Can we get that Musk-y smell out of the air now?

Look, there’s a lot going on right now. Perhaps more than the usual amount of chaos since 47 set up shop in the Oval Office, even. But let’s get to the biggie right now. Elon Musk exiting DOGE and splitting ranks with the president and...stealing the wife of Stephen Miller, the head Nazi, er, chief policy guy in the White House?

There is both juicy stuff here to talk about and speculative practical matters to discuss. But let’s start with the juicy.

Without fanfare but with a startling suddenness, Musk just...quit (although I guess his “term” as an unofficial employee may have just ended but this Oval Office team has never followed rules before). Apparently, he didn’t meet with his badly fake-tanned boss for an official departure. Just left if what I’m reading is right, with minimal statement about it. But the capper is that he brought something—or rather, someone—with him. Stephen Miller’s wife, Katie, who had been serving as an adviser for Musk’s DOGE work and will now reportedly leave her White House gig to work for Musk full time.

Except that the scuttlebutt is that this is more than about “work.” Rumors are that Musk and Katie Miller were sleeping together. Whether in a threesome or throuple thing or an affair or, as some theories are going, that Katie was a honey pot to keep Musk around and/or a handler to keep him in line.

Who knows, but it’s all very weird and this is some very powerful rumor-milling from apparently inside the White House so it’s hard to ignore.

Does it mean that Katie is getting a cushier gig that allows her more grift and still gives Musk some White House access, and thus isn’t about sex at all? Is it that she’s going to keep an eye on Musk and is his honey pot/handler and Stephen and 47 are playing a long game with Musk? Did Musk pull a steal-ya-girl move in addition to quiet(ish) quitting?

All I can say in the end is that neither Stephen Miller nor Elon Musk are appealing. And I don’t just mean that to be shallow about looks, because frankly aside from what many would consider unappealing features, both of these men are supremely ugly on the inside. So if this is a “leaving Stevie for Elon” thing, that says one of two things: Either Katie is an idiot who thinks she’ll finally be the woman to steal Musk’s heart for real so she can be filthy rich, or Musk is a kinder, gentler, better partner than Stephen, which would say a lot about just how truly evil Stephen Miller may be.

Now, on to the more practical. What does this all mean for us? Well, probably not DOGE going away. But it does say a lot about chaos and breakdowns within the White House. Right now, the tangerine tyrant is taking on a lot at once. Expanding the anti-immigration stuff to actually bar foreign students from studying in this country and facing off with Harvard University as part of that. All while doing the back and forth on tarriffs and threatening the entire world and pulling apart government just enough to screw us all up without giving up the power to control us. It’s a lot. Perhaps too much. And there might be some cracks showing in the Oval Office’s plans and unity with the GOP. Yeah, that “big beautiful bill” passed the House but it’s uncertain whether it can make it through the Senate given some of the very wide-reaching expansions to executive power it would grant.

Fact is that Musk was butting heads with Trump on tariff and other matters, and just wasn’t getting all that he wanted. Frankly, aside from the possibility Trump may be reaching too far too fast and undermining his and Project 2025’s goals along the way, this whole “get the hell out of DOGE” thing with Musk shows how much that man doesn’t know how to do things—aside from maybe steal Stephen Miller’s wife away from him.

Thing is, Musk flew too close to the sun. Whether the president has reached too far and too fast, it is clear that Musk did. He tried to wield supreme power and then found out that as rich and powerful as he is, not much trumps (pun sort of intended) being president. Musk was never going to wield that power and he cannot be president ever. And while his charisma might be enough to woo Katie Miller, it isn’t enough to endear the country to him while he’s raiding the treasury and wrecking everything. And now, with his corporate interests in turmoil and possibly facing an ouster as CEO of Tesla, Musk needs to get out while he can.

He needs to achieve some relative quiet and “anonymity” for a bit to recover his reputation. Because, in the end, all he really ever had was a lot of money. No ideas. No charm. No real skills or insights. Just money. And I think it finally dawned on him that his power and even his money and possibly citizenship are at the whim of the federal government right now. He offers nothing much to the administration anymore except to draw more heat and more scorn and more embarrassment.

But hey, at least maybe he got a new baby-momma out of the deal?