The backlash escalated Thursday, when Vivek Ramaswamy, in a post on X, criticized an American culture that he said “venerated mediocrity over excellence.”

For Christmas, maybe you unwrapped gifts, baked cookies or hung out with family. Elon Musk spent his holiday week as he usually does: posting again and again on X. But this time it was burning some of the goodwill he’d won with America’s anti-immigrant right.

We may be seeing some of the first major fissures forming in the Trump-Musk dalliance. Over the holiday week, Elon Musk entered into a heated online debate with notable Trump figure and culture warrior Laura Loomer over the president-elect's immigration policy,