Vice President JD Vance and Susie Wiles called tech CEO Elon Musk on Friday and urged him to mend relations with President Donald Trump after last week’s social media blow-up, a source familiar with the matter tells National Review.
The call appears to have yielded quick results.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk wrote on social media early Wednesday morning, after deleting a post suggesting the president is implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Musk spent the better part of last week harshly criticizing the president’s signature legislative package, while also insisting that Trump wouldn’t have won the 2025 election without his help and enthusiastically amplifying a post suggesting the president should be impeached and replaced by Vance.
Trump has toned down his rhetoric in response to Musk’s Wednesday apology. “I thought it was very nice that he did that,”Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday.
Musk also reportedly called the president Monday evening about the spat, according to the New York Times.
Vance was in the Oval Office last Thursday when the president first publicly acknowledged the spat to reporters. “I’d rather have him criticize me than the bill. Because the bill is incredible,” Trump told reporters earlier Thursday in the Oval Office, during which he said he’s “always liked Elon” and was “very surprised” by his broadsides against the bill. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said, suggesting that his former friend is now suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” In a social media post later that day, Trump threatened to nix Musk’s company’s subsidies and contracts with the federal government.
Vance’s Friday call with Wiles and Musk, first reported by Wall Street Journal, followed a Thursday evening interview with This Past Weekend podcast host Theo Von, during which the vice president engaged in a lengthy exchange about the Trump-Musk feud. Ahead of that call, the president encouraged Vance to speak diplomatically about Musk when asked about him publicly, a source familiar with the matter tells NR.
Pressed on Thursday about Musk’s claim that the president is implicated in the Epstein files, Vance said that claim is “absolutely not” true.
Vance then made clear that his loyalties lie with the president while sounding optimistic that the feud could soon be resolved. “I think that Elon, he’s an incredible entrepreneur. He’s actually done — I think DOGE was really good. This sort of effort to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in our country was really good,” Vance said. “And look, man, I’m always going to be loyal to the President, and I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now, because he’s gone so nuclear, but I hope it is.”
Pressed further about the blowup, the vice president emphasized that Musk is “new to politics” and his “businesses are being attacked nonstop,” while underscoring that the Justice Department investigating some of the Tesla fire bombings as acts of terrorism.
“I think part of it is — this guy got into politics, and has suffered a lot for it. But I mean, and I get the frustration there,” Vance said, emphasizing that business leaders often get frustrated with the “slow-moving” and “bureaucratic” nature of the legislative process. “But I really, man I think it’s a huge mistake for him to go after the president like that, and I think that if he and the president are in some blood feud, most importantly, it’s going to be bad for the country. But I don’t think it’s gonna be good for Elon either.”