1 day ago
Summary of the day so far
Fran Lawther
Donald Trump and Elon Musk escalated their disagreement about the US budget bill into a big public argument on social media. Here’s a roundup of key moments so far:
Donald Trump kicked things off during an Oval Office meeting with German chancellor Friedrich Merz. Asked about Elon Musk’s criticism of his “Big, Beautiful Bill”, the US president told reporters: “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.”
Trump also told reporters he was “very disappointed in Elon”, telling them: “He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. … He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next, but I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Musk denied Trump’s statement on X, beginning a flurry of posts that stepped up his feud with the president. Musk wrote: “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!”
He went on to claim that without him Trump would have “lost the election” before bemoaning what he called “such ingratitude”.
The president followed up by threatening to terminate Musk’s government subsidies and contracts, prompting a return threat from the Space X boss to decommission the Dragon spacecraft (which brought home astronauts stuck on the ISS for months), potentially throwing US space programmes into turmoil.
Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, warned that Trump’s global tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year” and claimed Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, suggested there were grounds to deport the tech billionaire, who has US citizenship. Bannon told the New York Times: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”
The spectacular blowout between Trump and Musk has sent Tesla shares into free fall. They dropped by about 14.2% on Thursday at market close, wiping roughly $152bn off the value of the compan7. The decline in Tesla’s share price on Thursday knocked about $8.73bn off Musk’s total net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The reported $152bn drop also decreased the value of the company to roughly $900bn.
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Closing summary
President Trump’s signature ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ has precipitated an epic fallout between the US president and one of his once closest allies, tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The vindictive blowup played out publicly on social media, with both men using their respective platforms, X and Truth Social, to exchange criticisms.
Here is a summary of how the rift unfolded.
Donald Trump kicked things off during an Oval Office meeting with German chancellor Friedrich Merz. Asked about Elon Musk’s criticism of his “Big, Beautiful Bill”, the US president told reporters: “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.”
Trump also told reporters he was “very disappointed in Elon”, telling them: “He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. … He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next, but I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Musk denied Trump’s statement on X, beginning a flurry of posts that stepped up his feud with the president. Musk wrote: “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!”
He went on to claim that without him Trump would have “lost the election” before bemoaning what he called “such ingratitude”.
The president followed up by threatening to terminate Musk’s government subsidies and contracts, prompting a return threat from the Space X boss to decommission the Dragon spacecraft (which brought home astronauts stuck on the ISS for months), potentially throwing US space programmes into turmoil. Hours later Musk rescinded the threat.
Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, warning that Trump’s global tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year” and claimed Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The White House described the Epstein assertions as an “unfortunate episode”, in a statement to CNN.
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, suggested there were grounds to deport the tech billionaire, who has US citizenship. Bannon told the New York Times: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”
The spectacular blowout between Trump and Musk sent Tesla shares into free fall. They dropped by about 14.2% on Thursday at market close, wiping roughly $152bn off the value of the compan7. The decline in Tesla’s share price on Thursday knocked about $8.73bn off Musk’s total net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The reported $152bn drop also decreased the value of the company to roughly $900bn.
Musk says SpaceX will not decommission Dragon spacecraft
Billionaire Elon Musk said on Thursday that his rocket company SpaceX will not decommission its Dragon spacecraft, just hours after stating that the company would begin decommissioning amid his escalating feud with US President Donald Trump.
A short potted history of the Trump-Musk ‘big, beautiful’ breakup:
Many now say it was all inevitable.
But as AFP writes, for a few brief months US President Donald Trump and tech tycoon Elon Musk were inseparable.
Here are some key moments compiled by AFP before their relationship publicly imploded over Musk’s criticisms of Trump’s “big, beautiful” signature bill.
Jumping on stage
The world’s richest man literally jumped for joy when he first stumped for Republican candidate Trump on the campaign trail on 5 October, 2024. The South African-born Musk leapt in the air like one of his Space X rockets as he joined Trump on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump escaped an assassination attempt three months earlier.
“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA,” Trump told the crowd, tipping his all-black “Make America Great Again” hat.
He would go on to become the campaign’s biggest donor, spending nearly $300 million.
‘Lil’ X’
Trump sprung a surprise on reporters when he brought Musk into the Oval Office for his first appearance before the media since his arrival in Washington. Even more surprising was that Musk brought his young son, named X Æ A-Xii but more widely known as “Lil’ X” - later putting him on his shoulders.
“This is X and he’s a great guy,” said Trump, as the boy picked his nose while his father boasted about his cost-cutting exploits with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Tensions? What tensions?
There were already rumors of tensions between the hard-charging Musk and other members of Trump’s administration when the tycoon attended his first cabinet meeting in February.
But Trump moved to squish any suggestions of trouble in paradise. “Anybody unhappy with Elon? If they are, we’ll throw ’em out of here,” said Trump, jumping in after AFP asked Musk whether the reports of strains were true.
Sleepovers
The president and the tech magnate seemed to spend most of their time together in the first feverish weeks of Trump’s return to power. They traveled together on Air Force One and his Marine One helicopter. Musk slept over at the White House, where he boasted of once eating a whole tub of ice cream.
In a display of macho bonding, they also attended mixed martial arts fights together.
Tesla showroom
Musk’s Tesla car company took a major hit from his bromance with Trump. Trump, knowing that a threat to Musk’s businesses could drive him out of his role, decided to help out.
The president turned the White House South Portico into a pop-up Tesla showroom for Musk, with a Cybertruck and a Model S parked outside. Trump even said he had purchased one.
Amid speculation about how Musk’s businesses could suffer from the devolving relationship with Trump, NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens declined to comment on SpaceX.
But she did say: “We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the president’s objectives in space are met.”
As Reuters reports, Musk and Trump’s tussle ruptured an unprecedented relationship between a US president and industry titan that had yielded some key favors for SpaceX: a proposed overhaul of NASA’s moon program into a Mars program, a planned effort to build a gigantic missile defense shield in space, and the naming of an Air Force leader who favored SpaceX in a contract award.
During the online rift, Musk said he would begin “decommissioning” SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft used by NASA.
Under a roughly $5 billion contract, the craft has been the agency’s only US vessel capable of carrying astronauts to and from the Space Station, making Musk’s company a critical element of the US space program.
Taking Dragon out of service would likely disrupt the ISS program, which involves dozens of countries under a two-decade-old international agreement. But it was unclear how quickly such a decommissioning would occur. NASA uses Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft as a secondary ride for its astronauts to the ISS.
Vice president JD Vance has chimed in on the online spat between President Trump and Musk, posting a picture on X with the comedian and podcaster Theo Von and asking:
“Slow news day, what are we even going to talk about?”
White House describes Elon Musk's Epstein claim as an "unfortunate episode"
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has given a statement to CNN , describing Elon Musk’s claim that President Donald Trump is “in the Epstein files” as an “unfortunate episode”.
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted. The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again,” Leavitt told CNN in a statement.
How could the Musk-Trump blow-up harm Musk’s business interests?
The risk US transportation, environmental, communications and other regulators will take aim at Elon Musk’s many businesses is real, reports Reuters.
Below is a quick list of regulators that oversee Musk’s companies.
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission in April voted to open a review of the decades-old spectrum sharing regime between satellite systems sought by SpaceX. SpaceX wants access to new spectrum from the FCC in the coming years to speed deployment of satellite-based internet service.
Food and Drug Administration
The FDA oversees the clinical trials for Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant company, deciding whether such trials can take place and whether Neuralink can eventually sell its device to consumers.
Environmental Protection Agency
SpaceX faces environmental regulations from the EPA, which oversees the company’s wastewater discharges at its operating site in Texas. The company’s operations are also subject to environmental reviews.
Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Tesla faces ongoing oversight from US auto safety investigators about the safety of its vehicles especially when using advanced driver assistance systems.
Federal Aviation Administration
In September, the FAA proposed a $633,000 fine against SpaceX for failing to follow license requirements in 2023 before two launches. That investigation remains open.
Federal Trade Commission
The FTC is a consumer protection agency that ensures social media companies like Musk’s platform X protect children’s privacy and safeguard Americans’ data. The FTC, which also enforces antitrust law, recently opened a probe into coordination between media watchdog groups, some of whom Musk has accused of orchestrating an illegal group advertiser boycott against his social media site.
“If you paid attention during physics class you will remember the third law of ego-dynamics. Namely: when two egos of equal mass occupy the same orbit, the system will eventually become unstable, resulting in an explosive separation and some very nasty tweets.”
So reads the op-ed by our columnist Arwa Mahdawi.
Read the full piece below on the “big, beautiful break up”.
For Trump, the fight with Elon Musk is the first major rift he has had with a top adviser since taking office for a second time, after his first term was marked by numerous blow-ups.
Trump parted ways with multiple chiefs of staff, national security advisers and political strategists during his 2017-2021 White House tenure. A few, like Steve Bannon, remained in his good graces, while many others, like Ambassador John Bolton, became loud and vocal critics.
Anthony Scaramucci’s tenure in Donald Trump’s White House lasted just 11 days.
On Thursday, Scaramucci, who hosts The Rest Is Politics podcast with Katty Kay, ran his own take on the Trump-Musk break up on YouTube.
“You know I’m a gloater,” he said, “So let’s just get right into it, because I love gloating.”
Summary of the day so far
Fran Lawther
Donald Trump and Elon Musk escalated their disagreement about the US budget bill into a big public argument on social media. Here’s a roundup of key moments so far:
Donald Trump kicked things off during an Oval Office meeting with German chancellor Friedrich Merz. Asked about Elon Musk’s criticism of his “Big, Beautiful Bill”, the US president told reporters: “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.”
Trump also told reporters he was “very disappointed in Elon”, telling them: “He knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. … He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next, but I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Musk denied Trump’s statement on X, beginning a flurry of posts that stepped up his feud with the president. Musk wrote: “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!”
He went on to claim that without him Trump would have “lost the election” before bemoaning what he called “such ingratitude”.
The president followed up by threatening to terminate Musk’s government subsidies and contracts, prompting a return threat from the Space X boss to decommission the Dragon spacecraft (which brought home astronauts stuck on the ISS for months), potentially throwing US space programmes into turmoil.
Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, warned that Trump’s global tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year” and claimed Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, suggested there were grounds to deport the tech billionaire, who has US citizenship. Bannon told the New York Times: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”
The spectacular blowout between Trump and Musk has sent Tesla shares into free fall. They dropped by about 14.2% on Thursday at market close, wiping roughly $152bn off the value of the compan7. The decline in Tesla’s share price on Thursday knocked about $8.73bn off Musk’s total net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The reported $152bn drop also decreased the value of the company to roughly $900bn.
The spectacular blowout between Trump and Musk has sent Tesla shares into free-fall.
The carmaker’s shares ended the day down 14%, wiping off $150bn in market value on a day absent other news about the company.
Investors have watched the unfolding drama with growing concern about what the fracas could mean for Musk’s business empire.
Openly feuding with Trump could pose multiple hurdles for Tesla and the rest of Musk’s sprawling business empire, writes Reuters.
The US transportation department regulates vehicle design standards and would have a big say in whether Tesla can mass-produce robotaxis without pedals and steering wheels.
The agency is also investigating Tesla’s driver-assistance software, known as “Full Self-Driving”, following a fatal crash.
“Elon’s politics continue to harm the stock. First he aligned himself with Trump, which upset many potential Democratic buyers. Now he has turned on the Trump administration,” said Tesla shareholder Dennis Dick, chief strategist at Stock Trader Network.
It’s just days since the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, officially departed from the White House, but relations with Donald Trump have radically devolved since.
The online war of words between the two men has seen Musk, who has a huge online following, use his influence to run a poll to his 220 million followers on X.
“Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?” he asked.
A prolonged feud between Trump and Musk could make it more difficult for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections, reports Reuters.
In addition to his campaign spending, Musk helped connect Trump to parts of Silicon Valley and wealthy donors. The tech billionaire had already said he planned to curtail his political spending in the future.
Steve Bannon calls for Musk's deportation
In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Bannon, a longtime Donald Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, said about the tech billionaire:
They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.
While Elon Musk and Donald Trump publicly trade barbs, a reminder that this started with a disagreement over Trump’s budget bill. Here’s a quick roundup of some of the key facts on that bill:
It would blow the US’s national debt up by $2.4tn over the next decade, according to a congressional budget office analysis
Extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term
Money for mass deportations and a border wall
An array of new tax write-offs – but only while Trump is president
A potentially potent restriction on federal courts
Transformed social safety net programs
More benefits for the rich than the poor
The end of Biden’s green energy incentives
For the full details, click here:
Musk suggests Trump should be impeached
In response to a tweet about how Donald Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, Elon Musk wrote:
Yes.
Musk also warned that Trump’s global tariffs will “cause a recession in the second half of this year”.
The growing divide between Trump and his once closest confidante appears to have no sign of slowing down as the two men continue to take jabs at each other on their respective social media platforms.
As Elon Musk and Donald Trump continue to sling accusations at each other on their social media platforms, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker about what caused it to all fall apart:
Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Elon Musk should have turned on him “months ago”.
The president added:
I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. 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. If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that. I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
