Staggering list of allies Trump has burned through as president... as bitter Elon Musk fight escalates
Elon Musk is the latest MAGA ally to join Donald Trump 's ever-growing list of foes after their friendship publicly exploded in a bitter war of words.
The clash, which began over Musk's opposition to Trump's 'big, beautiful bill', saw the world's richest man call for the president to impeached after linking him to Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump even suggested the Tesla CEO's multibillion-dollar government contracts should be ripped away.
While the feud has left GOP splinters torn between sides, it should come as no surprise as the president has a long track record of turning his allies and aides against him.
His first Oval Office term saw top aides like Sean Spicer and Anthony Scaramucci jump ship early on, followed by a slew of other key members of his administration.
Trump's then Vice President Mike Pence delivered the final blow after the Capitol riot and publicly declared the president 'puts himself over the Constitution'.
Political analysts have long warned Trump and Musk's bromance was doomed from the start, alleging how the pair have 'planet-sized egos destined to collide'.
ELON MUSK
After months of buddying-up, Donald Trump and Elon Musk turned on each other Thursday in a huge public spat.
The falling-out had begun brewing days ago when Musk, who left his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency a week ago, denounced Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill.
The verbal punches erupted on Thursday after Trump criticized Musk in the Oval Office and the pair then traded barbs on their respective social media platforms.
In a possible sign of cooling late Thursday night, however, White House aides had scheduled a Friday call between the two men in an attempt to broker peace.
And, in a potential olive branch, Musk replied to a post on X, from billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, pleading for a reconciliation 'for the benefit of our great country' and warning that 'we are much stronger together than apart.'
Musk's response was brief but telling: 'You're not wrong.'
MIKE PENCE
Donald Trump and Mike Pence hastily parted ways following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
Trump wanted Pence to throw out Electoral College votes from swing states that President Joe Biden won as he presided over the joint session of Congress to certify the 2020 election.
Pence refused and Trump's supporters went after him - chanting 'hang Mike Pence' and erecting makeshift gallows outside the Capitol Building amid the riot.
The January 6 House select committee found that a Proud Boys informant had told the FBI that if members of the group had found Pence that day, they would have killed him.
Pence spoke out about the insurrection incident two years later, publicly slamming Trump: 'The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution.
'Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.'
RETIRED GEN. JOHN KELLY
Donald Trump and his longest-serving White House chief-of-staff parted ways in 2019 after months of reports that their relationship had deteriorated.
Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly later publicly turned on his former boss, branding him a 'dictator' and likening him to Adolf Hitler.
Ahead of the 2024 election, Kelly claimed Trump was the 'definition of fascist' and that he did not have an understanding of American history or the Constitution.
Trump's camp quickly dispute Kelly's wild remarks, saying the former political advisor 'has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated'.
JOHN BOLTON
Donald Trump pushed out John Bolton, his third National Security Advisor, in September 2019.
Bolton published a tell-all book about his time working for Trump in June 2020, ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump's Justice Department tried to stop publication of the book claiming Bolton needed to wait for the White House to review whether it contained classified information.
After leaving government service it was revealed that Bolton had been targeted for assassination by Iran.
Trump retaliated against Bolton again this year after his return to the Oval Office and even moved to have Bolton's Secret Service protection terminated.
Bolton also warned in March this year that Trump's 'bromance' with Elon Musk 'is almost over'.
SEAN SPICER
Sean Spicer's six-month White House stint was part of Donald Trump's most turbulent time in office, as key figures waged war with one another and the media.
The former White House Press Secretary quickly became a household name when he blasted the press a day after Trump was sworn in.
The president was frustrated by comparisons that showed his inauguration crowd to be smaller than Barack Obama's and Spicer insisted it was 'the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.'
That set a pattern for a press secretary in an awkward position trying to defend some of Trump's most outlandish boasts.
He left as part of a wider shakeup of strategy that heralded the famously short tenure of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI
Anthony Scaramucci spent an infamous 11 days in Donald Trump's first White House as communications director.
Scaramucci was appointed as the White House Communications Director on July 21, 2017, and later that same day, Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned, reportedly over objection to his hiring.
Only a few days later, the newly minted Trump official found himself at the center of a P.R. crisis when he launched an expletive-laden rant on a phone call with a New Yorker reporter, which he thought was off the record.
By July 31, the president had dismissed 'the Mooch,' on the advice of his new chief of staff, John Kelly, who doubted that Scaramucci was credible enough for the role.
When he was sacked, his total tenure of eleven days became tied for the shortest in the history of the position.
Scaramucci claims Trump fired him after he disagreed with him on national security policy. Trump has long rubbished Scaramucci's claims about him, suggesting that his former aide is bitter and that he has an ax to grind.
The former aide soured on Trump after his stint in the White House, and went on to support Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in the 2024.
MICHAEL COHEN
Donald Trump's former longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen went from being the president's 'fixer' to one of his most vocal adversaries.
Cohen, who handled Trump's hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, has testified against Trump several times since the pair parted ways.
He spent three years in prison after pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, lying to Congress, and other charges - which Cohen claims he did for Trump.
After serving his prison term, Cohen vowed to hold Trump accountable, branding him a 'racist', 'conman' and 'cheat'.
Cohen said he would 'continue to provide information, testimony, documents and my full cooperation on all ongoing investigations to ensure that others are held responsible for their dirty deeds'.
He also predicted a fall-out between Trump and Elon Musk, doubling down on the claims on Sunday - just days before the pair's explosive online feud.
'I said from the very start that this bromance was gonna come to an end,' Cohen told MSNBC. 'I'm gonna go one step even further, again, and I'm gonna say Trump will ultimately go after Elon's money next because it bothers him that he is the richest man in the world'.
He added: 'Yes, he used him for his money.'
Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (pictured in January last year) run against her former boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination
Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations run against her former boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Nikki Haley resigned from her position as Governor of South Carolina in 2017 to serve as Trump's ambassador to the UN.
She stepped down from the role in December 2018, after holding the position for nearly two years. At the time she said she needed a break from public office.
Haley and Trump have had a tumultuous relationship in recent years. During the 2024 GOP primary, Haley ripped into Trump as 'unhinged,' 'chaotic' and 'self-absorbed'. She also blasted his age and mental fitness.
But several months after she bowed out of the race, Haley announced she would be voting for the ex-president.
REX TILLERSON
Donald Trump tapped ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his Secretary of State during his first Oval Office term.
He served in the role from 2017 to 2018. Tillerson claimed Trump had not told him he was out of a job until three hours after publicly firing him in a tweet.
The former diplomat publicly denounced Trump in the months that followed and said the two men don't share the same 'value system'.
He described the president as someone almost entirely driven by impulse, who doesn't read, and who would ask him to break the law or breach treaties in his demands for immediate action.
Trump hit back, branding Tillerson 'dumb' and 'lazy'.
RETIRED LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn served as Donald Trump's National Security Advisor during his first administration.
Flynn resigned from his resigned in February 2017 after it was revealed he had misled officials about his communications with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
The retired Army lieutenant general was charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that detailed Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Flynn pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about his conversations before Trump took office with Kislyak, who was then Russia's ambassador to the United States, concerning US sanctions imposed on Russia under President Barack Obama.
He then reversed his guilty plea, allegedly government vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement, before the Justice Department stepped in to dismiss his case.
Trump pardoned Flynn in November 2020, ending the yearslong prosecution in the Russia investigation.
STEVE BANNON
Donald Trump's original political guru Steve Bannon was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress in July 2022.
The War Room podcast host served as chief strategist during Trump's first term before the pair split acrimoniously in 2017, but he was also devoted to the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
He was convicted in 2022 for failing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol attack. He received a sentence of four months in prison and a $6,500 fine.
In February this year, Bannon pleaded guilty in state court to defrauding donors to a private effort to build a wall on the US southern border, ending a case the conservative strategist decried as a 'political persecution.'
He must stay out of trouble for three years to avoid additional punishment, including possible jail time.
He also can't raise money or serve as an officer or director for charities in New York and can't use, sell, or possess any data gathered from border wall donors.
Bannon - whose influence during Trump's first term compared to 'First Buddy' Elon Musk in the second - last month weighed in on the pair's failing bromance.
He alleged Musk's attempts to gain access to secret briefings on war plans ultimately resulted in the end of his White House stint.
Bannon claimed the alliance ended the moment Trump was prevented from showing Musk the Pentagon's plans for a hypothetical war with China.
He labeled the Tesla billionaire as an elitist outsider and interloper in a political movement he helped shape from the ground up.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN
Ex-White House communications advisor Alyssa Farah Griffin turned on Donald Trump after joining popular morning talkshow The View.
She quit her White House gig in December 2020 due to discomfort 'with the lies about the election'.
Farah Griffin was among the Trump staffers found to have pleaded with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to have Trump call off the crowd on January 6.
The outspoken Republican voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, discussing her decision to do so on her talkshow.
She called January 6, 2021 a 'horrific' day, but added 'that was just kind of an encapsulation of who Donald Trump, the man, is.'
'He is the person of the lowest moral character that I've ever worked for,' she said of her former boss.
Farrah Griffin joined CNN as a political contributor in 2021, while also making several guest appearances on the View.
This lasted throughout the year and into 2022 until she became a permanent host - joined by longtime talker Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, and Ana Navarro.
During her first year as host, she told her fellow members how members of her family had boycotted her 2020 wedding to husband Justin Griffin due to their differences with Trump, but held the ceremony anyway.
She won a Daytime Emmy for her work on the View last year, and is still an outspoken critic of the president-elect.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
40 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
LA on lockdown as Donald Trump calls protesters 'animals' in fresh unhinged rant
Donald Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom have again entered a slanging match as protests continued in Los Angeles, part of which is now subject to a no-go zone Part of Los Angeles has been put into lockdown following anarchic riots over the past week, sparked as a result of Donald Trump's gung-ho immigration policy. The US President branded protesters "animals" and "a foreign enemy" before Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass caved in and declared a local emergency. Demonstrators set fire to cars, looted buildings and attacked officers with rocks, fireworks and cement bricks in harrowing scenes of destruction in recent days. It means Downtown, Los Angeles, will be a no-go zone until 6am Wednesday (2pm UK time). The same curfew is likely to be repeated for several nights. Ms Bass warned: "If you do not live or work in Downtown LA avoid the area. Law enforcement will arrest individuals who break the curfew, and you will be prosecuted... Some of the imagery of the protests and the violence gives the appearance as though this is a city wide crisis and is not." Her move came after Mr Trump, in his most aggressive language yet regarding the protests, called demonstrators "a foreign enemy". Speaking to reporters in Fort Bragg, California, the Republican President said: "We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. That's what they are." Mr Trump received plenty of cheers from the crowd at the event, which was supposed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army. READ MORE: Donald Trump brands Greta Thunberg a 'young, angry person' in blistering attack But California Governor Gavin Newsom hit back at the world leader. After the lockdown was imposed, effectively banning daytime protests in Downtown, Gov Newsom blamed the federal government for the ongoing crisis. He said: "Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves, but they do not stop there. This is a president who in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He's declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases, quite literally, are vanishing." Gov Newsom claimed that "when Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard. He made that order apply to every state in this nation. "This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes, this moment we have feared has arrived... What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him." Mr Trump gave orders to send 700 Marines and 4,100 National Guard troops in to take over policing efforts and assist the Los Angeles Police Department amid the tensions. At least 23 businesses have been looted during the ongoing violence.
New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
Laughing at the populist right is not a political strategy
Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images Across north London, in the citadels of the liberal elite, it has been hard to hear yourself think. The roars, whoops and whistles of merry laughter; the stamping of feet on floorboards; the wheezing, the rasping coughs and the slapping of thighs… yes, Donald and Elon, not to mention Nigel and Zia, have brought a lot of innocent cheer. This is not simply about great egos falling out: a voyeuristic thrill as the world's most powerful man and the world's richest man traded insults. It also poses a more important question about whether the revolutionary surge by the populist right, which began in America, is starting to collapse, weighed down by contradictions. After all, in taking aim at President Trump's 'big beautiful bill' in the cause of fiscal sanity, Musk put his finger on the glaring ideological fissure inside today's new right – the gap between traditional fiscal conservatives who believe growth comes from low taxes balanced by tightly controlled government spending; and the performative hucksters, happy to offer whatever the voter base wants, affordable or not. I'm well aware that this flatters Elon Musk, who has been happy to have his company suck greedily at the teat of federal spending, and who only seems to have seen the light when he realised how much the withdrawal of electric vehicle subsidies in the bill would have hit Tesla. Further, Musk's threats to cancel the Dragon rocket programme on which the International Space Station depends – threats he then reversed – and his accusation about Trump's involvement with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – an accusation he then deleted – suggests a man on the edge. Some have pointed to Musk's disclosures about his ketamine use. Trump simply taunted him by saying he is 'losing his mind'. Either way, Musk doesn't look or sound much like a traditional Republican. The tech-titan lobby he speaks for is desperate for lavish US government support and subsidy – and, indeed, in its fight with Chinese rivals, has a strong case for long-term federal backing. If Musk is genuinely gone for good from Trumpland, and it's hard to see a way back, Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman will have their thumbs competing for the West Wing doorbell soon. Meanwhile, Musk's Doge, strongly backed in Silicon Valley, so far seems like a damp squib – the tree has defeated the chainsaw. But let's try to put all that to one side. There is still a fundamental difference between the pork-barrel, 'spend big, promise bigger' instincts of Trump himself, using borrowed money to fling tax cuts to his hugely rich friends, and the genuine anxiety of Elon Musk about a swollen federal budget and debt. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Does this divide expose the very nature of the Maga movement? It's powered by poorer, excluded Americans who may have deep hatred of 'woke' culture, but who are interested in their own economic position – blue-collar Americans who want factories brought back home, but also want to keep their benefits, and have a deep suspicion of the political elite. The Trump bill, slashing taxes for the richest while cutting Medicare and other programmes for the poorest, shows whose side he is on; if Musk's campaign to stop the bill by encouraging a platoon of rebel Republicans to block it in the Senate were to succeed, he would be doing a favour not just to the increasingly worried bond markets but also to the Maga base. Let's turn nearer to home, where the gone, gone-back-again Zia Yusuf, the pinging Reform UK chairman who had floated a British version of Doge, offers a parallel. Reform faces two substantial policy challenges. One is 'respectability' – how far to go in an anti-migrant, race-inflected direction in order to energise its coalition? The second is economic. Like Maga, Reform has a blue-collar, working-class base and is offering not just huge tax cuts of nearly £90bn a year but also spending increases of £50bn a year on things those voters want more of, such as the NHS. It says it can pay for this with cuts of £150bn a year. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the numbers don't add up: 'Spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year.' This suggests, as with the Trump bill, that poorer Farage supporters would find their benefits under threat, while middle-class ones wouldn't get the tax cuts they wanted. Unsurprisingly, and after seeing off Reform in the Hamilton Scottish parliamentary by-election, Keir Starmer has jumped on this, comparing the Farage package to Liz Truss and accusing him of making the same bet – 'that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it'. And so we come to this week and the Spending Review. Fundamentally, the fight ahead is about credibility and timing. Populists insist there are quick, almost painless short-term fixes to the long problem of low productivity and growth. They suggest you can slash taxes and simultaneously improve working-class living standards. Reeves' version of social democracy has an answer to this – the big investments announced this week in everything from nuclear power to transport connections. Invest, long-term and patiently, and the growth will return. It's not a quick fix. Voters must wait. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's former chief economist, urges Labour to have an understandable 'people strategy' and more power for the regions and nations to give voters hope while the investment arrives. Because we are not a patient lot, and that is what Reform preys on. Haldane told the Guardian: 'Nigel Farage is as close to what the country has to a tribune for the working classes. I don't think there's any politician that comes even remotely close to speaking to, and for, blue-collar, working-class Britain. I think that is just a statement of fact…' Well, if so, isn't it an extraordinary one? Farage, an ex-City trader from the suburban south, is more of a tribune than Rayner, Phillipson, Streeting or Reed, who grew up in council housing and on benefits? Able to speak to working people in a way that the government, 92 per cent of whose ministers attended comprehensive schools, can't? This points to a familiar but catastrophic problem – the strange inability of this Labour government to communicate its cause vividly. By investing wisely, it can bring growth and therefore better times, but meanwhile it needs the fire of a Kinnock, the moral weight of a Brown, the birds-from-trees persuasiveness of a Blair. Yet too often, all we hear are wooden tongues. The lessons of the past fortnight are twofold. First, the right-wing populist insurgency, both in America and here, is fragile, not omnipotent. As the Musk episode reminds us, there is a difference between radical protest and traditional conservative thinking, particularly on the role of the state. Any coalition big enough to overwhelm social democracy can come apart quickly when personalities go to war. Although they sometimes run in parallel, American politics and British politics, Brobdingnag and Lilliput, remain different in structure, electoral make-up and rhythm. One must be cautious about those equal signs: the quick peace deal between Yusuf and Farage showed a sense lacking in Washington. Still, the mocking liberal laughter wasn't all ridiculous. But the second lesson is that, even with a plausible growth strategy, social democracy needs brilliant storytellers to keep a tired and sceptical electorate onside. This is a long fight. Starmer and Reeves are in it for years to come. But they have to become far better communicators. Nigel Farage, after all, is a man used to having the last, loud laugh. [See more: Reform needs Zia Yusuf] Related
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Daughter wins $2 million from lottery ticket she was gifted from her father
A daughter received the gift of a lifetime after winning $2 million from a lottery ticket purchased by her father. Vanesa Menijvar Acosta cashed in on the life-changing prize on May 28 after her father purchased the ticket at East Boston Corner Market in Massachusetts. The store will receive a $20,000 bonus for selling the winning Mega Money instant ticket game. Vanesa has the choice to taking a one-time lump sum of $1.3 million before taxes or incremental payments. She is a resident of Norcross, Georgia, which is a city outside of Atlanta. Vanesa told the Massachusetts Lottery that she plans on buying a house and paying for her college education with her prize money. There are still three more Mega Money instant ticket prizes worth $2 million, three grand prizes of $25 million, and second chance drawings with sums from $100 to $50,000. Another Massachusetts resident, David Strickland, cashed in on a whopping $1 million prize after trying his hand at the Mega Money lottery. He told lottery officials that he'd never been on vacation before and planned to take his first one to Las Vegas with the prize money. Strickland opted for the one-time cash option and took home a lump sum of $650,000 after taxes. He purchased the ticket at Bristol County Wine and Spirits in Berkley. The store is also cashing in on a $10,000 bonus for selling the lucky ticket. The winners' massive checks were cut significantly due to the immense tax on lottery prizes. The federal government takes a 24 percent cut of the winnings, while the state of Massachusetts takes another 5 percent. Even though Vanesa is a resident of Georgia, she'll still be taxed by Massachusetts since that's where the lottery ticket was bought. Massachusetts announces its lottery winners and doesn't allow them to remain anonymous like other states. The two Massachusetts winners opted to receive a lump sum payment as opposed to an annuity. They cashed in on large sums, but lost a wide margin of their winnings by choosing to take the immediate payout. Lottery hopefuls looking to strike similar luck still have a chance, as multiple Mega Money instant tickets have yet to be claimed.
