Alex Callinicos: The White House’s hostile brothers

Trump’s decision seems more a symptom of Musk’s declining influence

It’s rare these days for the news to be anything but grim. But following the bust up between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has been pure pleasure. What a delight to read Steve Bannon calling for Musk to be investigated as an “illegal alien” or Musk himself laying into Trump.

But is the breakup more than a clash of swollen egos? Edward Luce of the Financial Times newspaper, normally a very shrewd observer of United States (US) politics, argues that it isn’t about Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”. Musk denounced this as “a disgusting abomination” because it will hugely increase the US government’s budget deficit. This is the difference between what it spends and what it receives in taxes.

According to Luce, “Psychology, not fiscal philosophy, is a better lens on these men’s behaviour.” I’m not so sure. According to the New York Times outlet, the split seems actually to have been precipitated by Trump’s decision to withdraw the nomination of Jared Isaacman to run Nasa. Isaacman is a billionaire crony of Musk’s, whose Starlink space business is hugely dependent on Nasa contracts.

So Musk’s material interests were at stake. But Trump’s decision seems more a symptom of Musk’s declining influence over Trump rather than the cause of the conflict.

The divisions over the budget reveal deeper tensions within the Trump coalition. The bill is nicely summed up by the historian Matthew Karp­. He described it as, “Vast giveaways to corporations and the rich, symbolic stocking-stuffers for the working many, and cruel cuts for the poor, paid for with a debt explosion and draped in the language of patriotism.”

As Karp underlines, this is typical of Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan. With the exception of tariffs, Trump’s presidencies have been firmly in this tradition. And his endless U-turns on tariffs have helped coin the acronym TACO—Trump always chickens out.

Why do Musk and the other Silicon Valley “tech bros” who rallied to Trump in 2024 oppose the budget? They’re mostly fine with the attacks on the poor. Musk led the assault on the very limited federal welfare system as boss of Doge. And he’s called for a much smaller state.

This anti-statism partly reflects Big Tech’s desire for less government regulation and protection against the European Commission’s efforts to curb it. But Musk & Co still need the state. For instance, Palantir, the tech firm founded by Peter Thiel, ultra-rightist patron of many tech bros, has contracts with the Pentagon and the NHS. Musk’s firms receive

­£27.9 billion from the US government. At the same time, Big Tech is integrated into global capitalism. This sometimes pulls against Trump’s ultra-nationalism.

But his flag-waving is strongly backed by the third strand in the Trump coalition, alongside traditional Republicans and Big Tech. Bannon is a genuine fascist. He’s seeking to organise sections of US society into a reactionary mass movement operating within the framework of the Republican Party. He opposes the welfare cuts, supports tariffs, and wants higher taxes on the rich.

Bannon is also viciously racist. He’s calling for Trump to suspend the habeas corpus protection against arbitrary arrests and deport ten million “illegal” immigrants. He’s gone head-to-head with Musk, who is “evil” for defending big corporations’ need for visas to import highly skilled workers.

So the split between the White House and Musk reveals the deep contradictions informing Trumpism. The result is panic among Big Tech for fear that Trump will take revenge on them as well as on Musk’s business empire.

The Financial Times quotes “one Silicon Valley financier and big donor to Republican candidates”. It says, “Elon isn’t taking calls from anyone. Not from people who have billions invested in his companies… The Valley is losing their shit.”

So the Trump coalition is truly—as Karl Marx described capitalists generally—a band of hostile brothers. A determined mass movement could exploit these divisions and expose their weaknesses. It’s very urgent that the left in the US starts to pick itself off the floor and build this movement. Let’s hope the protests in Los Angeles against Trump’s immigration raids mark a beginning.