US President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk were embroiled in an ugly public fallout on Thursday after a major disagreement over a tax bill, with both trading allegations, accusations and insults.
Musk took to social media to launch an all-out attack on the 'Big Beautiful Bill' being pushed by Trump and later on Trump himself, the man he had once helped elect to the Oval Office.
How the feud began
The tensions erupted in the Oval Office during President Trump's meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, when Trump was asked about Elon Musk's criticism of his domestic policy.
The President replied: “Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate, which is a lot of money… I know that disturbed him…Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore.”
Later, Musk replied to the statements made by Trump by intensifying his criticism of the bill. He called the sweeping policy package a “mountain of disgusting pork.”
President Trump then said he was "very disappointed in Elon," claiming that Musk was fully aware of "every aspect of the bill" and had no objections to it until after leaving his government role.
"I'm very disappointed with Elon. I've helped him a lot. He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem & he only developed the problem when he found out we're going to cut EV mandate" Trump said.
The Tesla CEO called President's claims "false", adding that the bill was never shown to him even once and was "passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!"
He also said that he would have won Pennsylvania regardless of Musk.
The Tesla CEO called President's claims "false", adding that the bill was never shown to him even once and was "passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!"
On Trump's Pennsylvania remark, the SpaceX CEO said that the president would have lost the election without his support.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," he posted on his X account. "Such ingratitude."
This marked a tipping point in the alliance, which now appeared to be imploding. Musk then unleashed a major anti-Trump campaign on X.
The SpaceX CEO posted a poll on X, asking users whether it was time to launch a new political party in the United States.
Following his exchange with the press and Musk’s responses, President Trump fired off two consecutive posts on Truth Social, calling the tech billionaire “crazy,” urging him to step away from the administration’s advisory roles, and threatening to cancel key government contracts with his companies.
And then all hell broke loose.
Following Trump's broadside, Musk dropped a bombshell on Trump, directly accusing the US President of being named in the unreleased files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Without addressing the Epstein files controversy, Trump shifted focus to defending his domestic policy bill, saying in a Truth Social post, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago.”
Also read: 'I don’t mind Elon turning against me': Trump defends 'big beautiful tax bill' amid feud with Musk
Musk then announced that SpaceX will begin the decommissioning of Dragon spacecraft from NASA following President Trump’s threat to cut off federal contracts and subsidies linked to the company.
However, he later said that SpaceX will not phase out its Dragon spacecraft when a user on X pointed out that the "back and forth" between the two was shameful.
Musk, however, backed a post that called for impeachment of US President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance, marking a sharp escalation in their ongoing public feud.
Also read: Elon Musk backs call for Trump’s impeachment, endorses JD Vance as successor
After sparring online, the two of the world’s most influential figures appeared to signal a cooling-off period following their public feud over Trump’s tax bill.
In a notable development, top White House officials have reportedly urged President Trump to scale back his public criticism of Elon Musk on social media, according to a report in the Politico.
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