Elon Musk’s decision to go all in on Donald Trump never made much sense. His scorched-earth approach to breaking up with Trump is even harder to square.

Musk and Trump, ostensibly political allies over cuts to federal spending, publicly clashed on June 5 in a series of exchanges across social media and in comments to reporters. The origin of the dispute is the impact Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill has on U.S. public debt.