It appears that Elon Musk has seriously overestimated his sustained popularity among his right-wing fans.
In another masterful display of cunning, the world's richest man turned coat and viciously lashed out at his former best-friend-in-chief Donald Trump this month.
It was a very public affair, as both parties traded blows over social media — and Trump at his many press conferences — but it was Musk who came out looking worse for wear, unable to equal the president's threats, squirming at the cold indifference he was being shown. In retrospect, his mysterious black eye was a prefigurement of things to come.
And so in decidedly un-Don-Corleone fashion, the "Dogefather" all but groveled at the feet of the president this week, offering a simpering apology.
But the damage had been done. According to a new poll from the Associated Press, fewer Republicans view Musk "very favorably" compared to April, plunging from 38 percent down to 26 percent.
"Some things have happened lately that have changed how I feel about him a little," Alabama Republican Katye Long, who downgraded her view of Musk to "somewhat favorable," told the AP. "I also don't feel like he matters that much," she added. "He's not actually part of the government. He's just a rich guy who pushes his opinions."
As far as high-profile fallouts go, this one was veritably cataclysmic. After Musk stepped down as a "special government employee," he blasted Trump's spending bill and trash-talked the president on his website, X. Trump, in turn, threatened to kill Elon's billions of dollars worth of government contracts. Musk made his own threat that he'd cut off NASA's access to SpaceX, before declaring that Trump is implicated in the unreleased Epstein files and agreeing that the president should be impeached.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk fumed on his website X, after Trump said he was "disappointed with Elon."
"Such ingratitude," Musk huffed.
All the while, reports circled that the tech billionaire was heavily abusing drugs like ketamine — and to boot, incurring the unfortunate bladder issues that commonly stem from overusing the powerful anesthetic.
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