The relationship between President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk is no match made in heaven and it will unravel, one-time Trump supporter and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie predicted in an interview.
As soon as the going gets rough and Trump needs a scapegoat to blame for a bungle, that’s when the men will part company, Christie told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl Sunday on This Week.
“When does this end?” Karl asked Christie of Trump and Musk’s joined-at-the hip relationship.
“It ends when Trump believes that something has gone wrong, and he needs someone to blame and Musk becomes the person to blame,” the former governor responded. “And no one knows how long that will take.”
The “people who sit at the very center with Trump have a shelf life, and that shelf life is influenced by outside events, as Speaker Johnson is finding out right now,” Christie noted, referring to Trump cutting Mike Johnson off at the knees over the bipartisan stopgap budget bill he helped forge that went nowhere after it was attacked by the president-elect last week.
First to attack was Musk, who complained on X Wednesday: “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Trump followed suit and later issued his own statement denouncing the plan. A second package, backed by Trump, failed to win enough votes. But a third attempt was passed Friday only a few hours before a midnight deadline that would have shut down the government before Christmas.
Trump pushed for, but failed to win, a provision lifting the debt ceiling, evern though he has vowed to cut spending, not increase the federal debt.
Christie said it will be difficult when Musk is ejected from Trump’s inner circle.
“Sometimes it’s hard for folks to understand how intoxicating this can be for some people,” said Christie, who’s now firmly on the outside who speaks from personal experience.
Referring to Musk, he added: “Setting off rockets is great. Electric vehicles are cool. And some of the other stuff he’s doing. But it’s not what he’s experiencing right now.”
When “you initially begin in that role” Musk currently enjoys, “you have enormous influence,” Christie explained. “And he [Trump] loves having you around and he loves listening to you, and you’re the best thing in the world. It will always decline. And that’s what happens. And you’ll see it. It will happen with Elon Musk, too.”
Christie added: “I used to say this to General Kelly when he first became [Trump’s] chief of staff: ‘Today you’re trading at 100 cents on the dollar. You will trade at zero. The question is, how long it will take.’”
