‘He's a snake': Musk jabs at Trump adviser who fueled messy presidential breakup
Elon Musk may have stopped sparring with President Donald Trump online, but the former presidential adviser and megabacker isn't done publicly sniping at members of Trump's administration.
The former DOGE chief slammed Sergio Gor, a top Trump adviser who played a role in his split with the president, bashing him as a 'snake' late Wednesday night.
'He's a snake,' Musk wrote on his social media platform X, replying to a New York Post story reporting that Gor, who serves as the director of the White House personnel office, has not himself been properly vetted.
According to the Post, Gor has not submitted the requisite paperwork to obtain a permanent security clearance, even as he presides over the screening process for thousands of White House staffers.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Gor.
Tensions between the two advisers had long simmered, with Musk refusing to work with Gorafter a March Cabinet meeting in which the billionaire clashed with other Cabinet members over cuts to their agencies, prompting Trump to clarify that agency heads had authority over their departments — not DOGE's Musk.
But the situation bubbled over when Gor helped facilitate the termination of Jared Isaacman's nomination for NASA head — a pick Musk had pushed.
The decision to pull Isaacman's nomination appeared to be the last straw for Musk, who shortly thereafter launched a social media spree attacking the president and the 'Big Beautiful Bill' he was drumming up support to push through Congress.
At the time, Trump pointed to his choice to pull Isaacman's nomination as a motivating factor in Musk's decision to lash out against the president.
The fight, which came on the heels of Musk's slated departure from his government duties, marked the nail in the coffin for the relationship between the president and his one-time 'first buddy.'
But tensions seem to have calmed between the two men after their massive online meltdown, with Trump saying he had 'no hard feelings' for his former ally, and Musk issuing an apology on X, saying he 'went too far' in his attacks on the president during their fight.
Trump, in particular, had sought to downplay the spat, as the White House worried that the public squabble was drawing attention away from administration priorities.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

27 minutes ago
ICE agents denied entry to LA's Dodger Stadium amid anti-immigration enforcement protests
As anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests continue in Los Angeles, dozens of federal ICE agents were seen near Dodger Stadium on Thursday, in what appeared to be a staging area, but were denied entry to the famed ballpark. The agents were dressed in tactical gear and gathered on the street that leads into the stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The official Los Angeles Dodgers social media account took to X on Thursday, saying that the agents were not allowed to enter the stadium grounds. "This morning, ICE agents came to Dodger Stadium and requested permission to access the parking lots. They were denied entry to the grounds by the organization. Tonight's game will be played as scheduled," the organization said. The Department of Homeland Security responded on X, saying the officers' appearance at the stadium "had nothing to do with the Dodgers." "CBP vehicles were in the stadium parking lot very briefly, unrelated to any operation or enforcement," DHS said. A small group of protesters was also seen near the stadium on Thursday as demonstrations in the city, which began on June 6, continue for nearly two weeks. The Dodgers organization had previously been facing growing criticism from protesters for not speaking out about the immigration raids that have been frequent in Los Angeles. "The largest economic engine in this area is silent! Wake up! Do better! We know you can!" Raul Claros of California Rising said at a news conference, pointing to Dodger Stadium behind him. The demonstration comes after reports of a string of ICE raids in Los Angeles on Thursday, including one outside of a nearby Home Depot on Sunset Boulevard earlier in the day. Los Angeles City Council District 1 workers alerted the Los Angeles Police Department of the ICE staging near Dodger Stadium, local officials told ABC News' Los Angeles station, KABC. The Police Department then notified the Dodgers organization, which allegedly told the ICE agents to leave the property, according to KABC, however, small group of federal agents were still at the location shortly after 11 a.m. This comes as President Donald Trump has recently instructed ICE officers to do "all in their power" to oversee the largest mass deportation program in history. "In order to achieve this, we must expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America's largest Cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, where Millions upon Millions of Illegal Aliens reside," Trump wrote in a lengthy social media post over the weekend. In the first 100 days of the second term of the Trump administration, ICE made over 66,000 arrests, according to the federal agency as deportation efforts have since continued.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why EchoStar Has Blasted 48% Higher This Week
Bloomberg reported that President Donald Trump wants the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and EchoStar, which owns spectrum licenses, to end their dispute and make a deal. The FCC is reviewing whether EchoStar is in federal compliance, which is crucial to the company's plan to build out a 5G internet network. EchoStar's spectrum licenses are very valuable and could be worth a lot more than the company's current market cap. 10 stocks we like better than EchoStar › Since last Friday, shares of the satellite television and wireless operator EchoStar (NASDAQ: SATS) had blasted nearly 48% higher as of Thursday, a day in which the market is closed due to the observance of Juneteenth. The stock rocketed higher after media outlets reported that President Trump has encouraged the company and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make a deal and end their dispute. EchoStar owns several satellite, phone, and television companies, including Boost Mobile, HughesNet, Dish, and Sling. The company and its subsidiaries also own spectrum licenses, which grant it approval to use parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which is critical for operating and providing various forms of wireless communications. Earlier this year, the FCC said they were investigating whether EchoStar is complying with the necessary federal laws to keep its spectrum licenses that it needs to build out its planned 5G internet service in the U.S. In response, EchoStar decided to not make interest payments on some of its bonds, which gave the company 30 additional days to make payments, in hopes the FCC would finish its review. These events led some to believe the company may ultimately default on the payments and enter bankruptcy. Trump's intervention and the administration's deregulatory approach has likely made some investors think a deal will be made. Bloomberg also reported earlier this week that FCC Chair Brendan Carr told EchoStar to sell some of its spectrum licenses or potentially lose them. UBS analyst John Hodulik said in a research report earlier this week that the spectrum licenses could be worth as much as $35 billion. The stock only trades at a roughly $7.2 billion market cap. There's also big upside if EchoStar ends up succeeding in building its wireless network. However, investors should keep in mind that regulatory battles like this are often unpredictable. This is a risky bet, so I wouldn't make it a core position. But if you want to take a chance, make sure you only invest what you can afford to lose. Before you buy stock in EchoStar, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and EchoStar wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $659,171!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $891,722!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why EchoStar Has Blasted 48% Higher This Week was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data


CNN
28 minutes ago
- CNN
A SpaceX rocket exploded in the night. Are Musk's 2026 Mars ambitions further out of reach?
(CNN) — The explosion of a SpaceX Starship vehicle during a routine ground test Wednesday sent out a shock wave of fire and smoke that appeared to engulf the company's launch facilities in Starbase, Texas. The mishap raised questions about the company's ability to hash out significant design and engineering challenges on a vehicle considered crucial to SpaceX's founding goal of eventually carrying convoys of people to Mars. When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk spoke to employees in South Texas in late May, aiming to once again stoke support for his Mars ambitions, he emphasized the metric by which he would gauge success: 'Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars.' Later in his speech — which Musk gave two days after the company's most recently launched Starship prototype failed upon reentry, marking the third premature ending for a test flight this year — he spelled out the exact timeline SpaceX would chase. The road map hinges on specific deadlines dictated by the laws of physics, thanks to just how far Earth is from the red planet. The distance between Earth and Mars can range from about 35 million miles to 250 million miles (56 million kilometers to 400 million kilometers), depending on where each planet lies in its orbital path around the sun. To save time and fuel costs, missions aiming to visit the red planet must wait until it's at its ideal point relative to Earth — prime alignment opportunities, otherwise known as a 'Mars transfer windows,' that span a few weeks and occur only about every 26 months. The next window, during which the travel time to Mars is cut down from over a year to just six to nine months, is coming up in late 2026. Musk's road map suggests SpaceX hopes to send up to five uncrewed Starship vehicles loaded with cargo to Mars during that time. But there are several major concerns that SpaceX will need to address before its first cargo ship sets out for the red planet, and Wednesday's explosion — Starship's fourth so far this year — may be evidence of that. Musk spoke to the feasibility of reaching Mars in 2026 during that May speech, saying that he imagined there was only a '50/50 chance' SpaceX could get a Starship spacecraft to Mars next year. Before the 2026 Mars transfer window opens, SpaceX plans to debut another upgraded version of the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket booster — which together make up the most powerful launch system ever constructed. On the new Starship system, both the first-stage booster and upper-stage ship will be slightly larger and together will be able to carry 661,387 pounds (300 metric tons) of propellant. It's a substantial upgrade similar to the one SpaceX debuted earlier this year, Starship Version 2, which added 25% more propellant capacity compared with earlier test flight models. And SpaceX has struggled to get Version 2 to perform as expected: The first two test flights, carried out in January and March, each failed minutes after takeoff, raining debris near populated islands east of Florida. The last test flight in May made it farther into flight, but the Starship spacecraft lost control before reentry, leading to a nail-biting, uncontrolled descent into the Indian Ocean. Related live story SpaceX megarocket gets farther in test than last two flights, but loses control on reentry to Earth And Wednesday's explosion during a routine ground test raises even more concerns about how long it will take SpaceX to fine-tune Starship's design and guarantee it can transport cargo or humans safely. The company hasn't revealed how much of a setback it might be for the vehicle or its launch facilities. Preliminary data suggested the explosion was caused by a gas tank that exploded, Musk said in a social media post. The tank 'failed below its proof pressure,' he said, meaning that prior stress tests and the known properties of the tank suggested it should have survived the scenario. It's potentially a unique problem that has never been observed before. During his May 29 speech, Musk emphasized that introducing even more upgrades and further stretching Starship's size is crucial to long-term success. 'It takes three major iterations of any major new technology to have it really work well,' Musk told employees during his Starship update. Musk has said he hopes the updated Starship will make its flight debut by the end of the year. But even if the new version pulls off a pristine test flight along the same suborbital route where SpaceX has carried out previous Starship test missions, it won't guarantee the vehicle is ready for an interplanetary excursion. That's because, even with added fuel capacity, Starship must be topped off with more propellant after it reaches space to make the long trip to Mars. SpaceX plans to do this by launching a series of tankers, or Starship vehicles designed to carry batches of fuel and oxidizer. Those tankers would rendezvous with the Starship while it idles in Earth's orbit, transferring thousands of pounds of propellant and delivering the fuel the vehicle needs to continue its journey deeper into the solar system. Notably, transferring fuel between two vehicles in space has never been done before. 'We've never done that. Nobody's done that — transferring fuel from one spacecraft to another in orbit autonomously,' said Bruce Jakosky, a professor emeritus of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. 'That's difficult,' Jakosky added, especially considering the Starship vehicle runs on cryogenic fuels — essentially oxygen and methane that are kept at temperatures so cold they liquify. And in the microgravity environment of orbit, that fuel can float about in its tank rather than settling in one place. So, among myriad other technical difficulties, SpaceX will likely have to devise pumps or motors that can effectively funnel the fuel from one ship to another. Currently, it's not even clear how many tankers SpaceX would need to launch to give one Starship vehicle enough gas for a trip to Mars. (In prior estimates, NASA personnel and third-party experts projected it may take roughly one dozen Starship tankers for a moon mission.) In his speech, Musk said that he believed in-space fuel transfer would be 'technically feasible.' SpaceX will not attempt to carry out its first tanker flight test before next year, Musk added. Even after SpaceX sorts out the propellant transfer problem, they'll face another significant technological question: How will Starship survive the trip down to the surface of Mars? Musk last month called this issue 'one of the toughest problems to solve.' 'No one has ever developed a truly reusable orbital heat shield so that is extremely difficult to do,' he said. 'This will be something that we'll be working on for a few years, I think, to keep honing.' Vehicles that need to safely land on planetary bodies while traveling at orbital speeds must have a component called a heat shield — a special coating on the vehicle's exterior that serves as a buffer to the scorching temperatures generated by the process of entering a planet's atmosphere. On Mars, one crucial problem is the air: It's almost entirely made up of carbon dioxide. When Starship slams into Mars' atmosphere, it will violently compress the air in front of it and create searing temperatures. And the conditions of reentry are so intense that the process literally rips electrons away from atoms and splits molecules, turning the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen — the latter of which may start to 'oxidize' or essentially incinerate the spacecraft's heat shield, Musk said. Reentry on Mars will actually produce more heat-shield-destroying oxygen than the process of returning to Earth, Musk noted. Starship's heat shield will ultimately need to be durable enough to survive both types of reentry, potentially multiple times. While the odds of SpaceX solving all the necessary technical quandaries in time to send a cargo-filled Starship to Mars at the end of next year are likely small, even larger problems must be solved later down the road. If SpaceX wants to send humans to the red planet, for example, the company must figure out how to ensure Starship's exterior can keep people safe from the deadly radiation that will shower down throughout the six-month journey. Life support systems with plenty of breathable air would need to be on board. As Musk put it, every single human need must be accounted for. 'You can't be missing even, like, the equivalent of vitamin C,' he said. Once a Starship vehicle reaches its destination, it would likely need to top off its fuel at a Martian depot before returning home — another feat that presents enormous technological challenges. The idea that enough infrastructure will exist on Mars by 2029 — or 2031, as Musk has said in prior social media posts — to make such a crewed mission possible is outlandish. Still, industry experts say SpaceX's bold ambitions spark both excitement and skepticism. 'I am a fan of what SpaceX is trying to do. I totally subscribe to this vision of a multi-planetary society,' said Olivier de Weck, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'But it's a logistical problem first and foremost. And what's lacking to me is the thought about the cycling, the fuel production — and the return to Earth.' But Phil Metzger, a planetary physicist with the Florida Space Institute, emphasized that SpaceX does tend to deliver on its promises, even if it's a few years behind schedule. 'I feel like they got unlucky on some of their (Starship test flight failures), having the types of failures they had the last three in a row,' Metzger said. 'Considering their design and development philosophy, I think they're still within the window of expected outcomes.' But, Metzger added, 'we're reaching the point where you start to worry.'