A war of words erupted Thursday, June 5, between onetime political allies Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, marking a dramatic shift in tone between the two in less than a week. Musk claimed Trump would have lost the election without his support in the latest escalation, and Trump told reporters Thursday he was unsure if the two would remain friends.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said in a post on X Thursday. “Such ingratitude.”
Such ingratitude
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025
The comment came after Trump suggested Musk was opposing his “big, beautiful” budget bill merely because the Tesla CEO was upset about the bill’s planned elimination of the government’s electric vehicle credit.
Trump sounds off from Oval Office press conference
Speaking from the Oval Office during a press conference alongside Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Trump said Musk’s criticism of the legislation stems from the removal of the EV tax credit.
“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, and really that’s unfair,” Trump said.
The president went on to say he did not know if their relationship could be repaired.
“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said. “He wore the hat, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ and I am right about the great, big, beautiful bill.”
Trump added he was surprised by Musk’s words but noted there have been other former Trump staffers who have jumped ship and changed their rhetoric.
“I’ll tell you, he’s not the first,” Trump said. “People leave my administration and they love us. Then, at some point, they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. I don’t know what it is. It’s sort of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’”
After the Oval Office press conference, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social, saying he asked Musk to leave.
After friendly departure, Musk unleashes on X
The tension follows Musk’s public departure from his advisory role at the White House last week.
“I’ll continue to be visiting here and being a friend and adviser to the president,” Musk said while offering praise for the president Friday, May 30th.
But just days later, Musk began more publicly criticizing Trump’s new spending package.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” he wrote Tuesday on X.
Musk, a vocal opponent of raising the debt ceiling, took to reposting old Trump tweets from years past, in which Trump condemned deficit spending and called for fiscal responsibility.
In one repost, Musk highlighted a 2013 Trump tweet that said, “I cannot believe the Republicans are extending the debt ceiling—I am a Republican & I am embarrassed!”
Musk captioned it: “Wise words.”
Another reply featured screenshots of Trump posts demanding a balanced budget and banning deficits. Musk asked, “Where is this guy today??”
Musk denied his opposition to the bill had anything to do with EV tax credits, as Trump suggested Thursday, posting on X a video from 2021 of him supporting an end to EV subsidies.
‘Big, beautiful bill’ sparks GOP infighting over spending
The legislation at the center of the dispute — which Trump dubbed the “big beautiful bill” — passed the House May 22 and now sits with the Senate, where it faces an uphill battle. The Republican-led bill touches on a wide array of issues including extending the Trump tax cuts, border security and immigration enforcement, defense spending, and a higher debt ceiling.
But fiscal conservatives within the GOP have expressed alarm at the cost. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is among those opposing the bill. He challenged the idea that raising the debt ceiling doesn’t increase debt.
“We have never raised the debt ceiling without actually meeting that target,” Paul said. “If you increase the ceiling $5 trillion, you’ll meet that. It puts it off the back burner. Then we won’t discuss it for a year or two.”
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the House-passed bill would add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade before interest is included. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warns that if made permanent, the legislation could swell the national debt by $5 trillion.
