Musk and Rubio play nice on X after White House spat makes headlines
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and multibillionaire Elon Musk are making public displays of support for each other after an embarrassing report documented a contentious argument between the two men.
Musk was involved in an online dispute with Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski after Sikorski implied that Musk, who owns the Starlink satellite communications company, was threatening to cut off service to Ukraine. Sikorski said his nation, which pays roughly $50 million per year for Ukraine’s access to the network, might be forced to find another supplier.
That’s when Rubio interjected: “Just making things up. No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink.”
In another bid to bolster Musk, Rubio thanked the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency in a post announcing that 83% of the contracts for the U.S. Agency for International Development would be canceled. Despite—or because of—its vital role in providing help to struggling populations around the world, USAID has been one of the primary targets of DOGE’s attacks on federal agencies.
In response to Rubio’s post, Musk posted on X, “Good working with you.”
Their public support for each other is not happening in a vacuum. On Friday, The New York Times published a report revealing that Rubio and Musk had been involved in a shouting match with each other during a White House meeting with Trump.
According to the Times, Musk accused Rubio of not firing anyone working at the State Department. Rubio reportedly complained that Musk was lying, and Musk retorted that Rubio was merely “good on TV.”
The story was widely circulated, opening up both Trump underlings to mocking and ridicule. The fracas broke out of the world of politics and was lampooned in the cold open of this past weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live.”
“You need to start acting like mature adults,” comedian James Austin Johnson said, portraying Trump and attempting to negotiate a truce between the two.
The administration has been trying to spin the bad report.
“ELON AND MARCO HAVE A GREAT RELATIONSHIP. ANY STATEMENT OTHER THAN THAT IS FAKE NEWS!!!” Trump wrote the day the Times story was published.
The White House later disclosed that Trump hosted Rubio and Musk at Mar-a-Lago for dinner on Saturday night, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on Fox News to reassure viewers that everything was fine between the two.
But while the Musk-Rubio rift was being exposed, the real-world impact of their partnership is devastating. The decision to kill USAID is leading to unnecessary death as innocent children are deprived of medicine, and concerns are rising that a lack of USAID support could lead to a newly virulent strain of tuberculosis.
Regardless of what the true story is about the on-and-off Trump/Musk/Rubio bromance, their actions are hurting many—and many more to come.