“Just another episode of The Celebrity Apprentice,” one longtime Trump operative joked to National Review .
In some sense, Elon Musk’s good standing in Donald Trump’s inner circle was always a ticking time bomb.
The political relationship between two of the world’s most powerful men finally hit a breaking point on Thursday when, after several days of tearing into President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill, billionaire businessman Elon Musk went nuclear and insulted the president in searingly personal terms, prompting Trump to threaten Musk’s businesses’ government subsidies and contracts in return.
“I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump wrote on social media Thursday afternoon as the feud escalated, adding that pulling Musk’s contracts would be the “easiest way to save money in our Budget.”
Musk has spent recent days ripping the president’s signature domestic policy bill for its insufficient spending cuts and deficit-reduction proposals. But on Thursday, things got personal: In a series of social media posts throughout the day, Musk called for the creation of a new political party, enthusiastically amplified a social-media post calling for the president’s impeachment, predicted that Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession, and suggested that the administration did not release all of the minor sex trafficking files involving the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein because they implicate the president, too. Twisting the knife, he even claimed Trump wouldn’t be in the White House — and Republicans wouldn’t have flipped the Senate — without his financial involvement during the 2024 campaign.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk posted on X. “Such ingratitude.”
Trump shot back at Musk by accusing him of opposing the bill for business-interest reasons related to his car-manufacturing company, Tesla, and in response to Trump’s decision to pull Musk’s friend, Jared Isaacman, from consideration to lead NASA — the government department that has contracts with the tech CEO’s company, SpaceX.
As National Review reported on Wednesday, Tesla Energy is publicly lobbying Senate Republicans against phasing out electric-vehicle tax credits — the same tax credits Musk personally pleaded with Johnson on multiple occasions not to nix in this year’s reconciliation bill.
“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.”
The professional breakup was a long time coming in Trump world, which is home to lots of fiery personalities and where loyalty to the president’s agenda is prized above all else. “Just another episode of The Celebrity Apprentice,” one longtime Trump operative joked to National Review.
This isn’t the first time Musk has gone crosswire with the president’s allies and policy agenda. In December, he led the push to tank an earlier version of a House GOP-drafted government funding bill over fiscal concerns, and sparred online with pro-Trump social media influencers over H1B visas later that month. Musk’s ideological breaks from Trump world continued into the administration. His public disagreements with the president’s tariff policy and team became so extreme, for example, that at one point he said the president’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, was “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
For a while, things were simpatico. Musk often traveled with the president aboard Air Force One and spent weekends at his Florida resort, staying in the president’s good graces and even regularly bringing one of his sons onto the White House grounds.
But eventually, something had to give. “He’s the most successful, powerful businessman in the world. So, I guess he’s not used to having anybody, including Donald Trump, tell him ‘no,’” the Trump operative said. Those close to the president are quick to point out that Musk joined the Trump train only after the attempt on the president’s life in Butler, Pa., last summer, when the GOP nominee had already been up in the polls for a while. “He wasn’t with us in ’16, he wasn’t with us in ’20,” this person added, underscoring that the president has a long memory, and disloyalty isn’t forgotten: “I think Elon is gonna become the next Mike Pence.”
While those close to the president were pleased to have Musk and his millions on the 2024 campaign trail and aboard the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting initiative, he was also getting on the nerves of many senior Trump administration officials, reportedly even sparking screaming matches with cabinet officials on multiple occasions.
He was also becoming a political liability. Yes, he spent millions helping elect the GOP ticket and down-ballot Republicans during the 2024 campaign. But not all of his investments have paid off. He spent millions on the Wisconsin supreme court race, and it didn’t go anywhere for Republicans, likely in part because the liberal candidate used Musk’s financial involvement to argue that her conservative opponent was a puppet of the billionaire class.
Those close to the president don’t believe that Musk’s opposition to the bill will have any meaningful effect on Trump’s voter base. If anything, Elon Musk’s unpopularity was becoming a liability to President Trump in some regards, given Democrats’ obsession with his billionaire status and role in shrinking the federal workforce.
Congressional GOP leaders are largely dismissing Musk’s opposition to the bill. “Look, I’m a fiscal hawk myself,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “If I could cut $8 trillion in federal spending today, I would do it, but I do not have the votes for that. So, this is a deliberative body. It requires consensus. It took us over a year to reach the consensus, to get 217 votes necessary to make the cuts that we have.”
Senate Republicans are keeping their heads down, too. While some fiscal hawks who have reservations about the bill are using Musk’s opposition as cover for their own deficit-related concerns, the general mood in the Senate GOP conference is that the tech CEO is disgruntled by business-related interests relating to electric-vehicle tax credit phaseouts and that he won’t have much influence on the final Senate-drafted legislative text, Senate GOP aides tell National Review.