President Donald Trump and Elon Musk don’t seem to be buddies anymore.
Trump on Thursday suggested cancelling Musk’s government contracts, saying in a Truth Social post that it would be the “easiest way to save money in our Budget.” He also said he had asked Musk to leave his administration because he was “wearing thin.”
Musk, meanwhile, claimed credit for Trump’s 2024 victory.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote on X.
“Such ingratitude,” added Musk, who spent nearly $300 million to elect Trump and other Republicans last year.
It comes after Musk spent days criticizing Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” point to the bill’s projected impact on the federal deficit. Musk has said that the bill undermines the work of DOGE, which has sought to cut billions of dollars in federal spending.
Republicans had mostly shrugged off Musk’s criticism, and Trump had declined to weigh in publicly until he was asked about it during an Oval Office appearance on Thursday.
“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
During that appearance and later on Truth Social, Trump said that Musk’s criticism of the bill stemmed primarily from the phase-out of the electric vehicle tax credit, which would likely impact his company, Tesla.
“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.
“Such an obvious lie,” Musk responded on X. “So sad.”
Trump also said that Musk was lashing out because he “missed” being in the White House, suggesting he had “Trump derangement syndrome.”
“I’ll be honest, I think he misses the place. I think he got out there and all of a sudden, he wasn’t in this beautiful Oval Office,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you, he’s not the first. People leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point, they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile. I don’t know what it is. It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it.”
The feud over the bill broke into the open as GOP senators were beginning to leave town for the week.
“I’m not getting involved in that whatsoever,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told reporters of the spat. “I appreciate what President Trump’s done. I appreciate Elon Musk, and Elon Musk paid a real heavy price for his service here.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri was dismissive of Musk’s claim that Trump wouldn’t have won without him.
“That sounds a little far-fetched to me,” he told BI.
