| By AP News Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons Trump and Musk break up, and Washington holds its breath Elon Musk has accused U.S. President Donald Trump of betraying promises to cut federal spending, shared a suggestion that the president should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about Trump’s association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has hit back, threatening to cancel government contracts and subsidies for Musk’s companies. Read more. |
| What to know: The question now is whether Trump and Musk find some way to step back from a battle that is tearing apart one of the most consequential relationships in modern American politics. “It’s like India and Pakistan,” said Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana. “It just escalates and neither one of them seem to back down and understand the strength of each other.” At stake are the future of Musk’s companies, including electric automaker Tesla and rocket manufacturer SpaceX; government programs that rely on the billionaire entrepreneur’s technology; legislation for advancing tax cuts and Trump’s other priorities in Congress; Republican chances in next year’s midterm elections; and an entire political ecosystem that has orbited around Trump and Musk’s deteriorating partnership. |
