoc on the federal government, and the man who encouraged him and gave him the authority to act in violation of law and Constitution were calling each other names on their respective social media sites and threatening retribution.

The posts speak for themselves:

The next day Musk posted items that seemed to be conciliatory, but Trump was having none of it. Asked by NBC if he had any desire to repair the relationship, Trump said, “I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president.” Asked about Musk musing about supporting third party independent candidates, or even Democrats, Trump warned Musk would face, “very serious consequences.” Musk spent nearly $300 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected in 2024.

Trump put Musk in charge of his so-called Office of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Musk went on to slash and burn the federal bureaucracy, making bold claims without providing concrete evidence, such as falsely stating that people over 150 years old were receiving Social Security checks. He operated without transparency or accountability. And he cut the federal workforce without following laws and regulations, prompting scores of lawsuits, and dismissing people from critical areas that the administration is now, in many cases, trying to rehire.

That includes workers at the Nuclear Security Administration, the people in charge of safeguarding America’s nuclear weapons. They were fired by DOGE workers who didn’t understand that the Department of Energy performed that role. And at the Federal Aviation Agency, Musk’s minion’s spared air traffic controllers but terminated “support” personnel. That included people who maintain the radar systems and communications equipment.

Musk also put his people in key positions in agencies which regulate his own businesses, including the FAA and NASA. That was a blatant conflict of interest! When Trump was sworn into office, Musk’s six corporations were under more than thirty-two investigations by at least eleven federal agencies. Most of these cases are now closed or likely to be closed soon, and the agencies that initiated them are being defanged by Musk and Trump.

Now, where were we?

Two megalomaniacs walk into a bar….

“The bartender says ‘What’ll it be?’ They both answer ‘Everything.'”

“They immediately start arguing about who should order first because they’re both used to being served by everyone else.”

“One says to the other, ‘I’ll have what I’m having.’ The other replies, ‘No, I’ll have what I’m having first.'”

“The bartender asks for ID. They both hand over business cards that just say ‘Supreme Leader.'”

“They spend three hours trying to decide who gets to sit on the barstool because neither one has ever shared a throne.”

“One turns to the other and says, ‘This place isn’t big enough for both of us.’ The other replies, ‘You’re right – I’ll buy it.'”

“They order drinks, then argue for two hours about whose round it is because they’re both used to other people paying for everything.”

“The first one says, ‘I conquered three countries before lunch.’ The second one says, ‘That’s cute – I had four empires as appetizers.'”

“They leave separate five-star Yelp reviews, each claiming they single-handedly made the bar famous.”

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