President Donald Trump’s former “fixer” put Elon Musk on alert about incoming retribution from the president after their bitter break-up.
“They are going to drop the hammer on him out of nowhere, when he least expects it,” lawyer Michael Cohen told MSNBC. “That’s the playbook. And, again, this is political guerilla warfare at the highest level.”
Cohen, who experienced his own fall from Trump’s good graces, predicted that the retaliation would take the form of personal smears, the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, and targeting of Musk’s companies.
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Trump has yet to launch a full-faced war on Musk, his former bankroller and adviser, who on Thursday went nuclear on the president. Musk, infuriated by Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, alleged that he was in “the Epstein files” and called for his impeachment.
However, Cohen said that because of the size of the two men’s egos, a dramatic escalation of the clash was inevitable.
“Elon Musk has massive power, and here’s the problem with that,” he said. “Trump craves relevance, Elon Musk craves dominance. Very big difference. You’re talking about an immovable force trying to smash into something that’s indestructible. this is going to be a war like nobody has seen maybe in all of history.”
Cohen suggested that Musk was the latest in a long list of men who wanted to influence Trump by “whispering in the ear,” pointing to former advisers Rudy Giuliani and Jared Kushner.
“It doesn’t end well for anybody,” he said. “And it’s not going to end well for Elon Musk.”
Cohen directed a message to Musk directly: “You’re never— Elon, you’re never more powerful than the president of the Unites States. And you’re never richer than the country.”
So far, Trump has limited himself to insinuating that Musk’s drug use could be responsible for the blow-up. “I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem,” Trump said Friday.
Musk, meanwhile, has quieted down—and deleted several of his most inflammatory posts, such as the bombshell allegation that Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein are the reason files on the sex offender haven’t been released.
Cohen was an attorney for Trump from 2006 to 2018. He eventually turned on Trump after he became caught up in an FBI investigation into the 2016 campaign’s links to Russia. Cohen wound up serving three years in prison for campaign finance infractions, tax fraud, and bank fraud.
