DOGE chief Elon Musk and White House trade advisor Peter Navarro got into a public spat yesterday, and the White House had the perfect response.
According to Axios:
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked for comment on the Musk-Navarro spat at the daily press briefing, replied with a smile: "Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue."
- Musk, the 53-year-old Tesla CEO, is worth $350 billion and has unprecedented influence over the mechanics of government.
- Navarro, 75, is leading the administration's effort to re-wire the global economy.
Which was exactly the right thing to do.
If they want to fight it out in public, let them fight, because the alternative -- either getting rid of one, or getting rid of the other -- is worse for the administration with all its phenomenal talent.
According to Wikipedia, which has an utterly sucky, biased, disgracefully mendacious bio of Navarro, the back and forth went like this:
On April 5, 2025 Navarro was criticized by Trump advisor Elon Musk, who questioned his educational qualifications from Harvard on X and wrote "He ain’t built shit."[178] In response, Navarro said Musk is not a "car manufacturer". On April 8, Musk responded by calling Navarro "a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks", and said he should consult "the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara".
Musk also called Navarro "Retarrdo" which got the New York Post excited:
And we know it's been boiling for several days. On April 7, Elon, without comment, mysteriously put up a classical video from Milton Friedman, demonstrating how a pencil, the most ordinary of objects, was really the product of a global supply chain and free trade, which must have clearly been a dig at Navarro, who is a protectionist:
Elon, for one, is utterly, utterly, invaluable to the administration with his capacity to use algorithms to zero in on waste, fraud and abuse on a scale never before seen in government. (Wait till he gets hold of the voter rolls if it can happen.) His work enforcing simple honesty and transparency in government is likely to lead to the destruction of the entire Democrat party and all its fraudulent activities, the destruction of Trump's enemies. His stellar performance at Twitter (now X), making it profitable when it was impossible to be profitable before -- and the same with Tesla and SpaceX before -- is a gift from heaven to the government that needs to learn to live within its means and he truly is a national hero. He's also been persecuted by the left, first through lawfare during the Biden administration, and now through actual terrorism against Tesla and its buyers, which makes him even more heroic.
Navarro, too, is a naturally sympathetic figure, first having challenged the vaunted Dr. Anthony Fauci at the height of the COVID lockdowns over his false claims against hydroxycholorquine (HCQ) which was an inexpensive and effective means of treating COVID, and second in refusing to turn over documents to sleazy, partisan Rep. Adam Schiff over the events of Jan. 6, and literally going to jail for it, a draconian punishment never before seen that must have tested him. Yet he never bent to them, never waivered in his support for separation of powers, and for President Trump. It's not surprising he's one of the few people in Trump's second administration who carried over from the first. Navarro must be immensely comforting to President Trump to have around, having shown such loyalty.
For Trump, it would be miserable to be rid of either of them. And he doesn't want it.
So, better to let them duke it out even in public, and let insults be insults.
It's better than the sneaky pete swamp games we are used to -- Obama plotting against Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton plotting with the DNC to rig the primaries against Bernie Sanders, Biden directing the Justice department to target political opponents, phony stories in the press about Elon fighting with Marco Rubio premised on leaks from anonymous sources.
This administration is nothing if not transparent. They take their fights outside. They can fight all they like, it's better to do it in the open, actually, rather than through the Obama-ish stab in the back, with scurrying around amid anonymous media leaks.
What it tells those of us on the outside is that Trump is sufficiently confident in his own leadership to make his own decisions, no matter what his aides may think. The buck stops at Trump. He makes the decisions, and he owns them. His aides can say what they want to say, he's not policing their speech like a dictator might.
That's a refreshing change in leadership style from Joe Biden, who essentially acted as a puppet for other political players.
While it's unconventional, the corporate same old-same old is no longer the rule of the day, and actually, it doesn't really hurt the Trump administration if Navarro and Musk want to argue in public because Trump is in charge. Trump's the boss, and in bringing the arguments out into the public -- and having the public engage them as well -- helps Trump make better decisions anyway.
The recent pause in tariffs for allies trying to make things right, just announced, is a textbook illustration of this brand of adult leadership in action.
Trump and his team are not like the others.
Color me impressed.
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