Time  magazine said it well this morning: When Musk left Trump’s side, he seemed suddenly cleared of any sense of loyalty. He started lobbing his problems with House Republicans’ "One Big Beautiful Bill." He called it an abomination, a debt bomb, a mistake that would cost incumbents their jobs if they didn’t reverse course. He said Trump would never have been elected without his financial help. (That one is probably right, as Musk was the single largest patron of efforts to get Trump back in power.) And, for good measure, in a social media post mid-afternoon Thursday, Musk said Trump is in the unreleased dossier about those involved in a sex trafficking operation of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. As Trump responded in kind, the world was left watching a brawl involving two masters of the universe who, given their power and resources, could better the course of human history if only they would focus. Trump said Musk “went CRAZY!” Trump threatened to take away all contr...

But first, an assessment by the  New York Times  this morning of what just happened in Germany: Germany’s next chancellor is likely to be Friedrich Merz, a former corporate lawyer who has promised to crack down on migration, cut taxes and regulation and adopt a hawkish policy toward Russia. Merz leads a center-right alliance  (the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, or CDU)  that finished first in yesterday’s election, with 29 percent of the vote. A far-right party, Alternative for Germany ( the party that Elon Musk supported) , that promises even tougher immigration policies — but is friendly toward Russia — finished second, with 21 percent of the vote.   The center-left Social Democrats, who led the government for the past four years, tumbled to third place, with 16 percent of the vote. It was their worst showing in a national election since at least 1890. The percentage of the current population born in another country is now 20%, which was only 12.5%...