Oh, Boy! A Fight!

It looks like Elon Musk is singlehandedly dismantling his own public image, something the Rockefellers recognized over generations was a thing of great value to be cultivated and maintained. Specific versions differ, but the overall story is in the UK Daily Mail:

New details surrounding a White House brawl between Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have spilled out into the open - with one insider saying the Tesla CEO rammed his shoulder into Bessent's ribcage 'like a rugby player.'

The Daily Mail was the first to report on the heated confrontation between Bessent and Musk, who's since been iced out of Donald Trump's inner circle after their public blow-up this week.

Former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon revealed that there was more to the mid-April tussle, insisting that both men ended up landing blows.

They lost their patience with one another following a tense meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump snubbed Musk and instead took Bessent's advice on whom to name as acting IRS Commissioner, Bannon said.

When Bessent and Musk exited the Oval Office, they began hurling insults at one another in the hallway. But it was Bessent who struck Musk where it hurts.

According to Bannon, Bessent dared to say that the billionaire's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was a failure, since Musk didn't root out the $1 trillion in wasteful and fraudulent federal spending he promised he would.

'Scott said, "You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud,"' Bannon said.

That's when Musk body-checked Bessent, who hit the world's richest man right back, according to Bannon.

In what must be a separate incident, Musk turned up at his White House farewell ceremony late last month with a black eye:

The Gateway Pundit reported that Musk was sporting a mysterious black eye last Friday during a press conference on his final day as Department of Government Efficiency leader. Asked by reporters about it, he said his five-year-old son, X, punched him in the face, which was a bizarre explanation.

The President and Musk delivered a press conference last week to commemorate Musk's send-off as his special government employee tenure expired and he parted ways with the government on good terms.

However, as later revealed by the President, Musk was "wearing thin," and Trump "asked him to leave."

Patrick Bet David alleged on his show that "somebody swung" at Elon during his final days in the White House. " I'm not speculating. Remember, the keyword is, allegedly," he said.

Other stories have surfaced, possibly from sources friendly to Musk:

A top White House aide is catching the blame for helping trigger President Trump’s fiery clash with Elon Musk — after speaking for months about giving the billionaire “payback” and even gloating to colleagues when Tesla’s stock price dropped, The Post has learned.

Sergio Gor, Trump’s director of presidential personnel, was instrumental in the president’s decision late Saturday [May 31] to yank the nomination of Musk’s personal friend Jared Isaacman to be NASA administrator, turning a contained disagreement on legislation into a firestorm of insults, five sources inside or close to the White House tell The Post.

Isaacman’s donations to Democrats — including $100,000 in 2021 to a PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — would disqualify most nominees under Gor’s standard vetting process. But Isaacman wasn’t pulled by Trump until hours after Musk left his unpaid White House role, at Gor’s urging.

But it looks like there was more to Isaacman's downfall than just donations:

President Donald Trump's nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, was arrested on fraud charges in 2010 and faced lawsuits in two states for writing $2 million in bad checks to casinos, according to government records and court filings.

. . . In a February 22, 2010 press release titled, "Nevada Fugitive Captured at Canadian Border," U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it arrested Isaacman on a warrant for alleged fraud at the Washington state line. He was taken to a county jail for extradition to Nevada, where Clark County, home to Las Vegas, had issued the felony warrant. No further detail on the alleged fraud was provided. According to jail records, he was released the next day.

In a questionnaire in connection with his nomination to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Isaacman said he was returning from the Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, in February 2010 when he was detained by CBP for "drawing and passing checks without sufficient funds."

I looked at the Isaacman controversy in yesterday's post, in which he was noted as a key Musk operative and Musk's choice for NASA administrator. However, his record of arrest and high-profile bad checks would make him a bad choice for any such nomination, Schumer donations or no. It seems to be significant that the nomination was withdrawn only after Musk officially left government service, and the speculation at the link that this may have set Musk off in last week's attacks on Trump is likely well-founded.

The UK Daily Mail at the first link above continues,

Details about the Bessent-Musk clash only build upon speculation that Trump has long been drifting away from his former 'first buddy,' who donated $288 million to his 2024 campaign.

They also reinforce the fact that leakers inside the White House are laser-focused on Musk.

Sources close to the billionaire blew the whistle on his poor relationship with Susie Wiles, Trump's no-nonsense chief of staff.

He treated Wiles like a 'secretary,' a source told the Daily Mail in April, despite her proven track record of success leading Trump's winning 2024 campaign.

. . . Most recently, Musk's alleged drug use was laid bare by insiders who spoke to The New York Times.

Musk was reportedly taking ketamine so frequently that it was affecting his bladder function.

The bombshell report also claimed he took ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms and traveled with a daily pill box that contained about 20 different drugs, including Adderall.

The problem for the White House is that, with the FBI reopening the cocaine-in-a-baggie case from 2023, it simply can't tolerate a high-profile drug user coming and going at will. If Sergio Gor was recommending Trump discreetly distance himself from Musk, this seems like nothing more than very astute advice, and Trump seems to have taken it. Any of the recent allegations against Musk, after all, could have gone just a little bit differently and turned into a major scandal for Trump himself, something I suspect he's deftly sidestepped.