“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” Musk admitted on his social media platform X on Wednesday morning. “They went too far.”
The tensions that were piling up between President of the United States and Elon Musk burst into the open on Thursday June 5, as the two men exchanged harsh words coming up to insults showing break of the relationship that was considered the most controvercial and consequential in modern American politics.
Trump for the first time said that he was disappointed in his former White House adviser and suggested Musk was suffering from Trump “derangement syndrome”. Musk who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help get Trump re-elected retorted in real time on social media that Trump was ungrateful and without his support Trump wouldn’t be able to become President for the second time.
The Tesla Chief Executive wrote about setting up a new party inviting the Republicans to side with him in his break with Trump. The latter in his turn threatened to eliminate governmental subsidies and contracts for Musk’s businesses.
The result of these controversies was a $152,4 billion decline in market value for the mogul, the biggest one day decline on record. Tesla shares for that day went down by 14%. More than 276 million Tesla shares have been traded during Thursday’s session, the highest volume since 2023.
Musk told to his 220 million followers on X that “Trump is in Epstein files”. He was referring to federal investigation into sex trafficking and abuse by Jeffrey Epstein who had many connections in elite New York society and died in 2019 by suicide.
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon who is unhappy with about One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted”, said the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement.
For a few months Trump and Musk were working together closely. The billionaire was expressing his opinions publicly as he was willing to cut the governmental spending through the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE). Both Trump and Musk were very happy and loyal to each other.
When Musk made first critical remarks about the tax-and-spending package of laws, Trump didn’t comment. But Musk’s decision to increase his attacks on the above Bill broke their alliance. Trump accused Musk of changing his opinions on the legislation and Musk stepped down as a top governmental adviser. The President attributed Musk’s worries to the points on the legislation that repeal tax credits for electric vehicles.
Musk’s car company, Tesla, is one of the world largest manufacturers of electric vehicles. “He only developed the problem because he knew we had to cut the EV (electric vehicle) mandate”, Trump said.
The president also said Musk was angry about his decision to withdraw the nomination of a key Musk ally to lead NASA.
The speed with which the relationship between the two persons deteriorated was shocking for the Trump’s administration. Musk’s attacks infuriated the senior advisers to Trump who had been privately criticizing the billionair’s behaviour before. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 4 that Trump was losing patience with Musk’s criticism of his legislation. Musk started responding on his social media platform X saying that Trump would have lost his elections but for his support. Democrats would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate, Musk said. He advised that the new bill was never showed to him before and was “passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in the Congress could even read it!”
Musk as well posted a poll on X asking if it was the time to create a new political party that would better represent the majority of the country. To support his idea Musk exclaimed: “Trump has 3,5 years as President and I will be around for 40+ years”.
Trump responded: “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore”. He added that Musk went CRAZY after he learned about the legislation articles about ending tax credits for electric vehicles . Trump wrote in a post: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts. “
Later on the same day Must tweeted”yes” on his social media post referencing impeaching Trump. “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him”, one user posted on X, referring to the vice president. “Yes”, Musk replied.
Democratic leaders reveled in the feud. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X. “The GOP civil war is in full swing”. The Democratic Party said:”Kill the Bill and release Epstein Files!”
The trigger for the public turmoil was Musk’s aggressive criticism of “one big beautiful bill” which extends and expands tax cuts while adding money to border enforcement and the military reducing spending on Medicaid, food aid and clean-energy tax credits.
Musk’s major point is the Bill further expands federal deficit.
The House passed the GOP’s multitrillion-dollar package of laws by one vote last month and Musk hopes, that he can strengthen the hand of critics in Congress and force the drastic rewrite of the measure.
The Senate is now taking the bill up with the view of making changes to it . Trump asks to finalize the procedure by July 4.
It seems that Republicans might have to choose their sides between the two arguing parties.
Republicans have 53-47 majority in the Senate. Two GOP lawmakers have expressed strong opposition to the current bill. They are Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Johnson says Musk’s words were helping him to strengthen his case because Musk’s words were making the federal debt a more obvious point.
The Budget Office estimates that the bill would increase the budget deficit by $2,4 trillion over the next decade, compared with doing nothing.
At the moment it seems Musk is ready to step back on his disagreements with Trump and is regretting his previous “attacks” on platform X on the President. Trump also has ceased his attacks and it seems that the final peace between the two “Titans” and ex allies is more than possible.
