WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are at it again.
The former allies lashed out at each other over Trump’s sweeping tax and domestic policy bill in the long hours before it passed the Senate on July 1. The bill would ramp up border security spending, make permanent Trump’s 2017 tax reductions and cut $1 trillion from Medicaid.
Musk has long been critical of Trump’s signature bill, arguing it balloons the deficit. An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the Senate bill would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That’s a nearly one trillion dollar increase from the version passed in the House, which would add $2.4 trillion to the debt.
Musk left his role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with cutting government spending, at the end of May.
Shortly after, he called the bill a “disgusting abomination” in a post on X, which prompted Trump to say he was “very disappointed” with Musk’s remarks.
In a vicious spat, Musk then said Trump wouldn’t have won a second term without the quarter of a billion dollars he spent on the president’s 2024 campaign, and alleged that Trump’s name was in the Justice Department’s files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk later backed down and apologized. But he blasted the bill again on June 28, less than an hour before the Senate prepared to hold a critical vote to begin debate.
Trump and Musk: What did they say?
Here’s what the president and the world’s wealthiest man have been saying:
June 28, 2025: Musk writes on X that the bill is “utterly insane and destructive” and will “cause immense strategic harm to our country.” He wrote in a follow up post that the bill is “political suicide” for the Republican party.
June 30, 2025: Musk turns up the heat in a flurry of posts on X, threatening to support primary challengers to Republicans who vote for the bill and calling for a new political party. He wrote, “It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!! Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people.”
July 1, 2025 at 12:34 a.m.: Trump writes on Truth Social that Musk, who owns Tesla and SpaceX, “may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa.” He added, “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.”
Musk then responds about 30 minutes later saying, “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.”
July 1, 2025 at the Oval Office: Trump threatened to look at having Musk deported to his native South Africa and said he might order the Department of Government Efficiency to review the billions in federal contractshis companies receive.
“We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” Trump told reporters. “Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies.”
July 1: As the Republican bill passed the Senate, Musk pinned a poll to the top of his X feed telling his 221.5 million followers that a provision restricting the ability of judges to enforce contempt orders against the government “enables many other abuses of power by the President.”
“Should this be allowed?” he asked.
Contributing: Bart Jansen and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY
