Trump and Musk feud: A timeline of a friendship gone sour

Euronews

a day ago

US President Donald Trump and his (now former) biggest fanboy, Elon Musk, are breaking up in the most tech way on their own social media platforms.
The tech billionaire initially supported Trump in his re-election bid on X, but is now using his social media network to allege that the president is mentioned in the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein's files.
Here is a timeline of their relationship and the moment it went sour.
The pair originally did not support each other. Musk had said he voted for Democrats in 2016 and 2020. Musk resigned from two White House advisory councils in 2017 after the Trump administration left the Paris climate accord.
In 2022, Trump claimed Musk had voted for him and called him a 'b******* artist'.
Musk officially endorsed Trump after an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania in July 2024.
"I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Musk wrote on X just after the shooting.
Musk then proceeded to financially support Trump's presidential bid and donated around $277 million (€242 million) in the election cycle.
At his victory speech in November 2024, the president slapped on the praise on Musk, announcing, 'We have a new star. A star is born. Elon!'
Musk, alongside the CEOs of Meta, Google, and Amazon, attended Trump's inauguration ceremony.
At another even that day, Musk sparked outrage when he took to the stage and appeared to perform a salute affiliated with Nazis.
Musk advised an organisation called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created by Trump through an executive order. It aims to oversee cost-cutting at government agencies. It also forces return-to-office mandates.
But DOGE quickly received backlash after trying to control agencies such as the US Institute of Peace.
On March 6, Trump told cabinet members that they were in charge of job cuts at their agencies, not Musk.
Following backlash in Europe and the US over Musk's involvement in politics and his support for far-right parties, such as in Germany, Trump made a show of support for Musk's EV company, Tesla.
Trump sat inside a Model S with Musk, which was displayed with other Tesla models on the White House lawn, and announced he would buy a Tesla.
Musk announced he is leaving the government, as it was the end of his 'scheduled time' as a special government employee. Trump then praised him as "one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced".
On May 22, the relationship took a turn after the US House of Representatives passed a significant piece of legislation.
The document, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, aims to fast-track policy around spending and has hundreds of proposed changes, such as tax cuts to changes in social benefits, such as health care.
On Tuesday, Musk wrote on X: 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination'.
Musk argued the bill's spending would increase the "already gigantic budget deficit" and "burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt".
One chairwoman of the DOGE committee, Marjorie Taylor Greene, said on X she now regrets endorsing the deal as it prevents individual states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI) for the next decade.
'We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years, and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous,' she said.
Trump said that Musk knew about his plans for the bill but only opposed it when he learned it would impact Tesla.
'He only developed a problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate,' Trump said, referring to government policies that support the production and sale of electric vehicles.
'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 on his platform, Truth Social.
Trump also said: '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!'
In response, Musk screenshot that post and wrote he would decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft as a result of the president's statement.
We are likely to see more accusations on their respective social media accounts.
'For Trump, this is a clear case of billionaire backfire. Losing a high-profile ally like Musk weakens his 'pro-business, best people' narrative and paints a picture of a presidency built on convenience rather than conviction,' said Josh Wheeler, PR expert at pr agency Be Bradcast in the US.
For Musk, the consequences are 'equally brutal,' he added, saying that the drop in Tesla shares shows just how quickly perception can tank valuation.
Calling for the impeachment of a sitting president, accusing him of being tied to Epstein, and threatening to decommission NASA-linked spacecraft is 'less maverick genius and more public meltdown,' Wheeler said.
'Both men have built reputations on dominance and disruption. Right now, neither is controlling the narrative. They have lost the room, the market, and, in Musk's case, possibly future government contracts'.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk threatened to decommission a key space capsule used to take supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of his ignited feud with US President Donald Trump before appearing to relent.
Musk started the conflict by calling Trump's "Big Bold Beautiful Bill," a budget reconciliation bill, a "disgusting abomination" on his social media platform X.
The post ignited a series of back-and-forth blows between Trump and Musk over social media.
Trump then threatened to cancel government contracts given to Musk's SpaceX and Starlink internet services, which Musk then responded to by saying he would decommission the Dragon spacecraft immediately.
Musk later said he wouldn't decommission the craft in response to an account called Alaska (with no apparent relation to the US state) that called the back and forth a "shame" and asked Musk to "step back for a few days," to "cool off."
The Dragon capsule, developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the ISS running.
The US' space agency NASA also relies heavily on SpaceX for other programmes including launching science missions and, later this decade, returning astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
SpaceX is the only US company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.
Boeing's Starliner capsule has flown astronauts only once; last year's test flight went so badly that the two NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride back to Earth via SpaceX in March, more than nine months after launching last June.
SpaceX also uses a Dragon capsule for its own privately run missions. The next one of those is due to fly next week on a trip chartered by Axiom Space, a Houston company.
The company has used its rockets to launch several science missions for NASA as well as military equipment.
Last year, SpaceX also won a NASA contract to help bring the space station out of orbit when it is no longer usable.
SpaceX's Starship mega rocket is what NASA has picked to get astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon for the first two landing missions.
Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only other means of getting crews to the space station right now.
The Soyuz capsules hold three people at a time.
For now, each Soyuz launch carries two Russians and one NASA astronaut, and each SpaceX launch has one Russian on board under a barter system. That way, in an emergency requiring a capsule to return, there is always someone from the US and Russia on board.
With its first crew launch for NASA in 2020 — the first orbital flight of a crew by a private company - SpaceX enabled NASA to reduce its reliance on Russia for crew transport.
The Russian flights had been costing the US tens of millions of dollars per seat, for years.
NASA has also used Russian spacecraft for cargo, along with US contractor Northrup Grumman.