Break out the popcorn for the Elon Musk-Donald Trump feud
We probably know how this ends, but it should be entertaining anyway
Note: The Washington Post has a timeline of Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s feud[1] at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/trump-musk-x-truth-social-timeline/. See update for June 11, 2025, at end of post.
All those posts and articles I saw where folks swore there was no way the Donald Trump-Elon Musk alliance could last? It seems to me like it lasted longer than they expected, but those folks can claim some vindication.[2]
One outcome of this might be that the dispute over H-1B visas in which “Musk enraged the MAGA base with his vow to ‘fight to the death’ to expand the H-1B visa program and bring more high-skilled foreign tech workers to America”[3] will now be resolved to Musk’s dissatisfaction. This, paired with Trump’s threat to end the corporate welfare for Musk’s companies and possibly even to investigate Musk’s immigration background—he started his first company while on a student visa and while not having authorization to work in the U.S. [4]—led Tesla investor Ross Gerber to say of Musk, “He’s destroying everything he’s built and all the people who’ve supported him along the way.”[5]
Of course, some of us thought that when Musk turned Twitter, now X, into a fascist social network.
But there can be little doubt that Musk is playing with fire. I rather strongly doubt he can marshal the evidence to back his implication of a relationship between Trump and Jeffrey Epstein,[6] the notorious pedophile who committed suicide in a federal prison while awaiting trial.[7] The Washington Post reports that “Musk’s business empire is reliant on automotive regulatory credits, as well as space and defense contracts. His companies have received at least $38 billion in government money.”[8] And, of course, one can certainly ask how Musk will find U.S. technology workers whose alleged nonexistence justifies, in his view, the H-1B program. (Short answer: He’ll have to pay them more.[9])
Gerber thinks “Elon is mistaken to think he has anything like the power Trump has.”[10] That’s probably true. But I say, break out the popcorn!
Update, June 11, 2025: So this is a bust. Elon Musk has backed down, posting on X, “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”[11]
The Associated Press, observing that Musk had deleted the post alleging a cover-up of Donald Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, noted that “Musk’s break with a president whom he spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect appeared to put an end to his influence in the White House and prompted concerns about effects on his companies. As a major government contractor, Musk’s businesses could be particularly vulnerable to retribution, and Trump has already threatened to cut Musk’s contracts.”[12]
This is, by no means, the first time Musk has put his foot in his mouth or behaved erratically, sometimes with manifest consequences.[13] We’ll see if Trump follows through on his threats of retribution.
[1] Rachel Lerman, “A timeline of Musk and Trump’s devolving relationship,” Washington Post, June 6, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2025/trump-musk-x-truth-social-timeline/
[2] Irie Sentner, Ben Johansen, and Sophia Cai, “The big, beautiful breakup,” Politico, June 5, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/06/05/the-big-beautiful-breakup-00390741; Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[3] Tara Palmeri, “Can Elon & Trump Go the Distance?” Puck, January 17, 2025, https://puck.news/can-elon-and-trump-go-the-distance/
[4] Irie Sentner, Ben Johansen, and Sophia Cai, “The big, beautiful breakup,” Politico, June 5, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/06/05/the-big-beautiful-breakup-00390741; Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[5] Ross Gerber, quoted in Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[6] Irie Sentner, Ben Johansen, and Sophia Cai, “The big, beautiful breakup,” Politico, June 5, 2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/06/05/the-big-beautiful-breakup-00390741; Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[7] Michael R. Sisak and Michael Balsamo, “New details of Jeffrey Epstein’s death and the frantic aftermath revealed in records obtained by AP,” Associated Press, June 2, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-jail-suicide-prison-death-8d194a756f2b429067f009a0c70f96c0
[8] Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[9] Bernie Sanders, “H-1B visas hurt one type of worker and exploit another. This mess must be fixed,” Fox News, January 8, 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-bernie-sanders-h1-b-visas-hurt-one-type-worker-exploits-another-mess-must-fixed
[10] Ross Gerber, quoted in Cat Zakrzewski, Faiz Siddiqui, and Elizabeth Dwoskin, “The epic breakup of Trump and Musk’s White House bromance,” Washington Post, June 5, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/05/trump-musk-fight/
[11] Elon Musk, X, June 11, 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1932695486684950962
[12] Associated Press, “Musk backs off from Trump feud, saying he regrets some posts that ‘went too far,’” June 11, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-regret-x-feud-4bd9ba2eef03a4eef8ae45057e53fd98
[13] John C. Coffee, Jr., “How the SEC can be the babysitter Elon Musk needs,” Cable News Network, April 23, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/perspectives/tesla-elon-musk-sec/index.html; Tristan Greene, “Here’s the stupid reason Elon Musk wants to nuke Mars,” Next Web, August 16, 2019, https://thenextweb.com/distract/2019/08/16/heres-the-stupid-reason-elon-musk-wants-to-nuke-mars/; Douglas MacMillan et al., “Elon Musk acquires Twitter for roughly $44 billion,” Washington Post, April 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-deal/; Christopher Mims, “Self-Driving Cars Could Be Decades Away, No Matter What Elon Musk Said,” Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/self-driving-cars-could-be-decades-away-no-matter-what-elon-musk-said-11622865615; Elon Musk, paraphrased in Edwin Chan, Lulu Yilun Chen, and Chunying Zhang, “The Time a Jet-Lagged Musk Made Alibaba’s Jack Ma Sound Grounded,” Bloomberg, August 29, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-29/the-time-a-jet-lagged-musk-made-alibaba-s-jack-ma-sound-grounded; Samantha Rolfe, “Elon Musk’s Starship may be more moral catastrophe than bold step in space exploration,” Science X, October 2, 2019, https://phys.org/news/2019-10-elon-musk-starship-moral-catastrophe.html; Faiz Siddiqui, “Tesla defied county orders so it could restart production,” Washington Post, May 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/11/musk-tesla-factory/; Eric Ting, “BART picks a fight with Elon Musk on Twitter over tunnels,” SFGate, May 25, 2019, https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/BART-Elon-Musk-Twitter-tunnel-Bay-Boring-Company-13896393.php; Alistair Walsh, “Elon Musk won’t stop calling diver a pedophile,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-cleared-by-jury-in-defamation-case-over-pedo-tweet-11575678498