President Donald Trump’s relationship with former “First Buddy” Elon Musk has devolved from well-wishes to war of the roses on the heels of the Tesla billionaire’s blitzkrieg against the MAGA president.
Yet according to corrosive comments shared by the two polarizing political figures, their bad blood has been brewing before they officially bid adieu in a strained May 30 press conference at the White House.
In a June 1 CBS Sunday Morning interview, Musk soft launched the civil war, claiming that he was “disappointed” by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and alleging it “undermines” his DOGE work by adding an estimated $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit.
ADVERTISEMENT
After ripping the bill as a “pork-filled,” “disgusting abomination” in a June 3 tweet, Musk followed with a tweet at 2:07 a.m. on June 4, commenting that the bill “defeats all the cost savings achieved by the @DOGE.”
By 9 a.m. Thursday morning, Musk’s gloves were off and he was ready to wage war on X. He retweeted a post from the fake news parody account Babylon Bee that quipped, “Congress Warns Failure To Pass Spending Bill Might Delay Destruction Of The Country.”
At 10:41 a.m., he retweeted his Fox interview discussing fears that the government will “go bankrupt” from overspending. He captioned the post: “That’s what it comes down to.”
At 10:52 a.m., Musk retweeted a post by angel investor and entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, claiming that, “The majority of republican *voters* strongly agree with Elon and want the BBB trimmed down.” The tweet added, “@elonmusk left the Democratic Party and sacrificed much in his relentlessly supported the GOP. The GOP leadership should give his counsel serious consideration. 🫡”
Musk captioned the post with a “yes” as he shared it.
At 11:20 a.m., Musk appeared to be hoping to get Trump’s attention by turning the president’s previous statements against his current actions. He shared a 2013 post in which Trump said he was “embarrassed” by Republicans under former President Barack Obama’s tenure because they “are extending the debt ceiling.”
Musk quipped on X, “wise words.”
At 11:46 a.m., Musk followed with another old Trump tweet in which he declared “no member of Congress should be eligible for re-election if our country’s budget is not balanced---deficits not allowed!”
To which Musk responded on X, “I couldn’t agree more! 🇺🇸🇺🇸”
At 12:10 p.m., Musk tweeted, “Slim Beautiful Bill for the win 🥇”
At 12:13 p.m., Musk continued taking shots at Trump and even tagging the president’s X account, urging him to “keep the good, remove the bad” in his mega bill.
Around 12:10 p.m., Musk and Trump came to blows in real time as Trump was forced to answer questions about Musk’s attacks in front of his Oval Office guest, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
“Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate which was a lot of money for electric vehicles,” Trump told reporters. “They’re having a hard time the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. Elon knew this from the beginning.”
At 12:19 p.m., Musk began to respond on X to Trump’s comment with, “Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”
At 12:25 p.m., Musk responded to Trump’s comment that he “knew” the “inner workings of the bill” with, “False, 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!”
A minute later, at 12:26 p.m., Musk retweeted comments from Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles in which he declared that the bill is “not beautiful yet.”
Ogles told host Matt Gaetz, “The Senate’s job is to make the bill better before sending it back to us. The House’s job is to pass DOGE rescissions and EO codification bills that are collecting dust.”
Musk seemed to like the comments with an American flag emojii.
At 12:44 p.m., Musk doubled down on sharing Trump’s old tweets on X, writing on X, “Where is this guy today??
At 1:38 p.m., Musk added on X, “Remember this?@realDonaldTrump,” sharing the video of Trump shilling for Tesla outside the White House.
A minute later, at 1:39 p.m., Musk was attacking Trump’s “beautiful” bill as an “ugly spending bill will make things much worse” for Americans paying interest rates to federal creditors.
At 2:23 p.m., Musk claimed in a tweet, “Not even those in Congress who had to vote on the Big Ugly Spending Bill had time to read it!”
At 2:37 p.m., Trump entered the ring with Musk via Truth Social, hitting back against his posts with a claim that Musk was “wearing thin” in the White House so he “asked him to leave.”
“I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy his Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” wrote Trump in the post.
In the same minute, Trump wrote that the easiest way for the government to save money would be to cancel Musk’s “billions and billions of dollars” in “government subsidies and contracts.” He added, “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
At 2:45 p.m., Musk seemed to address a report that the nucleus of his rift with Trump began because he rejected billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman from a top federal position. Musk wrote: “This is what he said about Jared,” sharing a post of Trump’s 2024 nomination of Isaacman.
At 2:48 pm., Musk moved to countering Trump’s Truth Social posts. About the “wearing thin” claims, Musk wrote on X, “Such an obvious lie. So sad.”
At 3:10 p.m., Musk went scorched earth.
“Time to drop the really big bomb,” he tweeted. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” He added, “Have a nice day, DJT!”
At 3:20 p.m., he doubled down in a tweet, “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
At 4:06 p.m., Musk called Trumps bluff about government contracts, announcing on X: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
At the same time, Trump added on Truth Social, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago.” He added, “This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given.”
Trump concluded, “I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness.”
At 4:11 p.m., Musk began responding to comments around calls for Trump to be impeached again. To a tweet urging that “Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him,” Musk replied on X, “Yes.”
At 4:14 p.m., Musk began antagonizing Trump more by retweeting posts claiming that he shared a very close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk responded with a skeptical emoji to a post that said Trump’s relationship with Epstein is “well established.”
At 4:26, Musk hammered Trump over the economy in an X post, writing, “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.”
After what appears to have been a short break, Musk came back with a tweet backing up his fears that America could go “broke.”
Although Musk’s social media melee seemed to be helping him expel some much-needed gripes off his chest, Bloomberg reported that the Tesla billionaire’s very public feud had sent its stock plummeting by 14% on Thursday, with a graph correlating Musk’s comments with stock slumps.
At 9:21 p.m., Musk resumed pressuring Trump, doubling down on his claims of fiscal concern by tweeting, “If America goes broke, nothing else matters,” resharing an interview he conducted at CPAC in which he talked about the national debt.
In the interview, Musk added, “If the country goes insolvent, if all the money is just spent on paying interest on debt, there’s no money left for anything. A country is no different from a person. Country overspends, country goes bankrupt, same as a person who overspends goes bankrupt.”
