One can’t look online at the political landscape today without noticing that the fecal matter has, at a glance, hit the fan with regard to the relationship between President Trump and Elon Musk. For the sake of thoroughness, I usually don’t form judgments on scraps like this for 72 hours (hence the 72-hour rule); however, I’ve been inundated with so many texts, especially from people who don’t normally keep up with day-to-day political disputes, that I feel compelled to issue a few thoughts off the top of my mind.

I see three possible branches this apparent split takes:

I. Occam’s Razor – The Split is Real

Occam’s Razor is the theory that the most likely explanation to a problem is usually the correct one. For example, if a detective finds a body at the bottom of the stairs with a gun nearby and the dead person’s matching fingerprint on the trigger, the starting point for the investigation should be suicide – but that may not be the case.

At face value, Trump and Musk are having a split. There have been real splits in Trump’s political orbit – like Anthony Scaramucci or Omarosa Manigault – so this wouldn’t be the first (or the last) time such an ugly thing reared its head. Musk opposes the fiscal implications of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which stands to disrupt nationwide demand for electric vehicles by eliminating the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing one. Additionally, Musk claims the bill’s financial impacts increase the deficit and undermine the work DOGE was busy doing in identifying fraud, waste, and abuse in government departments and programs.

If this is the case, Musk’s play would be to create enough chaos to scuttle the bill badly enough that it can’t pass the House and Senate. I have written by view on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and found that it accomplishes a massive chunk of the President’s domestic agenda. People who think any meaningful legislation is going to suddenly pass the expectations of a fiscal purist have ignored the runaway train of federal government for the past three decades.