How the nasty feud between Trump and Musk unfolded minute by minute

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16 hours ago

Elon Musk and Donald Trump's friendship unraveled publicly over a tax bill dispute.
Musk criticized Trump's tax bill, calling it the 'Big Ugly Spending Bill.'
Here's how their recently fragile friendship fractured on Thursday, minute-by-minute.
Twenty-five minutes of live TV, more than a dozen posts on X, and three posts on Truth Social over the period of five hours (and counting) — that's how the already fractured friendship of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump publicly unraveled on Thursday.
The first signs of trouble began when Musk showed opposition to Trump's spending bill, the "One Big Beautiful Bill," though he never explicitly targeted Trump.
"Shame on those who voted for it," Musk tweeted on Tuesday, referring to Congress members who voted for Trump's tax cut bill.
Trump, for his part, had stayed uncharacteristically mum about Musk's criticism of the bill.
But that all changed on Thursday morning.
Here is a minute-by-minute breakdown of how the relationship between two of the most powerful men on the planet devolved.
Musk began digging up Trump's old posts on what was then Twitter about the deficit, including one from January of 2013.
Musk unearthed another old X post by Trump from back in July 2012, presumably as a swipe at the new Republican tax bill that many economists and the congressional Budget Office said would increase the country's deficits.
Trump responded to Musk's attacks for the first time when answering press questions during a White House event to welcome German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"And you know Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles," said Trump. "And they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles. And they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. Elon knew this from the beginning; he knew it from a long time ago."
Trump's comments about Musk continued at the press appearance.
"He knew every aspect of this bill — better than almost anybody —and he never had a problem until right after he left," said Trump. "He said the most beautiful things about me. He hasn't said bad things about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot."
"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," Trump continued.
"I don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it, but we have it with others, too. They leave and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour's gone. The whole world is different, and they become hostile," he added.
Musk began a whirlwind of tweets soon after, responding in near real time to what Trump said during the press appearance.
"False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!" Musk posed on X.
Musk then began a series of tweets directed at the president beyond the bill, including saying that without him, Republicans would have lost.
Musk polls his X followers about creating a new political party "that actually represents the 80% in the middle." Mark Cuban quoted the post with three checkmarks.
Musk gives Trump's bill — known on paper as the "One Big Beautiful Bill" — a new name: "Big Ugly Spending Bill."
Trump responds to Musk with two consecutive posts on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
"Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, 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.
"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!" the president continued.
Musk responds to Trump's posts on Truth Social, calling them "such an obvious lie."
A minute later, Musk appeared to dare Trump to cancel government contracts with his companies.
Musk makes another accusation.
Trump posts on Truth Social again to defend his tax bill.
"I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress," Trump wrote.
"It's a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn't pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that. I didn't create this mess, I'm just here to FIX IT," Trump added.
Musk says SpaceX will decommission its Dragon spacecraft "immediately."
SpaceX's Dragon spaceships transport NASA astronauts and supplies to and from the International Space Station. Prior to partnering with SpaceX, the agency depended on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crewed missions.
Musk says that Trump's tariffs will "cause a recession in the second half of this year."
Some economists have also predicted that Trump's tariffs would hurt the economy, and Trump himself declined to rule out the chances of a recession back in March.
JPMorgan had predicted a 60% chance of a US recession after Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on April 2. The bank adjusted the possibility down to below 50% recently after Trump paused most of his highest tariffs.
Musk retweeted what appears to be a video of Trump partying with Epstein from the 1990s, doubling down on his earlier statement about the Epstein files.
"This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Business Insider in a statement. "The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again."
Representatives for Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Read the original article on Business Insider