Jun 7, 2025 07:45 IST First published on: Jun 7, 2025 at 07:45 ISTShareIt has been less than six months (of a 48-month tenure) since Donald J Trump assumed the office of the President of the United States for a second time. In that time, he has upended the US’s relationship with its Western allies and engaged in a start-stop tariff regime based on questionable assumptions. He has also injected elements of uncertainty into the US’s ties with countries, including India, that have been growing and deepening steadily for nearly three decades. The public spat between President Trump and Elon Musk — beyond the barbs and the almost reality TV style of the “breakup” — must be seen in this context. Drama and uncertainty mark both US domestic politics and how the superpower engages with the world.The world’s richest man played a significant part in the Trump campaign and the administration. Musk contributed about $250 million to Trump’s election fund and, after the election, led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The differences over the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, emerging a day after Musk left DOGE, quickly spiralled into an all-out social-media war between the two billionaires, replete with name-calling. While Musk claimed that he won Trump the election and echoed conspiracy theories about his connections with deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the President raised questions about government contracts for the Tesla and SpaceX founder’s companies.AdvertisementGiven their egos, perhaps it was a split foretold. That said, the Trump-Musk spat sends out the message that it is not necessarily institutions and interests that determine the course of politics and policy in Washington. Till recently, the “bromance” between the two men made Musk’s companies all but de facto national champions and the tech entrepreneur was seen across capitals as an extension of the White House. SpaceX, for example, has deep ties to NASA and its vessels ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station. The uncertainty around the future of that collaboration will make things more complicated for Delhi as it tries to deepen cooperation in space with the US. Deals with Tesla and Starlink, while made by private players, may take on a different colour. The Trump administration’s domestic policies have already had reverberations in India, especially its attitude to visas for foreign students and workers. The immature insistence that the White House mediated the ceasefire after Operation Sindoor went against the grain of 30 years of the bilateral relationship — through Republican and Democrat administrations — of de-hyphenating India and Pakistan. As India tries to manage the US relationship over the next three years, it must keep in mind that it is working with a partner that is much more temperamental — today’s Trump loyalist might be tomorrow’s persona non grata.