Elon Musk bid farewell to the White House only last week, and even then uncertainty loomed over whether he had actually left. The Tesla chief executive had said he would remain a friend and advisor to US President Donald Trump as he stepped away from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with trimming government expenses.
Soon after his pivot away from the Trump administration, Musk bashed Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”, stating it would cause fiscal deficit to spike trillions of dollars.
Trump-Musk spat: A social media timeline
It started with Musk reposting yesterday an X post on the bill from the Christian news satire site The Babylon Bee, captioned: “Congress Warns Failure to Pass Spending Bill Might Delay Destruction of the Country”
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Musk made a direct swipe at the president, reposting a 2013 tweet from Trump criticising Republicans for raising the debt ceiling.
Musk reported another one of Trump’s old tweets, which stated that no member of Congress should be eligible for re-election if the nation’s budget is not balanced.
Meanwhile, Trump was meeting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office. He stated that Musk is upset because the bill withdraws EV subsidy. He claimed that the Tesla chief knew this.
Meanwhile, Musk changed tack to praise Trump for scrapping the high-speed rail project in California, calling it a sensible move.
He briefly turned his attention ot the bill, backing the EV and solar incentive cuts, “even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!)”.
But he soon went back to criticising Trump, denying the President’s claim that the billionaire knew the workings of the bill.
Musk claimed that without his support, “Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51–49 in the Senate.” Notably, a recent report claimed that he was consuming drugs on the campaign trail, which Musk has denied.
He followed with a post showing Teslas lined up in front of the White House, tagging Trump with the caption “Remember this?”
Trump’s retaliation came hard and heavy. In a post on the Truth Social, the US President stated that Musk was “wearing thin” and was asked to leave.
The US president said the easiest way to save money would be to terminate government subsidies and contracts granted to Musks companies.
Musk said the remark about wearing thin and asked to leave was an “obvious lie”.
He reposted a comment on how withdrawing government contracts to Musk would be detrimental to the International Space Station.
Things got personal, as Musk said it’s time to “drop a really big bomb”. He claimed that the files related to financier Jeffrey Epstein were being withheld because they carried Trump’s name.
He said SpaceX would decommission the Dragon spacecraft, which carries people and supplies to the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, Tesla shares took a beating, falling 14% in their biggest decline since March.
Later in the evening, Musk signalled willingness to call a truce, and that SpaceX would not decommission Dragon.
Also Read: Musk-Trump breakup puts billions in SpaceX contracts at risk, jolting US space program
