The Trump-Musk alliance implodes: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today's edition, we break down how President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's feud burst into public view. Plus, Jonathan Allen sifts through the spin to provide a reality check on what the 'big, beautiful bill' would actually do.
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— Adam Wollner
The simmering tension between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk boiled over into a full-blown public brawl Thursday.
Act I: After a series of social media posts from Musk in recent days trashing Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' the president offered his first response during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
'I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,' Trump said of his former adviser. 'I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.'
Trump suggested that Musk, the world's richest man, was upset that the legislation cut out a tax credit meant to incentivize electric vehicle purchases.
'Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles and they're having a hard time with electric vehicles and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy,' Trump said. 'Elon knew this from the beginning.'
Act II: Musk initially brushed off Trump's criticism, posting 'whatever' on X before firing off dozens of posts blasting the Republican bill and the president himself.
'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,' Musk said, referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars he spent on the last election. 'Such ingratitude,' he added.
Act III: Trump then fired back on Truth Social, claiming that Musk 'went crazy' after the president 'asked him to leave' his White House role. Trump also suggested the government could sever ties with Musk's companies, which have billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Act IV: In response, Musk claimed that the president was in what are known as the 'Epstein files' — a reference to a trove of documents and files spread across a number of investigations and lawsuits involving the late Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department earlier this year released hundreds more pages of documents related to the Epstein investigations.
Although Trump and Epstein knew each other, there have been no new revelations about their relationship in any of those files. Trump has never been implicated in Epstein's abuse of underage girls. He denied any wrongdoing, saying in a post last year, 'I was never on Epstein's Plane, or at his 'stupid' Island.'
Act V: Trump's latest word on the matter: 'I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago.'
Read more on the back-and-forth →
Related: Tesla's shares have fallen 16% since Musk began bashing Trump's bill last week, and the stock remains about 33% lower than on Inauguration Day, Steve Kopack reports.
As the Senate considers President Donald Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill' (or 'OBBB'), there's a lot of dubious rhetoric flying around and, in some cases, hitting the fan.
It can be hard for voters to know what to believe. So, it's worth assessing the purpose of the legislation, which the House has already passed a version of, and what it would actually do.
The vehicle for the catchall measure is called budget reconciliation, a process created by Congress half a century ago to provide a fast track to bills that would bring spending and taxing into closer balance. That means it can't be filibustered, so Republicans only need a bare majority to get it through the Senate.
But over the years, Republicans and Democrats alike have perverted the intent of reconciliation, using the advantage of the fast track to blow ever bigger holes in the budget. That's what OBBB would do, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The most obvious tell is that its enactment would require an increase in the legal cap on the national debt. If the debt were going down, there would be no need to raise the limit.
Specifically, the House-passed bill would cut taxes by $3.7 trillion or so over a decade — largely by extending the rates that Trump and Congress put in place in 2017. At the same time, it would slash 'mandatory' spending — the accounts that pay out based on eligibility for long-standing programs rather than through annual 'discretionary' appropriations — by $1.3 trillion over a decade. The debt hole that's left is about $2.4 trillion.
The White House argues that the CBO's bottom line is wrong because it wants congressional accountants to ignore the fact that current tax rates are set to expire. Instead, Trump's team contends, the CBO should assume that current rates will be extended — like an athlete assuming his income will continue to flow in when his existing contract is up. If Congress does nothing, taxes will go back up, which would bring a burst of revenue at a cost to taxpayers.
In his bid to defeat the measure, or at least rewrite it, Elon Musk has charged that it is full of 'pork' — a term that, until he used it, was reserved for earmarks in the annual discretionary spending bills that are unaffected by OBBB.
Calling the measure a 'disgusting abomination,' Musk treats it as a spending bill. But while there are some increases in funding — primarily for the Defense Department and efforts to combat illegal immigration — the main provisions are focused on slashing taxes and federal programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.
The debt comes from the fact that the bill would not cut spending nearly as much as it would reduce revenue. And that's just arithmetic.
📱On line 1: Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a phone call amid ongoing tensions between the two superpowers, with a new in-person meeting planned soon. Read more →
🌎 Travel ban shock: Countries around the world criticized Trump after he announced a travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries and visa program cancellations for seven more. Read more →
🖊️ Auto-attack: Trump directed an investigation into former President Joe Biden and his close aides, accusing them of using 'autopen' signatures to cover up Biden's 'cognitive decline' and assert presidential power. Read more →
⚖️ Remaking the courts: Trump is taking a new approach to how he selects judges in his second term, focusing on more MAGA-friendly nominees and attacking the influential Federalist Society. Read more →
↗️ ICE ramp-up: Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained more than 2,200 people on Tuesday, the most arrests in a single day in its history. Read more →
👔 'A gut punch': Federal cuts to the Job Corps program have left thousands of low-income young people who have relied on the career training program for free housing and meals in limbo. Read more →
🗽 Big Apple showdown: The candidates running in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City largely aimed their ire at Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor and polling front-runner, during the debate last night. Read more →
🐊 2026 watch: Republican-turned-Democrat David Jolly announced he is running for Florida governor in 2026, aiming to become the first Democrat to lead the state in more than two decades. Read more →
Follow live politics updates →
That's all From the Politics Desk for now. Today's newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Dylan Ebs.
If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
And if you're a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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