Trump says he told Elon Musk to exit administration, threatens funding cuts

New Straits Times

2 days ago

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he asked Elon Musk to leave his role in the Trump administration, and appeared to threaten billions of dollars in government funding as the row between the once close allies continued to widen Thursday, Anadolu Ajansi reported.
"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 in a social media post.
Trump appeared to threaten government subsidies for the multiple companies Musk runs, saying, "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!" he said in a second post.
The comments are the latest salvo as the US president and the world's richest man continue to deepen their intensifying feud.
Musk said earlier in the day that Trump would have lost the 2024 US election without his support, and suggested that it may be time for the country to establish a new political party.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk wrote on X. "Such ingratitude."
Musk posted a poll asking his more than 220 million followers if it is time to form a new political party in the US. While the poll has 23 hours to conclude, over 83 per cent of respondents said it is time.
The comments, and the apparent testing of the political waters, mark the latest escalation in the growing feud between the once-close political allies after Musk left the White House where he led Trump's government-slashing effort.
Trump said Thursday that he is "very disappointed" with Musk amid the tech billionaire's campaign against the president's signature spending and tax bill.
The president suggested that Musk's criticism of the "big, beautiful bill" may be rooted in jealousy. "I think he misses the place. I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn't in this beautiful Oval Office," he said.
"I'm very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate," Trump said in the Oval Office as he hosted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The "EV mandate" refers to a long-standing one-time tax credit of up to $7,500 for those who purchase electric vehicles.
Shares of Tesla were sharply lower in late-day trading, with the auto manufacturer down 11.6 per cent amid the intensifying row.
Musk quickly responded with a post on X with "whatever," and rebutted Trump's suggestion that he had even seen the bill before he left the White House, calling the claim "false." He acknowledged, however, that some of his opposition stems from the elimination of the electric vehicle tax credit.
"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!" he wrote.
Musk ramped up his crusade Wednesday to convince lawmakers to kill Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which is estimated to add $2.42 trillion to US budget deficits over the next decade.
"Bankrupting America is NOT ok!" Musk posted Wednesday on X.