Tension between President Donald Trump and former Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Must ratcheted up Thursday with the two exchanging words on social media over the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that Musk opposes and more.
At an unrelated news conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz early in the day, Trump said he was disappointed in his former top aide for criticizing the bill, which the president supports.
“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” Trump said. “He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair.”
Musk is the billionaire owner of EV manufacturer Tesla who supported Trump financially and publicly during last year’s campaign.
Responding to a video of Trump’s comments posted on X, the social media site Musk also owns, Musk said the president was wrong.
“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!” Musk wrote.
Musk previously criticized the bill for adding to the federal deficit, saying it would undo all the work he and his DOGE team did to cut wasteful government spending.
Later in the day Thursday, the war of words exploded.
Trump suggested on X that the federal government would save billions of dollars eliminating taxpayer-funded subsidies to Musk’s companies.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised the Biden didn’t do it,” he wrote.
Trump also said he asked Musk to leave DOGE, saying he was “wearing thin” and “went CRAZY.”
Musk responded to the “wearing thin” post by saying on X, “Such an obvious lie. So sad.”
Musk also claimed that Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, without providing proof or offering context about how he would have gained access to the files, saying that’s the reason why they haven’t been released.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” he wrote.
Musk also retweeted an X post that said Trump should be impeached with a one work response: “Yes.”
Tesla shares dropped 15% as the feud escalated.
Trump said earlier in the day he doesn’t know what the future holds for his relationship with Musk.
“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said during the news conference with the German chancellor.. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
