Spin Class Links 5/23/25: The "Elon Stepping Back" PR Feint Edition

Also Sunset Boulevard, Nottoway Plantation memes, and dissociating with #MomTok

Before Links, let’s spend a minute on a weird media phenomenon from this week. POLITICO, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, and a whole slew of other news outlets this week ran stories on how Elon Musk is “stepping back,” “on the outs,” “fading away,” “reducing his footprint,” and other clichés indicating he no longer pulls the same sway with the Trump administration he enjoyed at its beginning.

Is it possible all these outlets noticed the same organic phenomenon and reported on it in real time, entirely of their own accord? Sure, maybe. But if you believe this, you probably also believe the Trump administration was dutifully tracking Elon’s 130-day limit as a Special Government Employee.¹ When I see a run of similarly-themed stories, across the same kinds of outlets, running a narrative that ultimately helps both Musk and Trump, I see a very well-coordinated PR campaign in action.

It’s true: Trump is not posting on social media about Musk nearly as much. Musk is no longer being featured at open-press Cabinet meetings, or turning the White House South Lawn into a Tesla showroom. But let’s not confuse the performance of influence with actual influence.

Even if Musk (for now) is no longer literally wielding a chainsaw in front of a screaming throng on Trump’s behalf, that doesn’t mean he’s on the outs. Just because Musk says on the sidelines of a Qatari investing summit that he thinks he’ll spend less on Republican candidates moving forward doesn’t mean he’s actually going to do it. It just means that what he’s saying, today.

So, the Spin Class Questions: why are we seeing this now? And who benefits from the spin that Musk is stepping back?

It was inevitable that Musk wouldn’t be able to keep up the chainsaw and cheesehead shenanigans forever. Trump can’t tolerate someone more powerful than him, or getting more attention. Tesla’s dismal earnings only accelerated the eventual PR fadeaway. So the question then becomes not if, but how Musk and Trump’s respective teams manage that fade in a way that lets everyone not just save face, but preserve their mutually-beneficial relationship.

Hence: several days of conscious-uncoupling stories in established DC policy outlets, even as Musk was literally on Capitol Hill actively lobbying around Trump’s gigantic legislative package. Even as Musk companies are the front-runners to build Trump’s idiotic “Golden Dome,” also announced this week. Even as Musk’s personal acolytes continue to run DOGE and are firmly ensconced across the executive branch. Even as Trump’s meeting with President Ramaphosa this week coincided with Starlink finally moving towards operating in South Africa without abiding by post-apartheid regulations.

All of this becomes much easier to pull off against a “Musk stepping back” backdrop. Right now, ironically, the democratically elected U.S. President is less vulnerable to public opinion than the richest man in the world. The Trump administration doesn’t have to do quarterly earnings calls, or defend its reputation to its donors and base the way Musk does to his shareholders and customers. A “Musk stepping back” press narrative lets everyone pretend they’re moving on to a new chapter. It provides the performance of reassuring nerves and rebalancing priorities, without having to change anything Musk is actually doing with DOGE, with private Hill meetings, with domestic and foreign government contracts for his companies, and more. Maybe just now with fewer chainsaw memes.

Remember: the absence of unprecedented public spectacles doesn’t necessarily reflect a waning Musk influence on the Trump administration. It just says they’re no longer parading that influence in the same bonkers, attention-grabbing ways. To understand how Musk is influencing the Trump administration right now, follow the money and the meetings, not the photo ops and Tweets. Cover what they do, not what they say.

The Sunset Boulevard revival AND how we all feel after a week of consuming news in 2025.

Now, Links!

Note: we’re deliberately going lighter with Links today. It’s been a particularly brutal week. The massive Trump legislative package, robbing the poor to pay off the richest of the rich. Biden’s cancer diagnosis. The murders of a young couple outside the Capital Jewish Museum, and the hideous ways this tragedy is already being used to justify more hatred and violence. What Trump attacks on Harvard’s international student population will do to American competitiveness and our ability to welcome the global talent who are building our shared futures. When it’s this bad, it’s more important than ever to find sources of joy, or at least a rueful laugh among friends.

• I saw the Broadway Sunset Boulevard revival this week and am still reeling from its audacious second-act opening: a knife-edge live video backstage sequence involving dozens of actors and crew, seven flights of stairs, acrobatics, and a cardboard cutout of Andrew Lloyd Webber, that morphs into the lead actor belting the title number while charging outside the theater into the thick of Times Square.² Here’s how they pull it off, eight shows a week. [NYT]

• Memes and social media about the fire that burned down Louisiana’s infamous Nottoway plantation are a juicy cultural text (and have me missing the Black Twitter glory days). [The Contrarian]

• If I had to select a single cultural product to try to explain contemporary America to an alien civilization, it would be The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. [Vulture]

• Smoked agave pork belly and grilled pineapple are happening this weekend. [Hartwood cookbook]

• Oh, that’s why: “In postmodern soft coups, power decentralizes into unreality. The goal isn’t persuasion. The goal is fatigue. This is why your brain feels fogged. Why aren’t you writing as fast? Why you’re wondering, ‘What’s the point?’ This isn’t depression. It’s data overload without resolution.” [The Long Memo]

• Kermit the Frog delivered the University of Maryland’s commencement speech, including a “Rainbow Connection” sing-along, and it was wonderful. [Baltimore Sun]

1. The midwestern oldest daughter in me still feels compelled to note that this limit is 1) real, and 2) still technically a legal requirement. You’d think she’d have learned by now.

2. I also regret to inform you that Nicole Scherzinger is astounding and absolutely deserves that Tony, even if she may have doomed her chances via a MAGA flirtation.