Elon Musk recently took to X to denounce Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” as a “disgusting abomination.” This sharp rebuke came mere days after Musk’s seemingly amicable departure from his informal position within the Trump administration as a “special government employee” heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump fired back on his own platform, Truth Social, claiming he “asked [Musk] to leave” and claimed Musk “just went crazy” when he revoked the Biden-era electric vehicle mandate that his company, Tesla, had benefited from. He then threatened to terminate Musk’s federal contracts and subsidies, but Musk doubled down, launching a barrage of further posts vilifying Trump and his bill, even claiming that Trump was mentioned in the ever-elusive Epstein documents.

This development exposes a deeper truth within the political landscape in which elite “outsiders” vie for crony access, exercising their influence (usually in the form of colossal campaign contributions and lobbying efforts) to gain favorable outcomes for themselves and their ventures—even a more “libertarian” elite like Musk.

The Trump-Musk fallout also exposes the interplay between political “insiders” and “outsiders,” both of which make self-interested decisions—outsiders like Musk, through contributions given and policy initiatives advocated for, and insiders like Trump through contributions received and policy initiatives implemented.

Analyzing their political breakup through the lens of special interests and crony privileges reveals the true nature of the relationship between so-called “elites” and the state. While Musk may have largely had good (and maybe even libertarian) intentions, his efforts were in vain. …

Trump, too, benefited greatly from Musk’s campaign contributions. Thus, the relationship was simple: I help you get elected, and you help me with favorable business policies and a position in the administration. This seemed to be the case—until it wasn’t. This is nothing new. “Great men” like Musk have always attempted to gain a competitive edge by securing favor with the political class. Patrick Newman states:

Special-interest legislation is inherent in the very nature of government… Unlike the Invisible Hand of the market, individuals that control the coercive Visible Hand are encouraged to pass legislation that benefits them at the expense of others. The stronger the government, the more lucrative the rewards. To control the government machinery is to control the levers of cronyism.

This is the essence of cronyism—and the essence of the relationship between Trump and Musk. With Musk’s ambitions thwarted, Trump is pivoting in a markedly despotic direction. …

While Musk and DOGE seemed promising for the more optimistic libertarian camp at the start of Trump’s second term, the entrenched bureaucratic hurdles rendered the department largely ineffective. Having initially aimed at $2 trillion in savings, to date only around $180 billion in savings have been reported (with evidence-backed estimates suggesting significantly lower figures). Musk’s failure to meet these promises, even if we assume he had good intentions, should teach libertarians a valuable lesson—one that Rothbard warned against: the nature of the state dooms even benevolence to failure.

Relying on pseudo-libertarians like Musk to make meaningful changes through the apparatus of the state is a strategy unlikely to result in anything resembling the free society libertarians dream of. While efforts of this kind can result in swings in the right direction, they cannot penetrate from the top down to the core mechanisms that enable state power to continue to grow. Libertarians would do well not to forget this lesson should they wish to secure real, lasting freedoms.