‘Lost his mind’: Fallout from Trump-Musk feud shows quick truce unlikely – National
The very public, very online fallout between U.S. President Donald Trump and his so-called “First Buddy” Elon Musk spilled over into Friday morning, with Trump saying he’s “not particularly” interested in talking to Musk right now.
The president made the comments to ABC News early Friday, when the outlet inquired about reports that the two had a call scheduled for later in the day.
“You mean the man who has lost his mind?” he asked, saying he’s not ready to talk to Musk, despite saying Musk wanted to talk to him.
Trump seemed rather nonchalant about the issue, although perhaps not yet ready to bury the hatchet, telling CNN Friday morning that he’s “not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem, the poor guy’s got a problem.”
READ MORE: Musk and Trump have a very online breakup, complete with threats, insults
“Oh it’s OK,” he told news site Politico. “It’s going very well, never done better.”
Trump, one of the most powerful political leaders on the planet, and Musk, the world’s richest man, battled openly on Thursday in an extraordinary day of hostilities — largely over social media — that marked a stark end to a close alliance.
It began with Musk complaining about the centrepiece of Trump’s legislative agenda, which the president at first took in stride. Eventually, Trump let slip that he was disappointed in his former adviser, prompting Musk to unleash a flood of insults and taunts via social media.
He accused Trump of betraying promises to cut federal spending, agreed with an X user that the president should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president’s association with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In another bombshell accusation, Musk insisted that Trump wouldn’t have won last year’s election without his help.
Trump, not holding back anymore, wrote on his own social platform that Musk had been “wearing thin” and that he had “asked him to leave” his administration, adding that the Tesla CEO had “gone CRAZY.”
@realDonaldTrump / Truth Social
He even threatened to cancel Musk’s companies’ contracts and subsidies, a move he said would save “billions and billions of dollars” for taxpayers.
Musk’s companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, have direct contacts with the American government and, like many other businesses, also benefit from subsidies and tax breaks.
In turn, Musk threatened to decommission a space capsule used by NASA to ferry astronauts and supplies to and from the International Space Station, although, a few hours later, he told a user on his X platform that he wouldn’t do it.
Aside from saying he had no plans to talk to Musk at the moment, Trump largely ignored the feud in his Friday morning social media posts.
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He shared several posts to his Truth Social media site, but didn’t bring up the fight, instead attacking the reporting of several media outlets and bragging that “Our country is BOOMING!”
“AMERICA IS HOT! SIX MONTHS AGO IT WAS COLD AS ICE! BORDER IS CLOSED, PRICES ARE DOWN. WAGES ARE UP!” he shared in one post.
Opposites attracted (for a time)
Trump and Musk, as a pair, initially seemed contrasting.
Trump, 78, comes from old-school New York real estate and never appears in public without a suit and tie unless he’s on the golf course. Before running for president, he became a household name as a reality television star.
Musk, 53, is an immigrant from South Africa who struck it rich in Silicon Valley. In addition to running Tesla and SpaceX, Musk owns the social media company X. He’s fashioned himself as a black-clad internet edgelord, and his wealth vastly outstrips Trump’s.
But Trump and Musk are kindred spirits in other ways: they’re experts at generating attention, who enjoy stirring the pot by riling up their opponents. Each has sought more power to accomplish existential quests. Trump assails the federal “deep state” that resisted him during his first term, while Musk warns about the country going bankrupt from excessive spending and promotes an interplanetary future powered by his rocket technology.
Musk endorsed Trump after the Republican candidate was nearly assassinated in Butler, Pa., and he began spending millions to support him. His social media megaphone was a powerful addition to Trump’s comeback campaign, magnifying his efforts to court tech leaders and young men online.
Trump rarely tolerates sharing the spotlight, but he seemed enamoured by his powerful backer, mentioning him in stump speeches and welcoming him onstage at rallies.
FILE – Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) jumps on stage as he joins former U.S. president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5, 2024.
Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images
After the election, Musk was a fixture around Mar-a-Lago, posing for photos with Trump’s family, joining them for dinner and sitting in on meetings. Instead of growing tired of his “First Buddy,” Trump made plans to bring Musk along to Washington, appointing him to lead a cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump appear during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
Other politicians, public figures enter the chat
Thursday’s spectacular infighting left the world stunned and rapt, and politicians in Washington found ways, often humorous, to express their thoughts on the feud.
Vice-President JD Vance piped in with a post Thursday night, joking about the tension that had just unfolded.
“Slow news day, what are we even going to talk about?” Vance wrote on X, along with a photo of him and podcaster Theo Von.
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pithily quipped to a reporter outside the Capitol: “Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren’t they? I would say that this was something that was a long time coming, where we’ve been seeing that these two huge egos were not long for being together in this world as friends.”
She wasn’t the only Democrat to find levity in the situation. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Oman wrote “I can’t believe he went there,” in response to Musk’s allegation that the Epstein files haven’t been fully released because Trump is named in them.
Meanwhile, Democrat Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota shared a Spotify breakup playlist.
“I don’t think you need to be a genius, though, to foresee that this eruptive and public display of divorce was gonna happen at some point,” Democrat Rep. Vicente Gonzalez told CNN on Thursday night. “I mean, we had wagers going on on the floor.”
“It’s like India and Pakistan,” Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana told The Associated Press, referring to two nuclear-armed nations that recently skirmished along their border. “It just escalates and neither one of them seem to back down and understand the strength of each other.”
Some House Republicans called for cooler heads to prevail.
Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas demanded Musk stop attacking Trump and said “this tit-for-tat going back and forth, isn’t helping.” While he praised Musk to CNN as “very gifted and talented,” Nehls said that “to start making statements like that, I think, are irresponsible and certainly not healthy. So stop. You’ve lost your mind.”
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a hardline conservative who’s objected to parts of the bill, told CNN flatly “no” when asked if he was concerned about Trump and Musk’s public breakup. “I think maybe they should count to 10,” Roy said when asked about Musk’s supporting calls for Trump to be impeached.
“I hope it doesn’t distract us from getting the job done that we need to,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state. “I think that it will boil over and they’ll mend fences.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, was similarly optimistic.
“I hope that both of them come back together because when the two of them are working together, we’ll get a lot more done for America than when they’re at cross purposes,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night.
Meanwhile, some of Trump’s allies plotted revenge.
Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser and host of an influential conservative podcast, told The Associated Press that the president should direct the U.S. government to seize SpaceX. He also encouraged Trump to investigate allegations that Musk uses drugs and “go through everything about his immigration status” in preparation for potential deportation.
“We’ll see how good Elon Musk takes a little of that pressure,” Bannon said, “because I happen to think a little of that pressure might be coming.”
— With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
