The rise and fall of Elon Musk and Donald Trump's bromance
During a press conference in the Oval Office last week, President Trump praised Elon Musk, his adviser and the outgoing head of the president's Department of Government Efficiency, for waging war on the federal workforce.
'Elon has worked tirelessly to lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations,' Trump said alongside Musk, who was donning a black DOGE hat and 'DOGEfather' T-shirt while standing next to the president.
For nearly an hour, Trump heaped praise on the billionaire Tesla chief executive, SpaceX founder and owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, whose stint as a special government employee had come to an end.
'Elon's really not leaving,' the president added. 'He's gonna be back and forth I think.'
What a difference a week makes.
Trump and Musk's unlikely bromance unraveled in spectacular fashion on Thursday, with the president telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was 'very disappointed' with Musk's criticism of his 'one big beautiful' spending bill, and Musk responding to Trump in real time through posts on X.
"I'm very disappointed in Elon," Trump said. "I've helped Elon a lot."
The president suggested that Musk, like many others before him, had become 'hostile' upon leaving his administration.
"I'll be honest, I think he misses the place," Trump said. '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."
"They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour is gone," the president added. "The whole world is different, and they become hostile. I don't know what it is."
Trump also suggested that Musk was 'upset' that the Republican-backed reconciliation bill did not include an electric vehicle mandate, which would have benefited EV manufacturers, including Tesla.
'He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out we were going to cut the EV mandate."
"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 wrote on X.
'Whatever,' Musk continued. 'Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.'
'In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that [is] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!' Musk added. 'Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.'
Musk, who was one of Trump's most fervent and visible supporters during the 2024 campaign, wasn't done.
"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, adding: "Such ingratitude."
Trump wasn't done, either.
'Elon was 'wearing thin,'' Trump wrote on Truth Social. '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!
'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Trump added. 'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!'
The split capped an unlikely longtime partnership for the pair, with Musk stumping for Trump on the campaign trail, and the president, after installing Musk as the head of DOGE, boosting Tesla amid criticism of Musk with an unusual event at the White House. ("Trump turns the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom," NBC News proclaimed.)
But in the last few months, there had been multiple reports that Trump was privately growing tired of Musk.
On May 27, three days before his farewell press conference in the Oval Office, CBS aired a clip that showed Musk saying he was 'disappointed' that Trump's signature spending bill would undermine his DOGE work.
Then on Tuesday, Musk went full blast on the spending package.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore," he wrote on X. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it."
That brought us to Thursday, when Trump was asked about Musk's attacks during a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
"Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump told reporters. "I don't know if we will anymore."
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