A One Act Play
Setting:
Oval Office, White House
Cast:
ELON MUSK, Tycoon
DONALD J. TRUMP, President
ELON MUSK: Alright it’s been great Bro, but I gotta get rollin’ or the board will either fire me or make me put out a station wagon for 2026.
DONALD TRUMP: I gotta thank you again for all the volunteer DOGE help, but I definitely understand you have to get back to work, punch that time card, make some money. Gonna miss ya, dammit!
EM: Oh right. For sure. I had fun and we did good work carving up the bureaucracy, but I need to get back; Tesla stock is sinking like the Titanic.
DJT: Don’t know how you’ll fix it. Problem is your customers aren’t in my demographic zone even through they love your cars. Or at least used to.
EM: Maybe I should sell Tesla to Yugo Inc., (chuckles)
DJT: Seriously, what we gotta do is put some space between you with your businesses, and me dragging it down. Gotta make people realize we’re separate beasts. You don’t do nothin’ for me, I don’t do nothin’ for you.
EM: We could stage a phony public feud.
DJT: Like we can’t stand each other. Big fight.
EM: …ya know? I mean, just the ticket, right? We hate each other, we have a big brawl out on the lawn in the Rose Garden. Grass stains on our trousers, later at the press conference you have a bandaid on your other ear, the one the guy didn’t shoot off in Pennsylvania.
DJT: Simple. Easy. Script will write itself. Dumbass reporters at the Times and CNN will eat it up like free lunch at a PBS fundraiser. We can make up any stupid tune about a feud and they’ll sing the song for us.
EM: Couldn’t be easier, and we don’t have to do a thing. I’ll tell MSNBC you have an IQ lower than Biden’s dead dog, and that Melania gets her wardrobe from the Walmart sales rack.
DJT: Oh yeah!? Well I’ll tell the press your oldest kid never got out of sixth grade. What’s his name, Xylophone? Oxymoron? Anyway I’ll say he’s so ugly Bruce Springsteen must be his father.
EM: Ha! Perfect! George Will will get three columns out of it, and a week later it’ll be on the cover of People Magazine! Wokies will be lined up around the block at Tesla dealerships from Vermont to ‘Frisco. Maybe I’ll send a free green one to Bernie and another one with a hammer and sickle painted on the hood to that OCD dimwit from Brooklyn.
DJT: (Bent over in laughter) Oh this is just too good. I better find a way to fatten up on Tesla stock without some federal oversight committee catching on. You know, the lousy “emoluments” crap.
SIX WEEKS LATER
(IN OVAL OFFICE)
EM: Hey bro! Best quarterly earnings ever! I’m thinking of introducing a Tesla station wagon in 2026, plus a combination Edsel/Pontiac Aztec beauty. They’ll buy anything that rolls off the assembly line with a “T” on the hood these days. Our big fight is pure gold, solid platinum.
TWO WEEKS LATER
(IN OVAL OFFICE)
DJT: They should charge you admission to come into the White House you rich son-of-a-gun! You better be donating money by the rail car or I’ll dump the entire Department of Justice all over you! (Both laugh heartily)
EM: Too late! I bought the DOJ yesterday and had it shipped to Canada. (Both laugh)
DJT: This is great, most fun I’ve had since getting the call from Hillary in 2016. Anyway, here’s what I thought of: You announce you’re gonna start a brand new political party. Like “the United Party” or whatever, to undermine me in the midterm elections. Then I’ll announce I’m gonna have you arrested.
(Both laugh til they cry.)
EM: Best ever!
DJT: I’m telling ya, you can’t make this stuff up!
Truth is stranger than fiction, Tom!