The recent brawl between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is intriguing.
It´s possible that it´s just a personality clash. I mean, rumor has it that Musk got his blue eye after a physical altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in the White House?! So there´s certainly a lot of flammable material around. Trump is both loyalty-obsessed and extremely mercurial, while Musk can be short-tempered on X. He is self-avowedly "on the spectrum" and might suffer from hypomania or even drug addiction.
On the other hand...
I can´t help thinking of Trump as "Caesar" and Musk as "Crassus". You would think the richest man in the world and one of the president´s main donors would be able to call the shots if any conflict arises, just as the bourgeoisie (or plutocracy) usually dominates the state, even if the state apparatus is nominally independent. But here, the chief executive officer is able to dominate his main plutocratic ally as a gorilla!
One wonders if this means that the state has become stronger than the capitalist class, the interests of which it´s supposed to be defending. Bonapartism? Caesarism? I suppose this could be interesting if you are a Social Democrat or leftist. How strong and independent can the state apparatus become *exactly* under present conditions?
Maybe that´s worth pondering.
Of course, another possibility is that two different Crassi are having a conflict back stage. Vance is brokered by Peter Thiel, who doesn´t like Elon Musk. If so, two different plutocrats are fighting over control of the White House. But it still seems as if the king-in-orange is the guy who ultimately decides who´s gonna get the prize...
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