It’s Wasn’t Russia. Elon Went Nuclear – Top 3 Takeaways – June 6th, 2025 – Driven By Braman Motorcars
Takeaway #1: And then it happened...
You knew it. I knew it. Truth be told President Trump and Elon Musk probably knew it too last week when they had one last big, beautiful DOGE themed Oval Office meeting for the world to see. You knew, I knew, and they knew too that it would be a rocky relationship road they’d be traveling down from there and for one highly disputed bill that Trump thinks is big and beautiful and Elon thinks is a disgusting abomination and that I’ve dubbed the OBIT (One Big, Indeterminate Thing). Yesterday was that day and it was none other than our White House Correspondent Jon Decker, who asked the president THE question in the oval office yesterday, that took the conversation to THAT place. Jon asked Elon artfully asked President Trump this: Elon Musk and your Big, Beautiful Bill. What is your reaction to that? Do you in any way think IT hurts passage in the senate, which is of course what you are seeking? Trump looked down while nodding and said this: Well, look, you know, I’ve always liked Elon. When he started there you knew the niceties were through. Continuing... And so, I was very surprised. You saw the words he had for me. And he hasn’t said anything about me that’s bad (the key at that moment was yet). I’d rather have him criticize me than the bill because the bill is incredible (so calling Trump’s BBB baby ugly is worse than calling him ugly, and you know how well that generally goes). It’s the biggest cut in the history of our country (true- if you factor in that this permanently enacts the Trump tax policy from his first term, it is). It’s about $1.6 trillion in cuts (that number is entirely true btw – I'll come back to that point in a minute). It's the biggest tax cut. People’s taxes will go way down (if you earn tips or overtime, that is true). We are doing things in that bill that are unbelievable (that might be the one point everyone agrees on...just not for the same reasons). And you know Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate which was a lot of money for electric vehicles (true about the money funneled to EVs at a minimum). I know that disturbed him (Ok so this is highly problematic. The implication is that of course Elon isn’t mostly concerned about the future of the country but instead the potential future performance of Tesla). Continuing he said... He recommended someone to run NASA, and I didn’t think it was appropriate, he happened to be a Democrat, like totally a Democrat (oh boy, now we’re into the airing of grievances). I can understand why he’s upset (with the implication being the EV thing and rejecting his NASA pick). He was here for a long time and you saw a man who was very happy standing behind the oval desk and even with a black eye. And I said do you want a little makeup, we’ll get you a little makeup and he said no, which I said was interesting and very nice, he wants to be who he is. Look, Elon and I had a great relationship (yes, he said “had”).
Takeaway #2: I don’t know if we’ll have anymore.
He said very nice things about me. He wore the hat. Trump was right about everything, and I am right about the Great Big, Beautiful Bill. Four minutes later in the same sequence he continued by saying... Elon endorsed me, he campaigned for me, I would have won easily anyway (we’ll never know)...But I’m disappointed. Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anyone sitting here. Better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of the sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out we cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars. That statement came at the 8-minute mark of President Trump’s answer to that question. That was the point at which Elon had stuff to say. And so, he did. Elon posted prolifically. He posted material of him opposing the EV mandate in the first place in 2021. He reposted old posts of President Trump opposing increases to the debt ceiling. He posted that the bill was never shown to him even once and that almost no one in Congress even had a chance to read it. Trump then posted to Truth: “Elon was “wearing thin,” I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted, and he just went CRAZY! As you might imagine, that did not go well. Elon reposted it with a caption that read Such an obvious lie. So sad. He then posted a poll question asking “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle”? That escalated quickly. Oh, the other thing that escalated quickly was the share price decline of Tesla’s stock. Investors fearing retaliation by Trump against Musk/Tesla (plus fear of Trump supporters no longer buying Tesla's) led to Tesla shedding over $40 per share or close to 15% of the company’s value. And then...it REALLY happened. Elon went nuclear by posting this: Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT! And boom goes the dynamite... It’s Friday. I’ve had a crazy week. The implications behind that are limitless. For example, Epstein died while Trump was president. This is just about the highest stakes game possible of who’s telling the truth. How exactly would Elon have known what was in the Epstein files? Did he really get to see them? This clearly puts the impetus behind the Trump administration to drop the files sooner than later. But what’s now crystal clear is that there is no restoration of this relationship that’s possible and either Musk is right, and Trump is that guy...or the 1% or so chance I’d mentally assigned to Elon Musk being the anti-Christ is potentially right. Let me quickly say this with much more to come. No Epstein victims have named Trump. With all that Trump’s been through, if it were true, wouldn’t there be someone who’d come forward and come clean? More still, Democrats impeached Trump twice, indicted him four times, conflicted him once, tried to kill him twice and shot him once. If there is any validity to Trump truly being linked to Epstein’s proclivities – they're not going to drop that to take him down? Seriously? Please. Also, what does this say about Elon, if true, that he was evidently willing to hang onto that bit of information if everything had been hunky dory? That doesn’t represent well. Any of it.
Takeaway #3: What a mess.
That takes us full circle to two important points in this. There’s no way Elon did any of this to pad his own pocket or to aid his companies. Not only did he donate his own time to save the country hundreds of billions, it was time not spent working on making his companies hundreds of billions. Moreover, Elon’s personal net worth dropped by over $100 billion since taking on his roll at DOGE due to the decline in the price of Tesla’s stock alone. It’s true that Elon only recently came out strong against the OBBB, or the DAB, as Elon would frame it, and that’s interesting – though it does line up with the timing of the scoring of the bill by the CBO and independent groups and perhaps after he had a chance to see what was and wasn’t in it. Now here’s the thing. Elon probably did Trump a favor by going full nuclear on him.
Had he simply opposed the DAB, there’s a strong chance he may have been able to kill it – given the significant influence he’d grown in GOP circles. Now that he’s gone to THAT place – he gives GOPers the political freedom to act independently of his opinions. The bond between President Trump and his supporters is far, far greater than the affinity that’d grown for Elon within the GOP. Now, about the bill itself...
The other important point is with regards to the $1.6 trillion in cuts President Trump is talking about. This is entirely true! But why then is the bill estimated to add $2-$3 trillion to the national debt in a decade if passed as is? Two big reasons. The president’s additional tax cuts for tips and overtime which reduces revenue to the federal government and the growing cost of servicing the debt. This is the super big thing. The debt. As we’ve discussed previously, the cost of the debt has now overtaken defense spending as our country’s second biggest expense. We’re starting to get to the point to where the numbers increasing don’t really work. Let me put this in perspective for you. You hear all of these numbers that are now in the trillions. Ok, so here’s one for you. What do you think the cost of servicing the national debt is over the next decade? It’s projected to be $13.8 trillion. And this is the real issue. Let's say for a minute that we didn’t have to service the national debt. The OBBB, not only would be beautiful...it’ll be downright gorgeous as it would reduce the federal debt by over $10 trillion dollars. But that’s not obviously reality. Just as you have to pay interest on your credit card bills, whether you can afford to do it or not, the country does too. When your credit cards are close to maxed out, you don’t get to do all of the fun, wonderful or potentially beautiful things you want to do. That’s where we are with the OBBB aka, the DAB or what I current prefer to call it...the OBIT.