Trump vs Musk: Caught in the middle are two top US govt advisors, married to each other. What next?

As the feud between US President Donald Trump and his former top advisor, also the world's richest man, Elon Musk ensues, a Trump loyalist couple faces a conundrum like no other.

Stephen Miller and his wife Katie Miller are now on the opposite sides of the Donald Trump-Elon Musk break up. How? Because one is the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and the other had until recently been serving as an advisor and a spokeswoman for Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

According to a New York Times report, last week, as Musk was leaving Washington behind, there were news reports that Katie was also leaving DOGE to work for Musk full time, a development that led to speculation about her relationship with the administration – and her husband.

The big ‘fight’

By Thursday, speculations intensified after Donald Trump and Elon Musk engaged in an ugly spat with Musk suggesting the president was ungrateful for the $250 million he spent on getting him elected and Trump saying he could cancel the tech billionaire's many government contracts.

Musk then reportedly stopped following Stephen Miller, and several other conservative leaders, on X, the social media platform he owns.

A day later, Trump said that Musk had "lost his mind" but insisted he wanted to move on from the fiery split with his billionaire former ally.

Trump had scrapped the idea of a call with Musk and was even thinking of ditching the red Tesla he bought at the height of their bromance, White House officials told AFP.

"You mean the man who has lost his mind?" Trump said in a call with ABC when asked about Musk, adding that he was "not particularly" interested in talking to the tycoon.

Trump later told Fox News that Musk had "lost it."

Just a week ago Trump gave Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the DOGE after four months working there.

Attempts to reach the Millers for comment were unsuccessful, the NYT report added.

Other couples caught in political warfare

“Let’s take the richest guy in the world and put him in a room with the most powerful person in the world: Did anybody ever think this was ever going work out?” said James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist. “You couldn’t be a casual observer of human nature and be remotely surprised by this," the NYT quoted him as saying.

Carville was also caught in the middle, just like the Millers are. Back in the 1900s, while working as the chief strategist in the Clinton White House, he made headlines for his relationship with his wife, Mary Matalin, a Republican political consultant who helped manage the 1992 Bush campaign. The couple survived the Clinton administration, and remains married today, the report added.

According to the report, Trump has caused a deeper rift between another married couple: Kellyanne Conway, a former campaign manager for the president, and her now ex-husband, George Conway, a conservative lawyer, announced their divorce in 2023, after years of differing opinions on the president. (She approved, he decidedly did not.)

(With inputs from agencies)