By Emily Singer Daily Kos Staff REPUBLISHED BY Donald Trump and his co-President Elon Musk were inseparable during Trump's first 100 days in office.
Trump heaped praise on Musk during uncomfortable Cabinet meetings, even as public opinion soured on the multibillionaire and his destructive Department of Government Efficiency; dined with Musk at his trashy Mar-a-Lago club; hawked Musk's failing Tesla cars in a wildly unethical event on the White House lawn; and overlooked Musk's rampant drug use to give his biggest donor a glowing send-off after he announced he was leaving the administration.
But now that Musk is trashing the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that House Republicans passed in May and Senate Republicans are now working to get to Trump's desk, Trump says their special friendship may be no more.
"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office.
The president added that he was "surprised" to see Musk hammering what is intended to be Trump's signature piece of legislation.
“You were here, everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off, he said wonderful things about me, couldn’t have nicer, said the best thing,” Trump said. “He’s worn the hat, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I am right about the Great Big Beautiful Bill.”
Trump also accused Musk of turning on the “Big Beautiful Bill”—which slashes Medicaid and food stamps, cuts green energy subsidies, extends tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, and explodes the deficit—because it ends electric vehicle subsidies.
"I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” 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.”
Musk has already responded to Trump’s attack.
“False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk wrote in a post on X.
Trump and Republicans had enthusiastically embraced Musk—largely due to the fact that the richest man in the world spent hundreds of millions to help Trump get elected, and they worried that if they criticized him they'd be hit with an onslaught of Musk-financed primary attacks.
Related | 7 of Elon Musk's worst co-president moments as he exits White House
But now that Musk has gone rogue and done the unforgivable—i.e. criticize Dear Leader—it's unclear what will happen next.
After Trump’s Oval Office diss, Musk argued in a post on X that “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
“Such ingratitude,” Musk added.
When announcing his exit from the Trump administration, Musk said he was taking his money and getting out of politics. But if he's instigated by Republican attacks, he could easily flip on that decision.
Whatever happens next, we have our popcorn ready to watch the Republican infighting play out.
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