How Trump's relationship with Elon Musk imploded
NORMAN HERMANT, REPORTER: It was a political partnership the likes of which America had never seen.
DONALD TRUMP, US PRESIDENT: He saved free speech, He created so many different great things.
Take over Elon, just take over.
NORMAN HERMANT: The world's richest man and Donald Trump leading his MAGA movement back to the White House.
DONALD TRUMP: We have a new star. A star is born. Elon.
NORMAN HERMANT: When Donald Trump returned to the presidency, the two only seemed to grow closer with Elon Musk heading a team with the goal of slashing government spending.
ELON MUSK: The chainsaw for bureaucracy.
DONALD TRUMP: Elon is doing a great job. He is finding tremendous fraud and corruption, and waste.
NORMAN HERMANT: But like other relationships that have burned bright in their early days, this one has crashed back to earth - fuelled by a series of acrimonious posts on social media.
SIMEON BARBER, OPEN UNIVERSITY: It's the kind of thing you usually see in a kindergarten, isn't it, a fall out in the playground and it ends up with kids in tears and sent to sit on the naughty step
MATT LABROT, FMR TESLA MANAGER: It would be funny, but it's not because these are two very important people who are going at it online and dividing people even further.
NORMAN HERMANT: Over the last week the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has come apart seemingly in real time - with each social media post, the rift appears wider and wider.
First Musk slammed Trump's so called Big Beautiful budget bill calling its spending an abomination.
Two days later in the Oval Office Trump told reporters he was very disappointed in Elon.
Twenty-two minutes later, Musk posted: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Such ingratitude".
He followed with a post about the possibility of starting a new political party that represents the 80 per cent of Americans in the middle.
Trump wasted little time in responding, posting on his social media platform that Musk was wearing thin, and that when he took away the EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars, he 'just went crazy'.
DONALD TRUMP: He's not the first. People to 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. I don't know what it is, it's sort of Trump derangement syndrome.
NORMAN HERMANT: Then Musk posted what he called 'the really big bomb'. Alleging that Donald Trump is in the files of the case against notorious sex abuser Jeffery Epstein, and that's reason they haven't been made public.
The two then traded posts over the US governments contracts with Space X. The President suggested they could be terminated.
Musk responded that Space X would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft.
All the while space scientists like Dr Simeon Barber were watching as America's main route to the International Space Station hung in the balance.
SIMEON BARBER: I was amazed and dismayed when I saw this unfolding last week. NASA has become incredibly reliant upon SpaceX, most notably for getting crew members to and from the International Space Station.
NORMAN HERMANT: Elon Musk's Dragon spacecraft and his Space X rockets are now the backbone of America's space program.
SIMEON BARBER: These comments that are made off the cuff about I'll cancel these contracts. okay, I'll cancel this program, they have major, major consequences.
International agencies collaborate to do space exploration. It's a big endeavour. You know, Australia is looking at getting on board with the ISS. These things take decades to plan, and you need some kind of stable underpinnings and foundation to build upon.
NORMAN HERMANT: Musk later posted Dragon was safe and wouldn't be decommissioned but Barber says in field that prizes certainty, no one knows what's coming next.
SIMEON BARBER: Maybe Trump feels he's come out on top now, but if that's the case, Elon Musk is going to be feeling, you know, a little bit wounded, I would say. And I suspect that that, you know, that might resurface in the future.
NORMAN HERMANT: There are signs of de-escalation from Musk who deleted his post linking Donald Trump to the Epstein files, but the President also warned of consequences if Musk backed the Democrats.
All of this is playing out as Musk refocuses on his CEO role at Tesla.
Matt LaBrot spent five years as a manager at the electric car maker. He started a website called Tesla Employees Against Elon.
MATT LABROT: It was about the damage that has been done to Tesla's brand and how as a company, if they want to survive, they need to move on from Elon.
NORMAN HERMANT: LaBrot was fired days after the website went live in late April. He says he's heard from many employees and investors who agree Elon Musk's profile – once arguably a boost for Tesla -is now a burden.
MATT LABROT: Just as it initially drove sales it is now also a detractor of sales instead.
And the reasons can be political. They could be free speech, people who have issues with his Twitter. acquisition any of those different reasons. But they all lead to customers no longer wanting to buy Teslas and support Elon.
(Extract from comical sketch)
DONALD TRUMP PUPPET: Elon, get in here. I heard what you said.
ELON MUSK PUPPET: That you bill is an abomination.
DONALD TRUMP PUPPET: Yeah, say it to my face.
ELON MUSK PUPPET: Uh, your bill's a (bleeped) abomination.
(End of extract)
NORMAN HERMANT: As for Americans and the world watching all of this, the big break up has launched a steady stream of memes and satirical takes.
For now, no one knows if a make-up is on the cards or if this powerful pairing is gone for good.
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