The rift between US President Donald Trump and his former adviser Elon Musk has erupted into the open. Each traded insults after the tech billionaire criticised one of Trump’s key domestic policies.
The two billionaires escalated the feud throughout Thursday, lobbing barbs at each other on the social media sites they each own, suggesting a bitter conclusion to their unlikely alliance.
The day began with Trump saying he was “disappointed” with Musk’s criticisms of his administration’s centrepiece tax and spending bill, musing that it may be the end of their “great relationship”.
Musk then accused Trump of “ingratitude”, adding, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election”.
After hours of sparring, Trump appeared to downplay the situation. “Oh it’s okay,” he told news site Politico. “It’s going very well, never done better.” The news site reported that his aides scheduled a phone call with Musk for Friday.
Musk also appeared to believe there was a need to patch things up. Late on Thursday, in response to post by Bill Ackman, a prominent Trump backer, which suggested the pair needed to make peace, he wrote: “You’re not wrong.”
The breaking point in the relationship between the president and his one-time ally came after weeks of Musk lobbying against Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill, which was passed by the US House last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Shortly after leaving the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) after 129 days in the job, Musk took to his site X to call the bill a “disgusting abomination” and posted: “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong.”
He argued that the bill would irresponsibly increase the US national debt and encouraged his followers to phone their representatives to express opposition to the spending plan.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday, Trump defended the bill and said, “I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. All of a sudden, he had a problem.”
He went on to suggest that Musk was upset about the removal of subsidies and mandates for electric vehicles, which could affect his Tesla business.
Musk denied this was the case and wrote: “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.
“Pork” is a term used in US politics to describe wasted government spending, particularly on things meant to curry favour with particular groups or local areas.
