We’ve seen the Hundred Years War. We’ve seen the Thirty Years War. We’ve even seen the Six Day War. Could the conflagration between Donald Trump and Elon Musk become known as the Ten Hours War?
Maybe we need a new olive-branch emoji on X, one with a dove wearing a MAGA hat:
Elon Musk tried to de-escalate his spiraling feud with Donald Trump last night as White House aides organized a crisis call between the warring billionaires. …
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman stepped into the fray, posting a plea on X for the two men to reconcile ‘for the benefit of our great country,’ warning that ‘we are much stronger together than apart.’
Musk, who became one of Trump’s closest allies during the election campaign and then as head of his DOGE cost cutting taskforce, responded with a brief but telling reply: ‘You’re not wrong.’
The unexpected comment was seen by some as an olive branch, suggesting he may be eager to deescalate their feud which finally exploded in public after weeks of rumored tension.
Musk offered a few other indications of cooling off late in the evening:
Good advice.
Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025
That apparently came as a frenzy of diplomatic activity between the combatants apparently resulted in direct peace talks. A call will take place today, which would be fascinating to hear if one was fortunate enough to get an invitation. Politico reported that Trump’s advisers prevailed on him to focus more on the Senate than Musk, and that apparently provided an opening to give peace a chance:
Separately, White House aides, after working to persuade the president to temper his public criticism of Musk to avoid escalation, scheduled a call Friday with the billionaire CEO of Tesla to broker a peace. …
Earlier Thursday — as Musk raged about the cost of legislation that is projected to add $2.4 trillion to the deficit — Trump tempered some of his commentary on his own social media platform at the urging of White House aides.
The aides advised him to focus on the bill and getting it through the Senate instead of the conflict with Musk, according to one person close to the White House who was granted anonymity to discuss private exchanges.
Whatever else happens, that was good advice, and Trump was wise to take it. As annoying as the public feud might be — and one has to wonder just how annoyed either massive ego actually got at the attention — Musk is a sideshow. (That realization may be what set off Musk in the first place.) The real matter at the moment is getting 50 Senate Republicans to pass the House’s reconciliation bill to lock in the 2017 tax rates permanently, and then start working on more cuts in the appropriations process for FY2025-26.
There will be time during the summer recess for splashy, gossipy feuds with celebrities. For both men.
Anyway, Musk may have realized that his business models at both SpaceX and Tesla depend on having some sort of relationship with the federal government, and there’s only one president at a time. The math here is pretty simple: Trump can curry favor with other multimillionaires if Musk wants to keep battling, but Musk can’t pick a new president.
A Russian official said the American billionaire Elon Musk could be offered political asylum in Russia over his fierce dispute with U.S. President Donald Trump
Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, made the comments to Russian state news outlet TASS.
“I think that Musk has a completely different game, [so] he will not need any political asylum, although if he did, Russia, of course, could provide it,” Novikov said, in remarks translated from Russian.
Uh … sure, that looks really attractive. After all, Vlad I is known for his embrace of free speech and independent wealth, right? Best case scenario in that arrangement would be that Musk achieves the cultural and political relevance of Steven Seagal. Musk wouldn’t want to contemplate the variety of worst-case scenarios, but I’d advise him to steer well clear of windows in Moscow, especially if he refers to Putin being in the Epstein files. And the way that Musk is getting treated by the EU over Twitter, he might need to worry about certain windows in Brussels, too.
Anyway. This war will come to an end soon, because both men have more to lose than to gain from it, or because this has mainly been kayfabe all along. I’d bet on the former over the latter still, but either way, the Ten Hours War has been a silly interlude for both of the combatants … and for the rest of us as well.
Addendum: In case you don’t get the headline reference, let me introduce you to a solid entry for the Top Five Worst Christmas Songs of All Time. (And another Beatle has another of those slots locked up as well.)
Update: Hold off on the MAGA olive-branch emoji, at least for a while:
I just got off the phone with President Trump. He told me he’s “not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” pic.twitter.com/zNQvtqDX5H
— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) June 6, 2025
Trump apparently said the same thing to Jonathan Karl at ABC.
