Random black eyes, shots fired on Twitter, name calling and the exposing of secrets. Sounds like an episode of Bad Girls Club, Jersey Shore or Flavor of Love but Nope. This is the latest drama fresh out of the White House. Not even 6 months ago it seemed like Elon Musk and Donald Trump were best buds and in a full bromance. Posting Deepfake AI videos of them dancing to the Bee Gees, Donald Trump doing Tesla Ads for Elons company. Elon Musk even contributed almost $300 million dollars to Donald Trump’s Campaign. These two had the MAGA troops rounded. Every corner of MAGA conjoined to take down the Democratic party machine and “win” the election. The Tech Bros of the world such as Vivek Ramaswamy and the PayPal Mafia including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel (PayPal Creator), Reid Hoffman (founder of Linkedin) all joined forces with the Alt-Right hillbillies such as Steve Bannon (Trump Chief strategist), Peter Navarro and Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense) who normally represent white nationalism in the United States in order to take over the country. This partnership has been very short lived as the 2 sides “Tech Bros and Hillbillies” are no longer seeing eye to eye. On January 20th of 2025 the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created By Trump and Tasked Musk to oversee this committee aimed at maximizing government productivity and manage wasteful federal spending. The 2 sides have fallen out so bad that by April of 2025, Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy stepped away from DOGE. The Battle between these two groups has been entertaining but scary. It is a representation of where this administration is headed… and that is to the highest bidder. When it comes to the splitting of resources or even their ideologies revolving around immigration and reproductive rights, MAGA has lost its way. This means that the future of this administration is in Limbo. The future of this country is a question mark while these two groups fight for control over the countries current most powerful political faction.
In this piece, I am not using “Hillbilly” as a negative term. It is simply a label put on someone who has a certain ideology. In this case, many of the “Hillbillies” are rural, old-school people who value self-reliance, family and traditional values. Most of the times these people represent working-class right-wing whites. “Tech bros” on the other hand are urban, innovation obsessed normally upper-class people who either came from or live a life of privilege. You may wonder how a “Hillbilly” and a “Tech Bro” could ever be in unison politically. This current administration found a way to make that possible. Both hillbillies and Techbros have a desire to reduce government regulation and taxation. Both groups want to undermine the credibility of institutions around America for personal gain. Both have a total distrust of authority. Steve Bannon, who I like to consider the leader of the modern-day MAGA Hillbillies has made it his political goal to “deconstruct the administrative state.” Bannon believes that the legacy media is out to tarnish conservatives and that the administrative state has too much power and overreach over every day Americans. Where the Tech Bros found common ground with this, is how it relates to business. Elon Musk saw this opportunity to attack the government and its functions. Musk’s desire to reduce the federal government would in return allow there to be less obstacles for his business practices and ventures. The Tech Bros ideological alignment of government distrust would lead them to deregulation and a plethora of tax cuts that these businesses and super elites would benefit from. As one can see, both sides saw the undermining of government as a plus and was thirsty to accomplish gutting the federal government. Everything was going well and a benefit for all, until it wasn’t….
Where the beef really started brewing was over the conversation of immigration. Most Tech Bros are economic conservatives and believe in Pro-corporate immigration. This simply means that Tech Bros are pro-immigration policies that benefit large conglomerates and corporations. This means having flexible Visas for international workers, creating policies that reduce immigration barriers and doing whatever needs to be done that allows easier access to foreign workers. Specifically, the higher skilled, educated ones. The Tech Bros tend to favor loose immigration rules for companies that rely on talent from other countries (H-1B Visas). This contrasts with the Hillbillies who are anti-immigration economically. Especially in the unskilled, lower educated work markets. These Hillbillies believe that Immigration allows foreign skilled or unskilled immigrants to take jobs from native born workers which makes it harder for citizens to advance and creates wage suppression because the immigrants will take less money for the same job. They also believe that culturally and socially this is a big detriment to American traditions, ideals and values. “Multiculturalism is a mistake” the words of Charlie Kirk a popular Right winged conservative who founded turning point USA. A nonprofit aimed at advocating for conservatism. They fear their national identity will be wiped away due to mass immigration and will create cultural fragmentation. Lastly, they worry that this influx of immigrants will cause national security risks putting us all in danger.
The debate between the two groups has now become “who is the right person for the job?” Tech Bros are arguing that we should put the best person for the job no matter where they come from because it will be a net positive for the company. It costs less to bring in a worker than it does to train them, house them, feed them. The Tech Bros are looking at the value a worker brings while the Hillbillies aren’t so much focused on the value of a worker but more focused on their protections. Hillbillies see hiring anything other than American workers as betrayal and threats to American society culturally, politically and economically. They would like to keep their national identity through the work market. On the other hand, The Tech Bros like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are claiming that American workers do not possess the skills to be valuable workers in most cases. Vivek on a December 26th, 2024, Twitter Post: Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.” Here is Elon Musk on a December 25th, 2024 Twitter post: “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.” As you can see in direct contrast the Tech Bros are saying American workers are not smart enough for the job and that they aren’t interested in improving their conditions. Instead, they would rather just hire a foreign worker. This is where the Hillbillies dissent for the Tech Bros began. And ever since, the likes of Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro have been full-fledged attacking that branch of republicans.
Just a few months ago the Republican Faction was united amongst different wings of republicans. Now that things have transpired, it has caused a fall out for many people. I find it interesting that Elon Musk worked with Donald Trump for that many months but when they have a disagreement now Musk is trying to throw Donald Trump’s name in the “Epstein files” or make claims that Trump wouldn’t have won the election without Musk pulling some strings. (We will wait and see what those strings are as this develops.) I also find it hilarious that many of these MAGA Hillbillies who were just locked in with Elon Musk are now saying that he’s a “Racist, vile, delusional figure.” Those are the words of Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. The Breakup has been nasty and dramatic. As the details for Trumps new “Big Beautiful Bill” have been released. We can see that Musk is NOT happy about being cut out of the pie. Trump is threatening to end the Electric Vehicle (EV) tax credit that was 1/3rd of Teslas profits for the last decade. Trump is targeting cancelling these programs that created lines of business for Musk. The Hillbilly faction of MAGA is losing their positive views of clean tech (EV), renewable energy and modern technology dealing with climate change and global warming and this is causing a real rift between the two sides that were just not long ago damn near in harmony. Musk shifting his attitude towards the bill has caused the MAGA attack dogs to open the flood gates on him. Many of the Hillbillies have now promised to destroy Musks political career, federally investigate his business practices and even try to get him deported because he is not technically an American citizen. The irony of it is that Elon Musk is going to criticize the hell out of the bill but is being cut out of it. On the surface one would say this is a good thing that Tesla and an oligarch is being cut out of the bill. But many critics of the bill say cutting Oligarchs and big business out of the bill isn’t what’s happening, only Tesla is being cut out because of the Trump and Musk relationship souring. The bill is expected to add 2.5 trillion dollars to the national deficit. Lastly, I find it Ironic that Steve Bannon, MAGAs watchdog would go on his war room podcast and criticize Elon Musk saying that the 1% need to be taxed more. I’m not saying I disagree, I’m simply saying there is irony in Elon Musk crying about the bill and being cut out of it, all meanwhile Bannon believes the wealthy need to be taxed more all while simultaneously NONE OF THAT IS IN THE BILL. If this bill passes, it will be the biggest redistribution of wealth in modern American history.
With Donald Trump and JD Vance trying to manage and monitor the ideologies of their party, where does this beef leave them? On one hand you have the Hillbillies who make up lower/middle class workers who are against H-1B visas and the idea of allowing skilled/educated or unskilled and low educated workers into the country and on the other hand you have Tech Bros and the managerial/ upper classes are trying to be represented in the same party as well by having business interests protected. Donald Trump has long said that he would like to build a wall to keep immigrants from crossing the border and taking jobs but in the same breath is a key advocator for H-1B visas and high skilled workers to be able to enter the American workforce. MAGA is split into a whirlwind of ideologies, and this is the danger of being sold to the highest bidder. There is no foundation of ideologies or beliefs. Just whatever can get you paid the fastest is what MAGA officials will represent. Where does Musk go now? Does he become some super woke liberal/progressive? Does he try to re-hash his relationship with Trump? Does Bannon and the MAGA Hillbillies ever call the dogs off Musk? Trump and Vance are in highly stressful debacle right now and the republican party is in the midst of a major ideological struggle. The entire beef between these two factions is hilarious, petty, frightening and a reflection of the overall unseriousness of the current Administration.
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