Life is full of parallels. But some parallels are stranger than fiction. Who, for instance, would think there are similarities between Nasir el-Rufai, former governor of Kaduna State, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man? On the surface, there’s clear blue water between them: one is a modestly successful technocrat, administrator and politician in Nigeria; the other is a global figure, known universally for owning world-class brands like Tesla, Space X and the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). Yet, there’s an interesting comparison between el-Rufai and Musk. Both helped make someone president but soon fell out spectacularly with that person and began to plot his downfall. El-Rufai and Musk are Svengalis turned dagger-wielding foes.
Before the last presidential elections in Nigeria and the US, things were going swimmingly well between el-Rufai and Bola Tinubu and between Musk and Donald Trump that it seemed their political marriages were made from heaven. In truth, however, it was a myopic and self-serving bromance, fuelled by egotism, self-aggrandisement and utter thoughtlessness. That’s why el-Rufai and Musk’s stories are deeply fascinating; they are object lessons in political miscalculations and, indeed, in the transient nature of political relationships.
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Earlier this month, after Musk publicly broke up with President Trump, he tweeted: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,’ adding: “such ingratitude.” Of course, Musk was right: He helped make Trump president in 2024! Similarly, last week, el-Rufai told Arise TV: “I just feel that having contributed to bringing this tragedy to Nigeria by contributing to the emergence of Tinubu as president, I should contribute to removing it.” El-Rufai, too, was right: He was instrumental in Tinubu becoming president in 2023.
But how did things go so terribly awry, so quickly? Well, before we come to that, let’s first remind ourselves how the relationships started, and how both men secured victories for their now estranged principals. The first interesting point to note is that neither Musk nor el-Rufai was a natural ally of the person they later helped to become president.
For instance, for many years, Musk supported the Democrats in the US. He backed Barack Obama for the presidency in 1998 and favoured Hillary Clinton in her presidential contest against Trump in 2016, which shows that Musk was not originally enamoured of Trump. However, Musk became frustrated and crossed with President Joe Biden after Biden refused to invite his company, Tesla, to a White House summit on the future of electric vehicles in the US, despite Tesla controlling nearly 75 percent of the EV market. With a frosty relationship with President Biden, and having abandoned the Democrats, Musk turned to the Republicans in the 2024 presidential race and supported Trump against Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate.
“So, having publicly nailed his colours to the mast in the way, how then did el-Rufai end up bringing “this evil”, as he now calls Tinubu’s presidency, upon Nigeria? Truth be told, the story is utterly shameful, steeped in its own deviltry.”
Similarly, el-Rufai was never Tinubu’s political bedfellow. Indeed, in 2019, at a public lecture, he criticised Tinubu’s feudal grip on Lagos State politics, calling for the defeat of “the godfather of Lagos”. A year later, in 2020, speaking at a webinar to mark the 63rd birthday of Rauf Aregbesola, former governor of Osun State and then Minister of Interior, el-Rufai said: “I want to congratulate my brother, Ogbeni, on his birthday. You know I’m your man any day. I’m not Asiwaju’s man. Asiwaju and I have differences, but you and I have no differences.” So, having publicly nailed his colours to the mast in the way, how then did el-Rufai end up bringing “this evil”, as he now calls Tinubu’s presidency, upon Nigeria? Truth be told, the story is utterly shameful, steeped in its own deviltry.
But, first, let’s return to Musk. How did he make Trump President? Well, anyone who followed the US presidential election in 2024 will remember that Trump was either level-pegging with or falling slightly behind Harris in the polls. Then entered Musk, whose net worth is $409bn, according to Forbes. He pumped $259 million into the Trump campaign. At one point, he gave away a few $1million cheques to voters in Wisconsin, a swing state that Trump must win, and personally campaigned for him in other swing states. Then, he used his social media platform, X, to promote Trump and denigrate Harris. Even Trump himself admitted that Musk won the election for him. As a result, Musk became the postal boy of the Trump family, the Trump political base and the Trump White House – until, that is, everything went belly up!
Now, back to el-Rufai. Earlier on, in 2023, he plotted Tinubu’s route to the presidency. He did not pour in money like Musk but made strategic interventions that dramatically altered the course of events. In 2022, before the APC presidential primaries, then-President Muhammadu Buhari told APC governors: “You chose your successors, allow me to choose mine.” But his choice was certainly not going to be Tinubu. Rather, Buhari and the then APC national chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, were scheming to impose the then Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, as the party’s consensus candidate. It was el-Rufai who mobilised other Northern APC governors to frustrate the plan. Had he rallied some Northern APC governors behind Buhari and Adamu, putting their weights behind a consensus candidate, Tinubu would not have been president. But el-Rufai led his fellow Northern APC governors to insist that the presidency must return to the South after eight years in the North.
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Of course, the logic was unassailable: the presidency needed to return to the South. But why Tinubu? El-Rufai could have supported the then vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. He could have supported Rotimi Amaechi. Why Tinubu, especially given his opinion of him? Well, the answer is religious bigotry. For eight years as governor of Kaduna State, el-Rufai ran a Muslim-Muslim governorship, and also made sure his successor ran on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, in a state with a large Christian population. El-Rufai was determined to foist a Muslim-Muslim presidency on Nigeria, imposing the Kaduna model on the country. Indeed, in a viral video after Tinubu’s victory, el-Rufai gloated: “What we achieved in Kaduna has now been achieved in Nigeria.” Ridiculing the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), he said it had “kept quiet” and “remained mute” after Tinubu won the election. El-Rufai added that since he and his fellow Northern Muslim governors had put a Muslim president and a Muslim vice-president in power: “We have finished our work”!
So, for self-interested and malevolent reasons, Musk and el-Rufai backed someone they never liked for president but got their fingers burned afterwards. Musk even fared better. Trump made him head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, and he ran that department for some months, making significant changes, before he fell out with Trump over the US budget deficit in June. By contrast, Tinubu nominated el-Rufai as a minister only to watch as the Senate branded him a “security risk” unfit for ministerial office. Why did Tinubu nominate a security risk as minister in the first place? Given Tinubu’s influence over the Senate president and the Senate, he could ensure el-Rufai’s clearance if he wanted to. However, it’s obvious that he deliberately threw el-Rufai under the bus; he humiliated him!
Now, both men want revenge. Musk called for Trump’s impeachment. El-Rufai is plotting Tinubu’s defeat in 2027, seeking to deny him a second term. But they are facing presidents who have grabbed unprecedented powers and will ruthlessly deploy them, if cornered. Musk and el-Rufai have a lot to learn from each other. They should meet to compare notes!
