Musk attacked Trump’s budget bill. Why didn’t Trump respond?

A fairly fundamental rule of political physics in our time: if you criticize Donald Trump, he roared.

Which makes what happens now to be noted: Elon Musk Critique Donald Trump, and Trump … don’t answer.

As you probably know now, Tuesday afternoon, Musk used his X account to complain about the republican budget bill – Whoever is supposed to be Trump’s signature legislation, and the one who is literally called “A great nice bill“Act because that’s the name Trump loves.

More specifically: Musk called the bill “A disgusting abomination. “”

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you have done it badly. You know,” he added.

This story – the richest man in the world, and for at least several months, an ally of a key Trump, exploding a Trump project in public – dominated Tuesday’s news cycle. Even Fox News had to cover it.

And in normal circumstances, Trump rages. Not this time, however.

Trump has not yet recognized Musk aloud. Wednesday afternoon, when Musk continued to attack the Twitter / X bill, Trump used his Social truth platform for Republican a Musk tweet thanking Trump for letting it supervise the Doge project.

But he has not yet weighed directly on Musk’s criticism.

When a Fox News journalist asked the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, “How crazy” would be When he learned Musk’s comments, she had a sober ready response: “The president already knows where Elon Musk was standing on this bill. This does not change the president’s opinion. It is a great and beautiful bill, and he sticks to it.”

And when I asked the White House press office on Wednesday morning, they referred me to the previous declaration of Leavitt.

Obvious conclusion: for the moment, at least, the Trump team is four so as not to attach a quarrel with musk.

It seems very unlikely that Trump’s silence is permanent: Trump likes to stand in front of the press, so someone will ask him questions at some point.

However, this level of what seems to be a restraint is remarkable for a man who was generally not restricted and who hates people who bite him in public. What’s going on?

To start, it should be noted that Trump has already passed a version of this. Last week, Musk used a much more dull language to criticize the same bill in a CBS interviewAnd these comments have also become a new one. And Trump did not shoot Musk so either – Even when they asked him questions at a press conference.

It should also be noted that even if Musk used a scathing language to condemn the bill On Tuesday he never criticized Trump directly.

This gives the two men a room for rhetorical maneuver: Musk can say that his problems with the bill have nothing to do with the man who promotes it. And Trump can group Musk’s criticism with All those who have problems with the bill, including certain Republicans as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

But it is also likely that the most likely thing is the most likely thing: that Donald Trump has a huge admiration for Elon Musk, and treats it differently from anyone else in the world. And that even if Musk officially left his role as a part -time white house advisor,, Trump still wants him on his side.

For the moment.