Trump Proves His Ego's Still Bruised After Split With Elon Musk

It feels like it has been approximately a decade since Donald Trump and Elon Musk's bromance breakup reached a fever pitch. In reality, though, Musk admitted the friendship was over just a few months ago. The highly publicized falling-out has since cooled off, yet Trump's recent comments about his former pal indicate that he's not over it.

On "The Scott Jennings Radio Show" on September 3, the titular host asked Donald Trump whether he has spoken to the Tesla CEO, "and does the president think Elon will come back to the Republican party," per X. "I don't think he has a choice," Trump said, adding, "What's he gonna do? He's gonna go with the radical left lunatics? ... They're lunatics ... I don't think he has a choice. He's a man of common sense. He's a good man." 

He briefly condemned the way Musk left the fold but quickly bounced back to complimenting his former friend. "He's got ... 80% super genius and then 20%, he's got some problems. ... When he works out the 20%, he'll be great. But, he's got some difficulty, but I liked him. I always like him. I like him now," he asserted. He then implied that Musk regretted their falling-out, though it is unclear if this is based in any truth. Trump avoided answering Jennings' question about whether he and Musk have been in communication since Musk left the administration and their alliance imploded, and this implies that they probably haven't.

Typically, when Donald Trump gets into a public fight with a fellow public figure, he does not speak kindly of them in the future. He's been known to hold grudges for decades. So, the fact that he was so careful to make it seem like there were no hard feelings between him and Elon Musk after the former DOGE head spoke very negatively about him online is interesting. This certainly implies that Trump still considers Musk to be of use to him, and he seems to be subtly indicating to everyone — including Musk — that he would be welcomed back into the fold with open arms.

While Trump repeated that he likes Musk and that Musk is a good person, he still made it clear that he thought Musk did the wrong thing in escalating their falling-out. It that watching their relationship go from BFFs to bitter enemies in front of the world affected Trump's ego. And, knowing Trump, we can only imagine that talking kindly about someone who wronged him publicly is making him feel even worse.