Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro broke down the schism that has erupted between President Donald Trump and his one-time wealthy ally, tech titan Elon Musk.
Trump and Musk went from close friends and allies to hurling insults and threats at each other as simmering tensions blew up into the public on Thursday. The fight escalated into Trump threatening the government contracts of Musk’s companies, while Musk teased launching a new political party and suggesting Trump might have had associations with the late Jeffrey Epstein.
“It’s gotten very, very personal between President Trump and Elon Musk. It doesn’t look like it’s going to calm down anytime soon because, again, you’re talking about two incredibly powerful men, two incredibly rich men with large egos who believe that they are in the right,” Shapiro said in an episode of “Ben Reacts” released on Thursday, adding, “so, this is likely to continue for some time.”
Shapiro said that the rift between Trump and Musk broke down over time along political and business lines, and that contributed to a massive blowup between the two men personally.
In politics, Trump and Musk’s objectives were in tension, according to Shapiro.
After Trump won the 2024 election and brought Musk into the administration, Musk’s goal had been to lead efforts inside the government to cut waste, fraud, and abuse through the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk believes that the financial footing of the United States is unsteady with massive deficit spending constantly adding to an already historic national debt.
For Trump’s part, while the president was happy to have Musk trim along the edges of government, Musk could not touch the main drivers of deficit spending in the United States’ budget, and Trump did not campaign on making cuts to programs such as Social Security and Medicare. The cuts that Musk envisioned making to the federal budget – in the trillions of dollars – were never going to materialize.
The unbridgeable political divide contributed to a rift between the two men over Musk’s businesses, namely his electric car company Tesla and his space exploration company SpaceX.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” that passed the House with Trump’s backing cut electric vehicle tax credits without making significant cuts to the federal budget. While the tax credit cuts will harm Musk’s company, the tech titan would have been willing to absorb the cuts had he been able to point to meaningful savings for the United States, Shapiro said. But the bill lacked the deep cuts because political support for such cuts is too small and the risk too great to get through Congress.
Trump also pulled the nomination of his pick to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, “after a thorough review of prior associations,” referring to Isaacman’s past support for Democrats. Isaacman is a friend of Musk’s and likely would have worked with Musk on his longterm mission to make humanity “multiplanetary” through SpaceX. Isaacman’s nomination was pulled soon after Musk left the administration.
“The suggestion is that [Musk] was insulted. Between that and the EV stuff, he basically decided to go after President Trump. President Trump, of course, will not take a punch sitting down,” Shapiro said. “Now, you have two very big egos who do not take insults lightly going directly at each other.”
The online battle between the two culminated in Trump threatening to cut billions in government contracts with Musk’s companies and Musk suggesting that Trump was blocking the release of the Epstein files because the president is implicated in them.