Topline
Elon Musk on Monday took an apparent jab at President Donald Trump—posting on X about the inconsistent White House claims about a so-called “Epstein list”—after the president mocked the billionaire’s announcement of a new political party, as the feud between the two former allies is apparently back on.
The feud between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump continued to escalate after Musk ... More
In a post on X, Musk shared a meme that seems to call out the Trump administration over its failure to release a purported list of powerful clients kept by disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk’s post is likely a response to an Axios report, which cited a Justice Department and FBI investigation report that found no evidence of Epstein maintaining such a list and using it to blackmail influential figures.
Musk also responded to a post from another X account that contrasted the Axios report with an older news headline that cited Attorney General Pam Bondi saying the Epstein list was on her desk.
When the feud between Musk and Trump first broke out last month, the billionaire alleged without evidence the White House had not released the Epstein list because Trump’s name was on it.
Musk has since deleted that post and the feud briefly thawed last month, with the billionaire expressing regret for his remarks.
In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said he was “saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks.” The president said a third political party has “never succeeded in the United States” and claimed the U.S. political system was “not designed for them.” Trump said third parties were only good for creating “Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS.” Before he flew from Bedminster, New Jersey, to Washington, D.C. on Sunday, Trump told reporters Musk’s third-party idea was “ridiculous.” The president added that U.S. politics have “always been a two-party system, and starting a third party just adds to confusion…so he can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous.”
Musk mentioned the idea of an “America Party” last week as he assailed Trump’s signature spending bill in a series of posts on X. The billionaire had tweeted: “If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day.” The X owner later retweeted the results of an unscientific poll he conducted on the platform last month and wrote, “VOX POPULI VOX DEI 80% voted for a new party.” Musk informally launched the party on Saturday, after bashing both the Democrats and the GOP by referring to them as the “uniparty.”
According to the Axios report, the Trump administration plans to release both raw and "enhanced" versions of videos that reportedly show that no one entered the area of the prison where Epstein was being held on the night of his death. The investigators believe this supports the earlier medical evidence that the financier took his own life, a version of events several right-wing influencers have questioned in the past. The memo also reportedly notes that investigators did not find any “incriminating ‘client list’” owned by Epstein or “credible evidence” to support claims that Epstein was blackmailing influential clients.
In the Truth Social post, where he mocked Musk’s new party, Trump said Musk was angry about his signature spending bill’s passage, as it “eliminates the ridiculous Electric Vehicle (EV) Mandate.” The president claimed when Musk endorsed him in the 2024 race, he asked the billionaire “whether or not he knew that I was going to terminate the EV Mandate…He said he had no problems with that.” Trump also said Musk had asked him to nominate “one of his close friends,” Jared Isaacman, for the NASA administrator role. The president claimed he was “surprised to learn” that Isaacman was a “blue blooded Democrat” and also felt it was “inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life.” Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination in May.
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