The breakup also highlighted the political and financial risks each man could now face from a prolonged quarrel: Musk, who spent at least $288 million in 2024 to help elect Trump and other Republicans, accused the president of “such ingratitude” and publicly mused about starting a third party.
Trump responded by threatening Musk’s government contracts. The stock price of Tesla, the electric vehicle company Musk owns, fell sharply, down 14% at the market close. The value of Trump’s meme coin also dropped.
The President said earlier that he was “very disappointed” in Musk, delivering his sharpest criticism to date of the tech billionaire who served as a key political ally during the 2024 campaign and his first months in office.
“Elon and I had a great relationship,” he said. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
The quarrel escalated rapidly from there, with the two men blasting out angry posts on their respective social media platforms.
By late afternoon, Musk was writing on X that he agreed Trump should be impeached and replaced with Vice President JD Vance. He also warned that Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession in the second half of the year and asked his 220 million followers whether it was time to “create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle”.
He further signalled his estrangement from Trump’s orbit by “unfollowing” Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top aides, whose wife has been working for Musk.
Trump responded with posts on Truth Social, saying that “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.”
The remarks marked a highly public inflection point in the alliance between Trump and Musk, which has sharply deteriorated in recent weeks as the tech billionaire left his post at the US Doge Service and began publicly criticising the One Big Beautiful Bill, the cornerstone of Trump’s legislative agenda.
Trump suggested that the Tesla CEO’s criticisms of the legislation were rooted in his concerns that the bill would slash subsidies for owners of electric vehicles.
“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. Better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,” Trump said. “All of a sudden he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars.”
Within minutes, Musk fired back on X: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once,” he wrote.
Trump said he expected that Musk’s criticism of the bill would not be his last word.
“He hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that will be next,” Trump said, adding that he thinks Musk “misses the place”.
Trump suggested such hostility was common among officials who departed from his administration.
MORE: Tesla shares lose $252b in value, Trump says he will cancel all of Musk’s govt contracts
“It’s sort of Trump Derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,” he said.
