WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cut off government contracts with billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, and Musk suggested Trump should be impeached, as the bromance between the president and his former adviser disintegrated into a barroom brawl.
Trump started the feud in remarks from the Oval Office. Musk quickly responded with posts on his social media site X, and within hours both were trading barbs on their respective social media platforms.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social.
Their sparring hammered shares of Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla, which lost about $150 billion in value, closing down 14.3 percent for the day.
Minutes after the closing bell, Musk replied, “Yes,” to a post on X saying Trump should be impeached.
Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress and are highly unlikely to impeach him.
The trouble between the two built up over the week. On Tuesday, Musk began denouncing Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. The president held his tongue while Musk, his former adviser, campaigned to torpedo the bill, saying it would add too much to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office he was “very disappointed” in Musk.
“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said.
As the spat got increasingly bitter, Musk also posted that Trump “is in the Epstein files,” referring to US government documents on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial for sex crimes.
“That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information.
Besides Tesla, Musk’s businesses include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX and its satellite unit Starlink. The billionaire spent nearly $300 million in the 2024 election in support of Trump and other Republican candidates.
Musk, whose space business plays a critical role in the US government’s space program, said that as a result of Trump’s threats he planned to begin decommissioning SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Dragon is the only US spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s cheap, reusable Falcon 9 rockets have made it the world’s most active launch provider. Its vast Starlink network has disrupted the global satellite communications market.
Ever-present ally
After serving as the biggest Republican donor in the 2024 campaign season, Musk became one of Trump’s most visible advisers as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which mounted a sweeping effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending.
Musk was frequently present at the White House and made multiple appearances on Capitol Hill, sometimes carrying his young son.
Only six days before Thursday’s blowup, Trump and Musk held a joint appearance in the Oval Office, where Trump praised Musk’s government service and both men promised to continue working together.
A prolonged feud between Trump and Musk could make it more difficult for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. In addition to his campaign spending, Musk has a huge online following and helped connect Trump to parts of Silicon Valley and wealthy donors.
Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending in the future.
Soon after Trump’s Oval Office comments, Musk polled his 220 million followers on X: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle?“
‘Kill the bill’
Musk’s blistering attacks this week targeted what Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.” Musk called it a “disgusting abomination” that would deepen the federal deficit, and his posts amplified a rift within the Republican Party that could threaten the bill’s prospects in the Senate. Nonpartisan analysts say Trump’s bill could add $2.4 trillion to $5 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump asserted that Musk really objected to the president’s elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles.
Trump also suggested that Musk was upset because he missed working for Trump.
“He’s not the first,” Trump said on Thursday. “People leave my administration ... then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile.”
Musk wrote on X, “KILL the BILL,” adding he was fine with Trump’s planned cuts to electric vehicle credits as long as Republicans rid the bill of “mountain of disgusting pork” or wasteful spending.
He also pulled up past quotes from Trump decrying the level of federal spending, adding, “Where is this guy today?”
Trump, meanwhile, posted on Truth Social that Musk “went crazy.”
‘Ingratitude’
Politicians and their donor patrons rarely see eye to eye. But the magnitude of Musk’s support for Trump, spending at least $250 million backing his campaign, and the scope of free rein the president gave him to slash and delve into the government with the Department of Government Efficiency is eclipsed only by the speed of their falling-out.
Musk offered up an especially stinging insult to a president sensitive about his standing among voters: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk retorted. “Such ingratitude,” Musk added in a follow-up post.
Musk first announced his support for Trump shortly after the then-candidate was nearly assassinated on stage at a Pennsylvania rally last July. News of Musk’s political action committee in support of Trump’s election came days later.
Musk soon became a close adviser and frequent companion, memorably leaping in the air behind Trump on stage at a rally in October. Once Trump was elected, the tech billionaire stood behind him as he took the oath of office, flew on Air Force One for weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom and joined Cabinet meetings wearing a MAGA hat — sometimes more than one.
Three months ago, Trump purchased a red Tesla from Musk as a public show of support for his business as it faced blowback.
Musk bid farewell to Trump last week in a somewhat somber news conference in the Oval Office, where he sported a black eye that he said came from his young son but that seemed to be a metaphor for his messy time in government service.
Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to zing his critics on appearance, brought it up Thursday.
“I said, ‘Do you want a little makeup? We’ll get you a little makeup.’ Which is interesting,” Trump said.
‘Disgusting abomination’
The Republican president’s comments came as Musk has griped for days on social media about Trump’s spending bill, warning that it will increase the federal deficit. Musk has called the bill a “disgusting abomination.”
“He hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that will be next,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office, presaging the rest of his day. “But I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Observers had long wondered if the friendship between the two brash billionaires known for lobbing insults online would combust in dramatic fashion. It did, in less than a year.
White House aides were closely following the drama playing out on dueling platforms Thursday with bemusement, sharing the latest twists and turns from the feud between their boss and former co-worker, as well as the social media reaction and memes. Officials in the extremely online administration privately expressed the belief that like the other digital scuffles that have defined Trump’s political career, this would also work out in his favor.
Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that he and Musk had had a great relationship but mused: “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
He said some people who leave his administration “miss it so badly” and “actually become hostile.”
“It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,” he said.
He brushed aside the billionaire’s efforts to get him elected last year, including a $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in Pennsylvania. The surge of cash Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to set him up as a highly coveted ally for Republicans going forward, but his split with Trump, the party’s leader, raises questions about whether they or any others will see such a campaign windfall in the future.
Trump said Musk “only developed a problem” with the bill because it rolls back tax credits for electric vehicles.
“False,” Musk fired back on his social media platform as the president continued speaking. “This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
In another post, he said Trump could keep the spending cuts but “ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”
Besides Musk being “disturbed” by the electric vehicle tax credits, Trump said another point of contention was Musk’s promotion of Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination over the weekend and on Thursday called him “totally a Democrat.”
Musk continued slinging his responses on social media. He shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticizing Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media.
“Where is the man who wrote these words?” Musk wrote. “Was he replaced by a body double!?”
On the White House grounds Thursday afternoon, Trump’s red Tesla still sat in a parking lot.
Following Trump’s remarks, a White House official, speaking on background, underscored the shift in the once-close dynamic between Musk and Trump.
“The president is making it clear: this White House is not beholden to Elon Musk on policy,” the official said. “By attacking the bill the way he did, Musk has clearly picked a side.”
