The abrupt break-up between President Donald Trump and his First Buddy played out in spectacular public fashion this week.

The bromance began almost immediately after a bullet grazed President Trump’s ear at a campaign rally last fall in Pennsylvania. 

When images of the then-candidate being supported off the stage with a fist pumped into the air, mouthing ‘fight!’ went viral, Musk weighed in.

‘I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,’ the X platform owner wrote that night.

It was the first of many expressions of public support that relationship experts say hint at some dynamics more typically reserved for romantic partnerships.

Dr Isabelle Morley, a clinical psychologist specializing in couples therapy, said: ‘I would best describe it [their falling out] as a perfect example of the idealization devaluation cycle that we see typically associated with narcissists in abusive relationships.

‘There is this initial obsession that it can include love bombing, this over the top flattery, and this sort of perfect image of the other person being anything and everything wonderful.

‘And then there’s always the devaluation phase, where the person gets ripped off the pedestal, typically, because, especially with people who have narcissism, the other person disappointed them, made them feel bad, disagreed with them, made them look bad, and which is unforgivable to a narcissist, because their self esteem is so low.’

Dr Isabelle Morley, a couples therapist, told DailyMail.com that Musk’s [left] and Trump’s [right] fallout a classic case of narcissistic idealization-then-devaluation—a pattern seen in toxic relationships

Musk has been a fixture by Trump’s side since he made an energetic rally debut exactly one month before the election, hopping around on stage with his arms aloft.

‘The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire. And we had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-bumping after getting shot,’ Musk told the crowd.

But the honeymoon phase of the bromance came to a screeching halt in May on the heels of a less-than-stellar Tesla earnings call when shares were down more than 40 percent over the year so far.

Musk publicly criticized Trump’s marquee ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, saying it undercuts the government-slashing work DOGE has carried out since Trump’s return to office.

Musk didn’t stop there; he doubled down in TV interviews and online barbs, ensuring Trump would see them What ensued was an ego-fueled Hindenburg-style disaster that played out on smartphones worldwide. 

Mental health and couples therapy experts insist that this was not unexpected.  

Dr Holly Schiff, a licensed clinical psychologist, told DailyMail.com: ‘I definitely have seen some elements of idealization in the relationship, which can be an early sign of love-bombing, where you overwhelm someone with praise and attention in order to foster loyalty or dependence.

‘However, when we see admiration that is so publicly inflated, it’s usually quite brittle. 

As is standard in transactional relationships, experts said, after receiving criticism for his Big Beautiful Bill, Trump removed his support for Musk and ‘discarded him’ 

‘If the relationship doesn’t provide ongoing affirmation or mutual gain, then the dynamic can flip into devaluation just as quickly.’

She said Musk emerged as the ‘clingy’ partner, admiring Trump performatively and publicly to secure his status as First Buddy.

‘Elon was often seeking approval from Trump and was more eager for validation. Trump asserted more dominance in their interactions.’  

His position at the right hand of the President afforded Musk insurance that his companies’ lucrative contracts and dealings with the federal government – SpaceX’s $14billion in federal contracts and Tesla’s EV tax credits – would continue bolstering his status as the world’s richest man.  

Musk would also hate to see his legacy as chief chainsaw-wielder at DOGE be undercut by adding to the federal debt rather than reducing it.  

Dr Morley added that the Musk-Trump ‘situation’ is particularly interesting because it’s a rare case of mutual ego combustion.

Both men, accustomed to bending relationships to their will, lavish praise on allies whenever valuable and then discard them the moment the balance of power shifts.

In the days and weeks after the election, Musk was a fixture at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club in Florida, sitting in on meetings, weighing in on key staffing decisions, and taking part in phone calls with world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He even had a seat at the Trump family table for Thanksgiving.

Dr Morley told DailyMail.com that, more likely than not, Trump ditched Musk first, and now Musk’s firing back with his own platform and influence

Musk was not the only one in the partnership who issued effusive praise early on. During his inauguration speech, Trump lavished praise on his top campaign donor, saying: ‘We have a new star. A star is born. Elon!’

Trump then embraced Musk to head up the new Department of Government Efficiency, which put tens of thousands of federal employees out of work.

Since his inauguration, Trump’s X account and that of the White House have been peppered with dozens of posts praising Musk and his DOGE cuts, which he has praised Musk repeatedly on camera.

On March 11, Trump said on Truth Social that Elon Musk ‘is “putting it on the line” in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!’

A few days later, he wrote on TruthSocial: ‘THANK YOU, ELON—MAGA!’

Around the same time, Musk said: ‘President Trump has put together the best Cabinet ever…And I do not give false praise. This is an incredible group of people. I don’t think such a talented team has ever been assembled.’

‘The very public declarations of admiration signal a kind of exaggerated closeness,’ Dr Schiff said.

‘These behaviors usually serve a strategic purpose, especially in a power alliance. Build someone up publicly, so they are harder to criticize later, it creates a debt of loyalty.’

The two turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom in March, where Trump touted his adviser’s electric vehicles: ‘Number one, it’s a great product—as good as it gets—and number two, because Elon has devoted his energy and his life to doing this and I think he has been treated very unfairly.’

At a March White House event doubling as a Tesla showcase, Trump praised Musk’s EVs as ‘the best’ and defended him: ‘He’s given his life to this—and been treated unfairly.’

Musk, whose company at the time was seeing precipitous drops in share prices and acts of vandalism, basked in his buddy’s praise, telling reporters: ‘As a function of the great policies of President Trump and his administration, and as an act of faith in America, Tesla is going to double vehicle output in the United States within the next two years.’

Around that time, Dr Schiff said, eagle-eyed politicos caught subtle behavior clues in Musk that hinted at simmering tensions under the surface.

Standing next to Trump at the Resolute Desk on more than one press occasion, Musk has stood with his arms crossed, staring up at the ceiling, and rolling his eyes back and forth.

While the public and some health experts chalked this up to evidence of his rumored heavy use of ketamine and other psychedelics, Dr Schiff suggested that ‘these are microexpressions of distancing.’

She said: ‘In public moments, there appeared to be a growing incongruence between Musk’s body language and the performative alliance. More subtle cues usually precede more overt breaks.’

The splinter in their relationship deepened the more Musk spoke up about the Big Beautiful Bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit and leave around 11 million Americans without health insurance.

Trump seemed willing to discard Musk, telling the world that the billionaire was ‘wearing thin’ and threatened to cancel the EPA Tailpipe Emissions Rules, which effectively required over a third of new cars to be sold either electric or hybrid by 2032 – cars that Trump said ‘nobody else wanted.’

Dr Morley put it bluntly: ‘People are expendable with this mindset of like, you take what you can until they’re no longer useful, then you discard them’

The result was a scorched earth campaign to tank the other’s reputation.

Dr Morley said: ‘People are expendable with this mindset of like, you take what you can until they’re no longer useful, then you discard them, and they’ve discarded each other.

‘And my guess is that behind the scenes Trump discarded Musk first, and now Musk is retaliating, whereas usually we see this in a less even way, with a bigger power imbalance, where the discarded person goes off and licks their wounds and quietly takes it because they don’t have either like a platform or whatever to fight back.

‘That’s obviously not the case with these two people.’