MANOSPHERE MELTDOWN!

In which the world’s richest man gets marginalized, and right-wingers choose their daddy.

The inauguration was wild, man

The Los Angeles protests have been a boon of distraction from this administration’s other rats’ nests of chaos. Never mind the economic crisis that the tariffs are plunging us into, and how TACO called up Xi again and begged for his help cleaning up the trade mess Trump made (they talked on the phone and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is meeting with Chinese officials today). Never mind that Big Booty For Billionaires Bill that is stalled in the Senate, or that peace has not been made in Ukraine. (Ukraine just hit some more Russian planes though, and an electronic warfare facility, and shot down 479 Russian drones during Russia’s biggest drone attack ever.)

And the self-made civil war in Los Angeles has given Trumpistan something to talk about besides that messy public breakup with Elon Musk. SO messy. Steve Bannon even told the Washington Post that a fight between Musk and Scott Bessent came to physical blows, which probably looked like two cheese sandwiches engaged in combat.

“Scott said, ‘You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud,’” Bannon said in an interview.

Musk then rammed his shoulder into Bessent’s rib cage “like a rugby player,” Bannon said, and Bessent hit him back. Multiple people stepped in to break up the scrum as the two men reached the national security adviser’s office, and Musk was shuffled out of the West Wing.

ALPHA MEN!

Then other White House sources piled on to WaPo about how much they never liked the guy — Elon, probably Bessent too, but this is about Elon — he was always incompetent, and losing that judge election in Wisconsin showed he didn’t have so much pull after all. Upping the drama, Stephen Miller’s wife quit her part-time job working with her hubby in the White House to spend full-time hours working for the guy who reportedly travels with a Whitman’s sampler of drugs.

And then Elon posted that video of Trump ogling teen models with Epstein, as if he just now heard about Trump’s long and very chummy relationship with Epstein, putting nails in the coffin of their friendship forever. (You know, unless/until it becomes convenient for them to make up. Elon is already on the internet, retweeting Trump and so forth.)

But until the make-up happens, who is an alpha male supposed to support here? Crisis in THE MANOSPHERE! Testicle-tanning right-wing media bros have been whipsawed by confusion trying to figure out which of these two pale, out-of-shape keyboard warriors is the most ALPHA. Can’t the daddies just get along?

HAHAHA, look at this New York Times article with all of them trying to figure out what to think!

Trump got custody of Joe Rogan, who declared Musk “crazy.”

Charlie Kirk said on his radio show he believed Musk and Trump would reconcile at Mar-a-Lago, “over two scoops of ice cream and steak,” before Christmas, and posted a Bible verse on X:

Matthew 5:9

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God

Kirk meant peace between the most alpha of men, of course, and not Los Angeles, there Trump should “bring in the troops!!” because “Tom Cotton was right.”

Clay Travis, host of “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” had mad-dad sads too: “I hope that Trump and Elon, on some level, can make up,” because Musk is “the greatest capitalist who has ever lived in the history of capitalism.”

Never mind those communist tax credits behind the curtain!

And in an “emergency episode” by Patrick Bet-David, the host of the “PBD Podcast,” PBD urged Mr. Musk to “accept” that Trump is the “alpha amongst alphas.” Any disagreements should be voiced in private, in order to protect the “image of the alpha,” he said. “You have to save the respect of the alpha.”

How very alpha, to be concerned with one’s image all of the time. Also if everybody is alpha, nobody is alpha, it is a paradox! And these are your alphas, these hair-weaved bags of slop whose clothes don’t fit? Does looks-maxing mean nothing to these people?

Lamented Ted Cruz on his podcast on Friday, “I feel like the kids of a bitter divorce, where you’re just saying, ‘I really wish Mommy and Daddy would stop screaming.”

That’s not very alpha of you, Ted, and I expected more alpha from the guy who let Donald Trump call his wife ugly and has a little fluffy dog named Snowflake.

But it’s so hard to be an alpha! Pete Hegseth can’t find anyone willing to work with him, not just internationally because he is a leaky blabbermouth who is not ALL CLEAR ON OPSEC, but in his own office, because he can’t even get along with the people he handpicked for himself to work with, and his office is “total chaos.” Being an alpha is being a perpetual hammer, the dumbest tool in the toolshed, and it is not enough to build a house.

And Elon can’t even get along with his own GrokAI, which replied to a user that it was “likely” real that Musk posted that he stole Stephen Miller’s wife. (And then deleted it. Grok said it “likely existed and was deleted.”)

Here’s the (fake) post:

That text reads:

Stephen Miller: We will take back America

Elon Musk: Just like I took your wife.

To which Elon replied, “Elon: No, it’s fake ffs [face palm emoji]. I never posted this.”

So, is that Musk admitting that his amazing GrokAI makes shit up? Or did Musk program it to say that? (Remember when it “randomly” started regurgitating white supremacist South African farmer-murder lies?)

It did not take long for the realities of Musk’s exile to sink in, and he seemed to accept that Bet-David was right. After he came down from a few days of whatever rage cocktail he’d been chugging, he was back to re-posting Trump’s inflammatory posts about how Los Angeles has been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals,” and needs Trump to “liberate” it.

In between re-posting endless fawning praise of himself.

And on and on.

"I think he's the Thomas Edison of our age. I think he's a very good person. He wants to do the right thing, if I had to say one thing, he wants to do the right thing, to transform the lot of most of humanity."

“Walter Isaacson: Elon Musk isn't motivated by money or power. He deeply cares about humanity.”

Beetlejuice is sexy.

Beetlejuice is smart.

BJ is a graduate of Julliard!

Musk is a man who knows how to be his own best friend.

And maybe the sun is setting on his influence outside of his X-cho chamber. Musk had urged all of his 220 million dumbshit X followers to deluge GOP lawmakers’ offices with calls opposing Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, but Mike Johnson said that there had been “almost no calls.”

Concern-trolled Karoline Leavitt on Sunday morning: "We were all hoping for the best for Elon. And I think it's unfortunate that now that he's gone back to his companies, he is lambasting this bill that he was very much supportive of by all accounts."

Even before Musk’s fit, though, that bill got stranded in the Senate with not enough votes. Which is good and fine because it is more toxic than a Djibouti burn pit.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Musk alpha-maled himself under the tires of his own self-driving bus. Trump, a bald-faced user through and through from day one, got what he wanted out of him, $288 million and his technical ability to tap into all of the government’s databases at every government agency, so it could be handed to Palantir to be “analyzed” for whatever purposes.

And Elon is over a barrel. The budget bill strips away carbon tax credits that make up a growing share of Tesla’s shrinking revenues, 43 percent of its net income in the first three quarters of 2024. Musk did get investigations into his companies neutralized, and he got jobs for family and friends, but any contracts or influence is at the whimsical pleasure of Dear Leader. And if Steve Bannon, longtime Elon hater, and Stephen Miller, presumably newly on board, get their way, he could even get deported back to Canada. Or Rwanda! Though of course we would not wish such a thing on anyone.

It’s the law of the jungle in alpha-male land. With no more rule of law and a system based on bribery and sucking up to the King, the betas grasp from below to claw for their survival! Trump has only two powers above him, Putin and Xi, and power descends from above, like flaming SpaceX rocket particles on endangered turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.

OPEN THREAD!

[New York Times / Daily Beast / Washington Post]

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