Elon Musk’s reputation must be beyond rehabilitation
It's time to end the myth of his genius once and for all
The long-awaited divorce between Donald Trump and Elon Musk appears to have finally come. After a week of growing public tensions between the men, as Musk took his leave from the Department of Government Efficiency and began more vocally criticizing Trump’s budget bill, the relationship finally imploded on June 5 with a post war across Twitter/X and Truth Social.
It began when Trump finally shot back at Musk, saying he was “wearing thin” at DOGE and was angry the administration was taking away the EV mandate at a time when Tesla is already struggling. Musk not only denied those claims, but began escalating with posts saying Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, that SpaceX would decommission the spacecraft bringing US astronauts to the International Space Station, and that he would support Trump’s impeachment. Trump shot back that he might terminate Musk’s government subsidies and contracts.
A rumored Friday call to ease tensions between the men didn’t happen. While Musk precipitated the public war of words, behind the scenes it appears Trump was tiring of Musk too. A report in the Wall Street Journal revealed Trump had been asking his team whether Musk’s claims about slashing $1 trillion in government spending were “all bullshit” and had supposedly told aides Musk was “50% genius, 50% boy.” The $100 million Musk promised to donate to Trump’s political action committee after his Tesla sales demo in front of the White House never materialized either.
Musk is already retreating, posting on June 11 that he “regrets” some of the posts he made a week earlier. I have little doubt he truly believes in a small government — particularly without the capacities to hold his rule-breaking companies to account — but there’s another important motivation behind his pivot against Trump. Musk’s move is a desperate effort to try to save his reputation and the harm it’s caused his struggling companies after nearly a year of allying himself to the MAGA movement. But he can’t be allowed to get away with all the damage he’s done.
An empire in jeopardy
For years, Musk was framed as the genius future builder who was both saving the planet with electric cars and preparing to settle us on a second one with his rockets. The dubious reality behind those statements never seemed to breach the myth, nor did the continual stories about his union busting, labor abuses, poor quality control, and the consistent charges of discrimination — let alone all the issues in his personal life.
That started to change in earnest after Musk bought Twitter; the incompetence of his dismantling of the platform leading to a broader recognition that the billionaire may never have been all he was cracked up to be. But the dam holding back the truth of the man finally burst once he threw his weight — and vast fortune — behind Trump’s reelection, leaving his reputation in tatters and the fate of his companies hanging in the balance.
Tesla has felt the brunt of those consequences. The company sold fewer vehicles in 2024 than the year before, as the Cybertruck has turned out to be a dud and buyers in countries around the world were turned off by Musk’s politics. Sales in Europe were down 49% in Europe in April, while volumes in China dropped 30% in May. In the first quarter, its profits plunged by 71% and its prospects aren’t looking great either. The timeline on a cheaper vehicle model remains unclear and the planned robotaxi rollout in Austin has experts warning of consequences because its driver automation system is not up to the task.
SpaceX hasn’t been spared either. Some jurisdictions and businesses have torn up their agreements for Starlink, while others are hoping to accelerate efforts to develop an alternative so they go elsewhere in the coming years. But the real threat on the space front comes from the continued challenges facing the Starship rocket, which the company has bet its future on. As the number of failed launches escalates, there are voices warning Musk’s ambitions for the rocket will never be realized. Those setbacks may delay NASA’s planned return to the Moon.
After their online feud, Trump threatened to end the subsidies and public contracts Musk’s companies depend on, which would have significant consequences for SpaceX most of all. If he follows through, it could cost Musk’s companies at least $48 billion over the next decade — a huge hit to his corporate empire — and could put them back in the crosshairs of government regulators. It’s not hard to see why Musk may be trying to salvage his reputation and make sure his relationship with Trump isn’t fully dead, but he can’t be allowed to escape the true consequences of his time in government.
Blood on his hands
In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning days before his online spat with Trump, Musk argued he was shouldered with too much blame for the damage caused by the Trump administration. It’s no surprise a man whose reputation has been so deeply tarnished in recent months would say such a thing, but he clearly doesn’t feel he did anything wrong. Recently Musk has been railing against empathy, and while he might regret some of his tweets about Trump, he hasn’t suggested he regrets the harm caused by his actions at DOGE.
In Musk’s quest for smaller government, DOGE has gutted an already under resourced federal public service, cutting about 260,000 employees from a workforce of 2.3 million. The cuts went so deep the Trump administration is reportedly bringing people back in departments across the government as key services like weather prediction and drug approval have suffered. Air traffic control at airports around the country is struggling after reckless intervention by DOGE and its gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has left the public at the mercy of predatory companies.
But those consequences appear quaint when compared to the blood on Musk’s hands from the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has left food rotting in warehouses instead of going to those who need it and desperate people being denied life-saving medications. A million children are likely to lose treatment for malnutrition as a result, which could lead to 160,000 additional kids dying every year. The cuts to USAID have already killed over 300,000 people, according to estimates by Boston University associate professor of global health Brooke Nichols, with about 100 more dying with every passing hour.
The gutting of USAID has also impacted the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR), cutting off treatment to hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive pregnant women. As a result, more than 135,000 babies are estimated to be born with HIV that otherwise would not have been, and they’re then unlikely to get diagnosed or properly treated for the disease. For all that suffering, DOGE will not save the government $1 trillion as Musk once promised. Experts believe the savings will be far less than even the revised $175 billion figure, and could be fully negated by the costs of carrying out the cuts in the first place.
He should never recover
Musk’s short-lived tenure in government should be disqualifying. He has actively supported white nationalists and fascists at home and abroad. The decisions he made have harmed millions and killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is a man who sees people as abstract numbers on a ledger that can be sacrificed in pursuit of his grander ambitions. He should be hounded out of public life, with his lies and fraud laid bare for all to see.
But I fear he will once again evade accountability for his actions. As he was leaving DOGE, the New York Times published an op-ed declaring he may have had issues, but he’s still a “visionary” trying to save humanity. “If he succeeds in this project, then Mr. Musk’s time in Washington will be just a minor detail in the histories written about him,” wrote journalist Louise Perry. Liberal media was eager to praise him for breaking with Trump and sharing some dirt in the process.
Some prominent Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, are already signaling they’re willing to work with him again. “We should ultimately be trying to convince him that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with,” said Khanna, echoing the views of some of his colleagues.
Those trying to rehabilitate Elon Musk, especially after the past few months, should be deeply ashamed of themselves. Musk’s grand futures are little more than stories to make his businesses seem like far more than they are in reality. He only cares about humanity as a concept; humans themselves have long been expandable to him, whether it’s federal employees off side with his ideology, workers at his companies who suffer high rates of injury, or the poorest people of the world cut off from food and medicine thanks to decisions by our planet’s richest man.
Media and politicians have long sought to gain favor with Musk to tap into his cult following and growing bank balance, leaving critical reporting about Musk and his businesses out of the narrative in the process. It was already a shameful display before he allied with Trump and openly championed far-right politics, but it’s hard to see how anyone with a conscience can seriously think trying to help this man rehabilitate his image is the right strategy in this moment.
If we’re to build a better world, the myth built around Elon Musk must come crashing down to Earth once and for all. Anyone who stands in the way of that knows exactly what they’re doing, and who they’re betraying in the process.
Great piece, Paris. Musk's mindset is the core ideology of so many tech leaders – a belief in grand, abstract concepts that justifies sacrificing actual humans.
I see the same dynamic in Palantir's Alex Karp: a powerful CEO who uses a sophisticated ideological framework to justify what amounts to technological brutalism.