Donald Trump shuns call with Elon Musk and considers selling Tesla
Donald Trump has no plans to speak to tech billionaire Elon Musk, amid the pair's ongoing feud, and may even ditch his red Tesla car, according to the White House.
The US president's camp insisted he wanted to move on from the row with his former adviser, with officials saying Mr Musk had requested a call but Mr Trump was not interested.
It said the Republican instead intended to focus on getting the US Congress to pass his "big, beautiful" spending bill, Mr Musk's harsh criticisms of which triggered their public split.
Fallout from the blow-up between the world's richest person and its most powerful could be significant, with Mr Trump risking political damage and Mr Musk facing the loss of huge US government contracts.
Mr Trump phoned reporters at several US broadcast networks to insist he was looking past the row. He called Mr Musk "the man who has lost his mind" in a call to America's ABC and told CBS he was "totally" focused on the presidency.
The White House, meanwhile, squashed earlier reports that they would talk.
"The president does not intend to speak to Musk today," a senior White House official told the AFP news agency, on condition of anonymity. A second official said it was "true" that Mr Musk had requested a call.
Tesla stocks tanked more than 14 per cent on Thursday, losing some $100 billion of the company's market value, but recovering partly Friday.
A senior White House official said Mr Trump was considering either selling or giving away the cherry-red Tesla S he bought from Mr Musk's firm at the height of their relationship.
The electric vehicle was still parked on the White House grounds on Friday, local time.
"He's thinking about it, yes," the official said when asked if Mr Trump would sell or give away the vehicle.
Mr Trump and Mr Musk had posed inside the car at a event in March, when the president turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla showroom after viral protests against Mr Musk's role as head of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Mr Musk appears to be trying take the heat out of the pair's conflict.
On Thursday, the SpaceX boss briefly threatened to scrap his company's Dragon spacecraft — vital for ferrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station — after Mr Trump suggested he could end Mr Musk's giant government contracts.
But later in the day, Mr Musk sought to de-escalate, writing on his X social media platform: "OK, we won't decommission Dragon."
The tech magnate also kept a low profile early on Friday.
But there is no clarity about how the two men will repair the relationship, which had already been fraying badly, causing tensions in the White House.
US trade adviser Peter Navarro, who Mr Musk once called "dumber than a sack of bricks" in an argument over Mr Trump's tariffs, refused to gloat but said the tycoon had an "expiration date".
"No, I'm not glad or whatever," he told reporters. "People come and go from the White House."
US Vice-President JD Vance also stuck by Mr Trump amid the blazing row, blasting what he called "lies" that his boss was "impulsive or short-tempered", but notably avoiding criticising Mr Musk.
The tensions burst into the open this week when Mr Musk called Mr Trump's flagship spending bill an "abomination" because it would raise the US deficit.
Then in a televised Oval Office diatribe on Thursday, Mr Trump said he was "very disappointed" with Mr Musk.
The pair traded insults for hours on social media, with Mr Musk at one point suggesting Mr Trump be impeached and signalling his interest in forming a new political party.
AFP
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