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The drama between US president Donald Trump and his former buddy-in-chief Elon Musk is far from over.
As ABC reported today, now that he’s been summarily retired from the White House, the billionaire SpaceX boss has been privately venting his frustrations at Trump. One particularly stinging betrayal, per the network’s reporting: Trump’s sudden withdrawal of Musk’s buddy and financial benefactor, Jared Isaacman, from consideration to be the next NASA administrator.
As the day progressed, Musk’s tension with Trump exploded into public view as history’s richest man tweeted or amplified no less than 25 posts blasting Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, which takes the form of yet another piece of legislation meant to gut assistance for the poorest Americans while siphoning money to the ultra-wealthy.
However, that isn’t Musk’s issue with the package. Instead, his commentary is centered on the bill’s impact on the US national deficit — something he tried and failed to curb in any meaningful way during his time as a pay-to-play government operative.
On X-formerly-Twitter, Musk’s frenzied posts range from Rand Paul interview clips to hysterical conspiracy peddling. (“America is in the fast lane to debt slavery,” he fomented at one point.)
“Call your Senator, call your Congressman, bankrupting America is NOT ok!” Musk urged his 220 million followers on X-formerly-Twitter. “KILL the BILL.”
The tech titan also went out of his way to amplify some low-res footage of Warren Buffett explaining his theoretical plan to reduce the deficit. “Anytime there’s a deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection,” the investor suggested, to which Musk replied that “this is the way.”
Needless to say, a month ago — or even a week — this type of assault on Trump by Musk would have been unthinkable. The bill is also a baffling hill for the tech mogul to die on, especially considering that government spending is what made his tech dynasty possible in the first place.
It’s more plausible, as Axios notes, that national debt is a smokescreen for other issues nearer to Musk’s heart. Most notably, the big beautiful bill is set to cut the electric vehicle tax credits that made Tesla the automotive giant it is today. (Confusingly, as recently as last year, Musk was publicly calling for an end to the tax credit — but that was before his activities in the White House eviscerated Tesla’s brand image and sent it deeply into the red.)
Of course, that raises another intriguing possibility: that at least some portion of Musk’s rage at Trump is essentially kayfabe, with Musk betting that a break from the president could resuscitate at least some enthusiasm for the Tesla brand among the left-leaning customers that he’s successfully turned off over the past year.
If so, it’s not hard to imagine Musk instead accidentally alienating more or less everybody — failing to get the environmental left back on board, but also creating a powerful enemy with Trump, who holds immense power over the government contracts and policy that keep Musk’s business empire afloat.
More on politics: Elon Musk’s Dad Slams His Son’s Whimpering Failure at Politics
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