There is nothing abnormal in two friends, brothers, husband and wife and so on quarreling. Political psychologists say there is no relationship which is genuine but from which quarrelling would be absent. However, quarreling among the elite is supposed to reflect their class category in terms of subtlety, sophistication and meltedness.
A band of hostile brothers?
This is the element of surprise in the explosive exchanges between the man generally regarded as the world’s richest man – Elon Musk and the one broadly rated as the world most powerful man – Donald Trump. Musk and Trump have been friends, responding to each other in their own ways before now. By his own testament, Musk contributed nearly 300 million dollars to Trump’s re-election and, apart from contract patronage, Trump rewarded him with an appointment that put Musk at the centre of the Trump Presidency in his second term.
Then the unravelling started, too suddenly for those who were neither in the US nor maintained interest in the twosome. The shocker in the break – out of the quarrel is each side going for the last card on Day One: while Musk called for Trump’s impeachment in addition to claiming the president’s complicity in sexual transgression, Trump threatened withdrawal of patronage, with a Trump loyalist following up with the idea of deporting Musk.
How could a tiff escalate so rapidly to the climax? Again, how did it happen that, as elite, they didn’t lock themselves in one Penthouse or another to negotiate accommodation and come out smiling, leaving the world with the feeling that they are inseparable?
Is it that the twosome are not as sophisticated as assumed? Is it, as an observer has asserted, because both Musk and Trump are suffering from egocentrism, egocentrism on a scale that could not utilize elite instincts in handling inter-personal conflict?
No one can be indifferent to a rift to two personages, each with global scale clout and capacity to dictate terms in his own sphere(s) of influence? What that means is that people who have nothing to do with this rift could become collateral damages. That is the tragedy of how the world works! It is why no one can be indifferent to them because Marx must have them in mind when he said capitalists are a band of hostile brothers!
