Musk-Trump feud: The tech billionaire slams the president’s ingratitude

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Washington

Image source, Getty Images

For the last six months at the White House, I’ve been a first-hand witness to what many in Washington’s gossipy political circles termed the “bromance” between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

For me, the most memorable moments have perhaps been Musk’s presence in the cabinet meetings. At one meeting, for which I was in the Cabinet Room, Musk was sitting comfortably at the head of a very long table – with a Maga hat on – alongside all the formal members of the Trump cabinet.

At another, later cabinet meeting, Trump invited cabinet members to voice any displeasure they might have had with Musk amid growing speculation that some were tiring of his cost-cutting at their agencies. Nobody spoke up.

And just last week, I watched as Trump threw Musk a warm farewell in the Oval Office, promising that Musk would “be with us, always, even if he was no longer working in the administration”.

All that is over – and their relationship has rapidly devolved into a very public spat as the two men trade barbs less than a week after that farewell.

“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said during his Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

It got worse from there, with Trump threatening to cut Musk’s government contracts, that “nobody wanted” his Teslas, and he “just went CRAZY”.

Many saw it coming. At the outset of the administration, American TV pundits opined that the White House would not be big enough for the two men, and that inevitably they would fall out.

It appears that they were right.