Musk and Trump: A friendship on borrowed time?

Friendships between larger-than-life personalities like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are never built on shared holiday dinners or quiet heart-to-hearts.

Instead, they exist in the bombastic theatre of public life, a stage where alliances are more performance than partnership. But these men, with their enormous egos and even larger ambitions, aren’t ones to play a harmonious duet for long.

By the end of 2025, will Musk and Trump still publicly pat each other on the back— or will the sound we hear be knives sharpening?

“Still friends” is a loose term for relationships like theirs. The measure of Musk and Trump’s bond may come down to how many times they throw public shade.

Today, their partnership seems mutually beneficial. Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) has gifted Trump the world's most influential social media platform.

Trump's base, ever faithful and fervent, bolsters the contrarian edge Musk seems eager to embrace. They make a good pair, for now—a tech disruptor-turned-culture warrior and a populist firebrand whose appeal relies on the same anti-establishment fervour.

Yet beneath the public handshakes and winks lie cracks waiting to widen. Trump operates in a binary world: you’re either with him, fully and unquestionably, or against him.

Musk, on the other hand, thrives in ambiguity. His provocations often come laced with irony, his political allegiances shifting like tectonic plates. It’s hard to see Musk, with his veneer of centrism and insistence on complexity, staying in Trump’s orbit without eventually colliding with his binary worldview.

But it’s not just ideology that could split them—it’s ego. Musk carefully curates his image as a lone genius, the hero of every story he tells about himself. Trump’s style is more bludgeoning. His need to dominate every room, every conversation, every narrative has been the downfall of many former allies—Steve Bannon, Michael Cohen, Ron DeSantis. Musk may avoid the same fate for a while, but how long before Trump starts to feel like he’s the sidekick in Musk’s story?

On the other hand, Musk has his own interests to protect. His ventures—electric cars, rockets to Mars, AI, social media—rely on a broad coalition of supporters and investors.

Cozying up too closely to Trump risks alienating a chunk of his audience, particularly those who once admired him as a figure of apolitical innovation. Musk needs to straddle the line, but Trump doesn’t do well with half-measures. It’s not a question of if there will be friction, but when.

And when that friction comes, we’ll see fireworks. Musk may prefer to subtweet or post a cryptic meme, but Trump doesn’t do cryptic. When he feels betrayed, he unleashes, loud and clear. Three pointed jabs? Trump can manage that in a single interview, and Musk isn’t exactly known for keeping his cool under criticism.

So will Musk and Trump still be “friends” in 2025? Maybe—if the balance of power and mutual benefit holds. They’re two juggernauts who know how to navigate tumultuous waters when it serves their interests. But they’re also two men who’ve never been great at sharing the stage. Their egos and ambitions all but guarantee that, sooner or later, one of them will push the other too far.

For now, they’re useful to one another. But usefulness has an expiry date, and when their alliance finally collapses—whether it’s a slow fade or a spectacular implosion—it will leave a trail of tweets, memes, and headlines. Their friendship, like everything else about them, will be impossible to ignore.

Ahmad Nazir is a UAE based freelance writer, with a degree in education from the Université de Montpellier in Southern France