A star-crossed bromance comes apart at the seams

Billionaire Elon Musk had spent more than $300 million on the 2024 election, much of it to elect Donald Trump

- Rebecca Ballhaus & Alex Leary

It had once been a relationship so strong that even a lawsuit couldn't drive a wedge through it. When President Trump and Elon Musk did a joint interview with Sean Hannity soon after the inauguration, sitting so close their knees nearly touched and vigorously nodding at each other's responses, the Fox News host appeared baffled by the recent settlement of a suit Trump had brought against X, Musk's social-media platform.

"He's become one of your best friends. He's working for free for you," Hannity pointed out to Trump. "You just made him pay you $10 million?"

escape—Trump-Musk fever, an improbable union that generated as much attention as any of the dozens of executive orders the new president was firing off.

Seven months after the election, their bromance detonated in spectacular fashion. It was the breakup everyone saw coming—yet the speed and viciousness with which it escalated still stunned White House aides, lawmakers and even Kanye West.

"Broooos please noooooo," the controversial rapper who now goes by Ye tweeted Thursday as the quarrel boomed. "We love you both so much." They went there anyway, like a couple firing off texts with things that felt good to say in the moment but that they knew they would later regret.

Then he turned to Musk. "You don't care about that?"

"No, I love the president," Musk replied. Trump said his buddy had gotten a discount.

For months after Trump won re-election, he and the world's richest man seemed infatuated with one another. Musk rarely left his side, moving into Mar-a-Lago, flying on Air Force One and trotting his young son into the Oval Office. On New Year's Eve, the two men danced together, in tuxedos, to "YMCA."