Bill Maher unloaded on President Donald Trump and Elon Musk over their public fallout, as he christened the former allies Friday with a pop culture-inspired nickname on the latest edition of “Real Time With Bill Maher.”
“I mean when you think about it, the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world, it’s like Godzilla versus King Kong — if Godzilla was on ketamine and King Kong had a combover,” Maher joked to applause during his opening monologue.
“I mean, these guys were so close,” the comedian continued. “It was like ‘Brangelina’ or ‘Bennifer.’ No, you know that Elon and Trump, they had their own couple name — ‘Elump.’ And you know, what happened this week — this has been brewing for a while, OK people?”
“Brangelina” and “Bennifer” were the respective nicknames for former couples Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. While many fans were shocked when those particular romances crumbled, Maher argued Friday that it was clear “Elump” would.
Musk spent a fortune to help elect Trump and also headed the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has gutted key institutions and fired thousands of federal staffers with the stated aim of supposedly cutting wasteful public spending.
Maher argued Friday that Musk had specifically entered politics to curb government bloat, only for the GOP to craft the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which includes nearly $4 trillion in tax cuts and pumps billions more into Trump’s mass deportation initiative.
Their rift over the measure began last month, as Musk prepared to leave his government position and started publicly criticizing the bill. The feud culminated in a bombshell post Thursday on X, formerly Twitter, when Musk said Trump was “in the Epstein files.”
Brandon Bell/Pool/Associated Press
Jeffrey Epstein, a financier who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, ran in the same circles as Trump in the 1980s and 1990s. Trump appeared to address the accusation Friday by reposting a favorable statement from Epstein’s former lawyer, David Schoen.
While Musk has since deleted his own post, Maher said the Trump-Musk feud is now “a war that is going back and forth,” and joked that “the winner faces Blake Lively” — whose legal battle with “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni recently dominated the pop culture discourse.
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