Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s fallout, explained – vox.com
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President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have quickly turned on each other in a very public and bitter feud. Their split isn’t just personal, but has major implications for the rest of the country, with Musk now strongly opposing Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” It is the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda, which includes tax cuts, Medicaid reductions, and increased border spending. The proposal would also significantly raise the national debt.
Musk took aim at the bill as “massive, outrageous, pork-filled…a disgusting abomination” that would “massively increase” the budget deficit. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
In response, Trump threatened Musk’s federal contracts. Then Musk threatened to start a new political party and accused Trump of covering up “the Epstein files.”
Follow along here for updates and explainers to understand the deeper implications of this battle.
Umair Irfan
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump — two of the most powerful, outspoken billionaires in America — are still tangled up in a messy breakup over a variety of issues. It’s no shock that these two men with huge egos would have friction, but it’s interesting to look at some of the specific things that seem to be causing trouble between them.
In particular, Trump’s and Musk’s differing views on climate change and clean energy have evidently become an irritant again. Recall that Musk, CEO of the electric car company Tesla, participated in White House councils during Trump’s first term, but left after Trump began the process of pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement.
Lee Drutman
How the Musk-Trump blowup ends, nobody knows.
Most commentary gives President Donald Trump the advantage. But Elon Musk’s willingness to spend his fortune on elections gives him one distinct advantage — the ability to drive a brittle party system into chaos and loosen Trump’s hold on it.
Joshua Keating
Breaking up is hard to do — especially when one party is a billionaire with near-unassailable dominance of the nation’s ability to launch things into space, and the other is a president who has staked a significant portion of his legacy on wildly ambitious space-based projects.
As President Donald Trump and his erstwhile financial backer and former DOGE boss Elon Musk traded blows on social media Thursday, the president at one point posted, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Aja Romano and Anna North
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Editor’s note, June 5, 2025, 4:25 pm ET: On Thursday, amid an apparent feud between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the tech billionaire posted on X that Trump was “in the Epstein files,” saying, “That is the real reason they have not been made public.” The story below was originally published on November 5, 2024.
Andrew Prokop
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It was just last week that Elon Musk played buddy-buddy with President Donald Trump in a friendly Oval Office event that marked the end of his White House service.
Cameron Peters
This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to The Logoff: Is the Trump-Musk partnership over? It’s complicated — but after today, it’s looking more like yes.
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