Donald Trump and Elon Musk Are Finally Fighting
Is it too late for men to learn how to have real, lasting friendships? If we are using the now-fractured relationship of Donald Trump and Elon Musk as evidence, it kind of seems like yes. Musk, who called himself the “First Buddy” and once said he loves Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man,” is now out of the federal government and crashing out over what Trump hopes to be a signature piece of legislation. Things between these two have always been a little hot and cold, as is bound to happen with two men who genuinely believe they are the center of the universe. On top of that, Musk spent a reported quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, an investment he presumably thought would mean the administration would listen to his every word. Turns out that wasn’t the case.
These two have never really stood on firm ground, and how could they? Trump is arguably the most powerful man in the world, while Musk is inarguably the richest. Trump has an annoying knack for incredible comedy, while Musk is constantly trying to land his first punch line. Trump is famously sober; Musk has reportedly done so much ketamine that it’s affecting his bladder. These two were never going to last, and it looks like they are finally headed for their long-overdue friendship breakup. Here’s how we got to the blowup.
Speculation started brewing in November.
Despite their mostly chummy bond, there have been a few dustups between Trump and Musk throughout their relationship. Right after the election, Musk was spending most of his time at Mar-a-Lago, becoming an honorary member of the Trump family. At the time, tech journalist Kara Swisher speculated that they were “going to clash at some point. They’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country, and that’s Donald Trump,” Swisher told CNN in November.
Around the same time, Trump joked about Musk’s constant presence to House Republicans. “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him,” he said during a meeting. This was apparently said in jest, but it was enough to buoy everyone’s hopes that they’d part ways sooner rather than later.
Not for long, though. After Trump was inaugurated, it was clear that Musk wielded a lot of power within the administration. In fact, he was so influential from the jump that three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Time ran a cover depicting Musk seated behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk. When asked if he had a reaction to the cover, Trump said, “No” and then quickly pivoted to making fun of Time. Still, for several months after that, it was smooth, chainsaw-wielding sailing.
Musk reportedly started gearing up to leave this spring.
In early April, Politico reported that Trump had told his inner circle that Musk was preparing to step back from his role in the White House. The Tesla founder was always working at DOGE on basically a four-month contract. He was classified as a special government employee, a position that exempts people in the private sector from conflict-of-interest rules for 130 days while working for the government. That timeline meant that Musk would be wrapping up his duties toward the end of May.
At this point, things were still pretty respectful — while some Trump insiders had already begun to sour on Musk (one source told Politico he was a “one-man wrecking ball”), the president was still a fan, at least in public.
A few days prior to the Politico report, Trump had sung Musk’s praises to reporters. “I think he’s amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run, and so at some point he’s going to be going back … He wants to,” the president said. “I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”
Then they clashed over tariffs.
Just a day after it was reported that Musk was winding down in the White House, the tech mogul broke with Trump’s massive tariff policy. “I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk said at the League Conference, per NBC News. This minor dustup belies the fundamental issue in Musk and Trump’s relationship: Musk is thinking about his bottom line, while Trump is pushing for “America First” at all costs. There’s a lot of overlap between those two goals, but sometimes they’re at odds.
Musk started to back away.
On an April 22 Tesla investor call reported by the Washington Post, Musk apparently said that his “time allocation to DOGE [would] drop significantly” in the following month. This announcement came amid a steep earnings drop for the electric-car company, with revenue and sales both taking hits since Musk started spending time at the White House.
Then, on April 30, Musk hinted at some frustrations with working in the federal government. In a cabinet meeting discussing DOGE — the one where Musk put on two MAGA hats and said, “I wear a lot of hats!” — he also said that he hadn’t achieved all that he wanted to: “I think we’ve been effective, not as effective as I’d like. I think we could be more effective, but we made progress.” He claimed that he had saved American taxpayers $160 billion, while one independent analysis reported that his gutting will actually cost $135 billion this year.
Musk started hating on Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
This is when things really start to pick up. On May 27, Musk told CBS Sunday Morning he was “disappointed” in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill — a piece of legislation that would cut taxes for the wealthy, increase spending at the border, and cut social-safety-net programs. Don’t get too excited; Musk is not out here trying to protect Medicaid and food stamps — he actually thinks there’s too much spending.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit … and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS Sunday Morning. The next day, Musk thanked Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending” in his own post on X. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” he wrote, which does kind of read like a threat.
Trump, though, was unbothered.
Where, exactly, is the president in all of this? It seems like he’s not too plugged into what’s going on. On May 30, the New York Times published a story reporting on Musk’s ketamine use during the campaign, which was reportedly so frequent that it was affecting his bladder. The story was published on Musk’s last day working in the federal government and did not dampen the vibe. Appearing together in the Oval Office, the bros bid farewell in front of the cameras. Trump presented Musk (who had a bruise on his eye that he said was from playing with his son) with a gold key to the White House, and called him an “incredible patriot.”
“Elon gave an incredible service. There’s nobody like him, and he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he’s an incredible patriot,” Trump told reporters.
Later that day, when asked if he was aware of Musk’s drug use, Trump brushed it off, saying that he didn’t know about it. “I think he’s fantastic. I think Elon is a fantastic guy,” Trump said. “I’m not troubled by anything with Elon.”
Well, at least one MAGA insider had a different take. In a text to NBC News, former senior White House adviser Steve Bannon shared his colorful synopsis of Musk’s departure: “He came, he saw, he folded.”
Musk went scorched earth.
Free from the constraints of the West Wing, Musk went off on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. On June 3, he took to X to call the bill a “disgusting abomination.” “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” he wrote. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
This, the most straightforward evidence of a breakup we’ve gotten thus far, seems like it did hurt Trump’s feelings. In a press conference on June 4, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said he had spoken with the president about Musk’s comments. “He’s not delighted that Elon did a 180 on that,” Johnson told reporters. “But I don’t know what happened in 24 hours. Everybody can draw their own conclusions about that, okay, but I look forward to talking to my friend about it again.” Someone senses a new BFF spot opening up.
Because he can’t help himself, Musk quickly got back on X to talk more shit about the bill. In a series of posts, he said that America is in “the fast lane to debt slavery” and implored his followers to call their representatives. “KILL the BILL,” he wrote. He followed that up with a promotional image for Kill Bill. Get it?
It would have been nice if these two had parted ways before Musk had ripped out all of the good parts of the federal government, but on the bright side, it does seem that the billionaire has largely lost interest in bureaucracy. Shortly before his departure, Musk said he planned to do “a lot less” political spending in the future. “I think I’ve done enough,” he said. Ain’t that the truth!
Then Trump started talking.
During a meeting with German chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office on June 5, Trump was asked about Musk’s reaction to the Big Beautiful Bill. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” the president told reporters. “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.” Trump added that he’s “very disappointed” in Musk, and that he’s “helped [him] a lot.”
On X, Musk was having what can only be described as a meltdown. In response to a video showing Trump say he was disappointed, Musk wrote, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” In a follow-up post, he added, “Such ingratitude.” Musk also claimed that the bill “was never shown to me even once.”
Later in the day, Musk went nuclear. “Time to drop the really big bomb,” he wrote on X, “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” He signed off with “Have a nice day, DJT!,” which is, admittedly, funny. That being said, is this really a big bomb? There is lots of evidence that Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends, including one video in which they can be heard discussing the women at a party.
Not one to stay silent, Trump hopped onto his own social-media platform to fire off a few posts about what a loser Musk is. “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” he added in a different post, “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Whether or not any of what they’re saying is true, we’ll never really know. These are not two of our most honest guys. One thing that’s certain, however, is that these two are over. Fingers crossed they never make amends.
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