What Trump’s and Musk’s Public Divorce Tells Us About the State of Tech

So, why is Marco Fioretti’s column running on Friday instead of Monday? Because The Donald and Elon had a spat, and he couldn’t wait to tell you what he thinks about it.

When I first checked the news this morning, a flood of headlines overwhelmed me with the biggest deja-vu I’ve felt this year. Since it takes decades to evaluate the true extent of events as epochal as what happened yesterday, I time-traveled to 2058 to ask a historian to summarize it, before explaining why it’s relevant for FOSS Force readers and everybody interested in truly “Don’t Be Evil” tech. Here is what that historian said:

“The Trump-Elon divorce was highly publicized due to Donald Trump’s affairs … and the subsequent accusations Elon made during the divorce proceedings, including one about rape. The divorce was a source of intense media scrutiny, particularly in … tabloids. While Elon later clarified the rape accusation, saying it wasn’t intended in a literal or criminal sense, the incident fueled the controversy surrounding the divorce. Despite the acrimonious divorce, Elon and Donald Trump were later seen as friends and even collaborated on some business ventures.”

Nah, I lied. What you just read is (God forgive me, but certain people deserve it) Google’s AI overview of the divorce between Donald and Ivana Trump, in 1992, with just the name changed.

Yes, I’m old enough to immediately see the similarity and no, I’m not happy about it. What’s happening today, however, really feels like the same thing, give or take a few details.

Today as in 1992, there is one spouse accusing the other of rape, or worse (but adding “have a nice day nyah nyah” like every toddler does to declare victory).

As in every jet-set divorce, there is one spouse who, in order to get even more money and power than they already got, tearfully rubs in the other’s face how much they sacrificed to help other’s career (“Without me, you would have lost the election!”). And there are ungrateful haters, who dare call painful reprimands like that an admission of “rigging the election.” But considering the personality of both parties, even the bit on future, peaceful “collaborations on some business ventures” seems perfectly plausible.

There even is, to make tabloids happy, one spouse receiving breakup advice offers from… one of the other spouse’s exes! Seriously, the only thing that’s missing (so far!) from the script is Ivana Trump telling Elon “Don’t get mad! Get everything!”

But What Does That Have to Do With Open Source?

Immaturity and instability like this are the kind of stuff that makes people stop voting (especially where voting is already as messed up as it is in the US) and start thinking that China’s system isn’t a bad idea after all.

Of course, immaturity is all over the place in politics today, and that’s not by chance. We all crave for politicians to speak in ways that ordinary people can understand. But everyday language isn’t the same as being childish. Naming a momentous, highly controversial budget measure like some fast food menu for children (“Big Beautiful Breakfast!”) sends the message that it isn’t stuff that’s worth the attention of busy, responsible adults.

This said, there are two reasons why I’m covering this reboot of the 1992 Donald-Ivana match here. One thing is that some behaviors and problems that are really bad for democracy get a lot worse when tech goes wrong — especially when it’s closed source and all about profit. The other thing is that these same issues make closed tech drift even further away from what’s good for everyone than it already does.

As far as acceleration goes, who’s right between Trump and Musk matters less than where they are fighting. Today’s social media is designed to start and intensify polarizing, “one-up you” brawls.

People who think their institutions should be a step or two above wrestling should demand that their politicians never fight as wrestlers, but go public only as adults, meaning only with well-considered official statements through official channels. That’s why I said four years ago — and repeat today — that elected officials and civil servants should never “work’ through social media.

This farce is a painful reminder that all of us, from California to Ukraine, depend way too much on a single child who will cry “no, you cannot play with my spaceships or my satellites, they’re mine, mine, miiiiine!!!” every time he gets upset. Satellites, reusable rockets, electrification of transportation and industry are all technologies that are absolutely critical for today’s society: they cannot be accessible only when one person got enough sleep.

Last but not least… In case you missed it among the noise, today is the 81st anniversary of the day when a US-led army of Allies landed in Normandy, to help Europe and the whole world free themselves from nazifascism. It’s really sad that a breakdown between characters that would make Caligula look a sober statesman obscures the D-Day anniversary, especially in years that look a bit too much like the late 1940s.

Marco Fioretti

Marco Fioretti is an aspiring polymath and idealist without illusions based in Rome, Italy. Marco met Linux, Free as in Freedom Software, and the Web pre-1.0 back in the ’90s while working as an ASIC/FPGA designer in Italy, Sweden, and Silicon Valley. This led to tech writing, including but not limited to hundreds of Free/Open Source tutorials. Over time, this odd combination of experiences has made Marco think way too much about the intersection of tech, ethics, and common sense, turning him into an independent scholar of “Human/digital studies” who yearns for a world with less, but much better, much more open and much more sensible tech than we have today.

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