ArcaMax

"It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it," President Donald Trump said, in explaining the hostility that overcomes veterans of his administration. Are they crazed because of what they've seen or what they've done? Or were they always crazed, which is why they were there in the first place?

In Elon Musk's case, it is clearly all of the above. Many books will be written about why Donald Trump won this election. I would be surprised if any of them will conclude that money made the difference; Kamala Harris had plenty of money. But Elon Musk has a simpler explanation. It was all him: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate."

And you know he believes that.

He spent almost $300 million on Trump, and he thought he owned him. He thought having more money than anyone in the room made him the equal of the most powerful man in the room.

He thought wrong. In the process, he fired people who will have to be rehired, took health care and food away from starving children in the world, dismantled institutions that will have to be rebuilt, and wreaked havoc on the federal workforce, all without making a dent in the deficit. And his Tesla stock tanked.

It was, of course, inevitable. Two such colossal egos cannot co-exist. Musk reportedly thought that because he had elected the president, he had been elected president. He could have come in with a scalpel, with teams of auditors, not bros, worked with the leadership of both parties in Congress, as well as the White House, and actually made a difference. Swamplands run deep, and coming in with a chainsaw gets you nowhere.

Is he really gone now?

One can only hope. Do the MAGA-maniacs have enough money of their own to hold Republican members of Congress hostage to Trump, as they've been since January, confirming the likes of Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy Jr.?

Can Musk turn back to Tesla and SpaceX and restore their tarnished luster? Musk is no longer the Master of the Universe he once was. He may be talking about forming another political party, but whether it will have nearly as many followers as Musk does on X remains to be seen. Musk thought he could conquer Washington. He thought he had more power than the bureaucracy. He was wrong.

For now, it's entertaining theater. Musk went so far as to claim that the reason all of Jeffrey Epstein's papers have not been released is because Donald J. Trump is somehow in them. Mr. Family Values calling the kettle black.

Me, I'm betting they'll get back in bed together when it suits them both. Trump loves money too much to let Musk go permanently. Musk loves power too much -- not to mention the billions in federal grants -- to leave it all behind. This was a relationship built on the foundation of outsize ambition that isn't going anywhere.

See Elon prance. See Donald pounce. Start counting to see if and when any Republicans have the nerve to stand up to Trump. Enjoy the theater. The curtain has gone down on Act One, but the show is far from over. They won't destroy each other. It's the rest of us I'm still worried about. May they bring out the worst in each other. May their true colors shine through. We can hope, but I'm not betting on it. Trump derangement syndrome looks like a chronic illness to me.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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