PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, welcomed the end of Elon Musk’s influence in the Trump administration, saying it protects the MAGA movement from being co-opted by oligarchs.
👥 Who’s Involved: Raheem Kassam, President Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk, and the MAGA movement.
📍Where & When: Kassam spoke to The Washington Post at Butterworth’s in Washington, D.C., on June 5, 2025.
💬 Key Quote: “I was very worried for a time that MAGA would be bought out by the oligarch [like the Tea Party], and it’s just so satisfying to see that that is now no longer the case,” Kassam said.
⚠️ Impact: The Trump-Musk split reinforces MAGA’s independence, aligning with Trump’s America First vision against vested interests.
IN FULL:
Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, has welcomed the split between President Donald J. Trump and former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) frontman Elon Musk, telling The Washington Post that it signals the MAGA movement will not sell out to vested interests like the Tea Party.
“This is a lesson the MAGA right needed to learn right now,” Kassam told the newspaper at Butterworth’s, the Washington, D.C. bistro where he is an investor. He noted that the Tea Party, the grassroots movement against Big Government that sprang up following Barack Obama’s election, previously “got bought out by the Kochs,” referring to Charles and the late David Koch, who support mass legal immigration and amnesty for many illegals.
“I was very worried for a time that MAGA would be bought out by the oligarchs, too,” Kassam continued. “And it’s just so satisfying to see that that is now no longer the case.”
Musk’s falling out with President Trump centers around the “one big beautiful bill” currently working its way through Congress. The bill increases funding for border security and defense while making permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and enacting new tax cuts for tips, overtime, and social security.
While Musk and his cohorts claim it increases spending and the debt ceiling unacceptably, the administration argues it will actually result in substantial spending cuts, and that Musk is upset that this includes cuts to government support for electric vehicles (EVs), which his Tesla firm manufactures.
