{"id":126,"date":"2025-06-06T20:52:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/trump-and-musk-alliance-melts-down-in-blazing-public-row\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T20:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T20:52:32","slug":"trump-and-musk-alliance-melts-down-in-blazing-public-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/trump-and-musk-alliance-melts-down-in-blazing-public-row\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Musk alliance melts down in blazing public row"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON, June 6 &mdash; Donald Trump and Elon Musk&rsquo;s unlikely political marriage exploded in a fiery public divorce yesterda, with the US president threatening to strip the billionaire of his huge government contracts in revenge.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said in a televised Oval Office diatribe that he was &ldquo;very disappointed&rdquo; after his former aide and top donor criticized his &ldquo;big, beautiful&rdquo; spending bill before Congress.<\/p>\n<p>The pair then hurled insults at each other on social media&mdash;with Musk even posting, without proof, that Trump was referenced in government documents on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n<p>The row could have major political and economic fallout, as shares in Musk&rsquo;s Tesla car company plunged and the South African-born tech tycoon vowed that he would end a critical US spaceship program.<\/p>\n<p>Speculation had long swirled that a relationship between the world&rsquo;s richest person and its most powerful could not last long&mdash;but the speed of the meltdown took Washington by surprise.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very disappointed in Elon. I&rsquo;ve helped Elon a lot,&rdquo; Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz looked on silently.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/12-weeks-jail-for-school-it-support-technician-who-took-upskirt-videos-of-teachers\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">&lt;div&gt;12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers&lt;\/div&gt;<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>&ldquo;Elon and I had a great relationship. I don&rsquo;t know if we will anymore.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>A hurt-sounding Trump, 78, noted in a 10-minute diatribe that it had been only a week since he hosted a grand farewell for Musk as he left the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).<\/p>\n<p>Trump later called Musk &ldquo;crazy&rdquo; and insisted he had asked the tycoon to leave because he was &ldquo;wearing thin.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong>&lsquo;Ingratitude&rsquo;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Musk hit back in real time on his X social media platform, saying the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without him and slamming Trump for &ldquo;ingratitude.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>As the spat got increasingly vindictive, Musk also posted that Trump &ldquo;is in the Epstein files,&rdquo; referring to US government documents on Epstein, whose 2019 jail cell suicide, while awaiting trial, sparked a major conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n<div class=\"internal-linking-related-contents\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/migrant-acquitted-in-first-trial-over-us-border-military-zones\/\" class=\"template-1\"><span class=\"cta\">News :<\/span><span class=\"postTitle\">Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>&ldquo;Have a nice day, DJT!&rdquo; added Musk.<\/p>\n<p>White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told AFP that Musk&rsquo;s Epstein tweet &ldquo;is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the &lsquo;One Big Beautiful Bill&rsquo; because it does not include the policies he wanted.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Musk, who was Trump&rsquo;s biggest campaign donor to the tune of $300 million, separately claimed the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without his support and accused him of &ldquo;such ingratitude.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He replied &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to a post suggesting Trump should be impeached, and blasted Trump&rsquo;s global tariffs for risking a recession.<\/p>\n<p>Trump finally suggested hitting the &ldquo;crazy&rdquo; entrepreneur where it hurts, threatening Musk&rsquo;s multibillion-dollar government contracts including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon&rsquo;s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,&rdquo; Trump said on Truth Social.<\/p>\n<p>Again Musk fired back, with the SpaceX chief saying he would begin &ldquo;decommissioning&rdquo; his company&rsquo;s Dragon spacecraft&mdash;vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station&mdash;in response.<\/p>\n<p>He later appeared to walk that back, replying to a user on Twitter: &ldquo;OK, we won&rsquo;t decommission Dragon,&rdquo; though his tone was unclear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&lsquo;Abomination&rsquo;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the crossfire finally relented after several astonishing hours, Tesla had seen more than US$100 billion wiped off the company&rsquo;s value.<\/p>\n<p>Trump and Musk&rsquo;s whirlwind relationship had initially blossomed, with the president backing DOGE&rsquo;s cost-cutting rampage through the US government and the tycoon sleeping over at the White House and traveling on Air Force One.<\/p>\n<p>But the 53-year-old ultimately lasted just four months on the job, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the slow pace of change and clashing with some of Trump&rsquo;s cabinet members.<\/p>\n<p>The two men had however kept tensions over Trump&rsquo;s tax and spending mega-bill relatively civil&mdash;until Musk described the plan, the centerpiece of Trump&rsquo;s domestic policy agenda for his second term, as an &ldquo;abomination&rdquo; because he says it will increase the US deficit.<\/p>\n<p>Washington will now intently watch the fallout from the row.<\/p>\n<p>Musk posted a poll on whether he should form a new political party&mdash;a seismic threat from a man who has signaled he is ready to use his wealth to unseat Republican lawmakers who disagree with him.<\/p>\n<p>Trump ally Steve Bannon&mdash;a vocal opponent of Musk&mdash;meanwhile called for the tycoon to be deported, the <em>New York Times<\/em> reported. &mdash; AFP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><sub>Trump and Musk alliance melts down in blazing public row<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, June 6 &mdash; Donald Trump and Elon Musk&rsquo;s unlikely political marriage exploded in a fiery public divorce yesterda, with the US president threatening to strip the billionaire of his huge government contracts in revenge. Trump said in a televised Oval Office diatribe that he was &ldquo;very disappointed&rdquo; after his former aide and top donor&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/trump-and-musk-alliance-melts-down-in-blazing-public-row\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Trump and Musk alliance melts down in blazing public row&rdquo;<\/span> &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}