Legends in their own minds

Legends in their own minds | Daily Tribune

Two men who treat humility like the plague are never going to coexist for long. There can only be one megalomaniac in the room, and neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk was prepared to blink first.

Now we’re seeing the comical fallout. Trump calling Musk “a man who has lost his mind,” while Musk hints darkly at Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein. Tell us something new.

Trump is a man who believes loyalty means never saying he’s wrong, falsely assuming Musk would play tech lapdog forever. Not happening.

Musk, on the other hand, sees himself as a hybrid of Tony Stark and Nikola Tesla, more than the equal of any US president — even if he takes to social media like a Red Bull-addled teenager.

These are two men who can’t walk past a mirror without winking at themselves. They thrive on applause, disruption, and being the loudest voice in the room, even if the building is on fire.

For a while, they made it work. Trump got to play futurist without knowing how lithium batteries work; Musk got access, contracts, and the illusion of influence.

Musk briefly headed a so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DoGE, which sounded more like a meme coin than a policy arm. But the moment Elon started thinking independently — like pointing out that the emperor’s budget had no clothes — he was out.

Musk called Trump’s latest spending plan an “abomination,” which, in Trump-speak, ranked right up there with treason and decaf. That’s all it took. The ego balloon popped, the back channels froze, and the press briefings turned into wrestling promos.

Now the knives are out. Trump has threatened to cancel SpaceX’s government contracts — those lovely rocket and satellite deals that helped prop up the company against competitors like Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

The market didn’t find it funny, and Musk is bleeding. Tesla lost over $100 billion in value in 24 hours. That’s more than the GDP of some countries. For the rest of the world, it’s just another episode in the American drama, but maybe not for us in the Philippines.

Musk’s investments — satellites, AI, automation — have implications for Filipino jobs in outsourcing, BPOs, and even future space-tech collaborations. Trump’s decisions, meanwhile, can shift US foreign policy like a jeepney changing lanes — no signal, full speed and unpredictable.

Trump is a man who measures loyalty in decibels and believes betrayal begins when compliments get too nuanced. Musk, meanwhile, plays by his own rules — or at least by a rule book he edits in real time.

One day, Musk is boosting your campaign; the next, he’s accusing you of gutter-level behavior on social media. For this bromance, it’s not just burning bridges — it’s incinerating them on live stream.

Yes, when billionaires throw tantrums, we don’t get popcorn. We get whiplash. And maybe higher internet bills.

In the end, it wasn’t about principles or policies; it was about pride and ego. And somewhere out there, a cherry-red Tesla (Trump’s) is waiting for someone to love it, or at least charge it.