What Happened to the ‘Great Relationship’ President Trump Had With Elon Musk?

It wasn’t too long ago that President Donald Trump was selling Teslas on the White House lawn. Those days are over. 

What that means remains to be seen, but it could have implications both for U.S. policy and the EV maker’s shares—and that’s just for starters. 

A remarkable public split between Trump and Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth, whose money helped elect the president to a second term, appears to be unfolding in real time, with the men using the media to take swings at each other.

Musk, who only recently left his role in Trump’s administration after spinning up the Department of Government Efficiency, soon turned unreservedly critical of a taxation-and-spending bill backed by Trump and now working its way through Congress. The bill, Musk says, doesn’t do enough to contain government spending, and he has urged Congress to “kill” it. 

“Ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk wrote earlier today on X, the social network he owns. “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that [is] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!” (The reference to the bill’s size and beauty is a nod to Trump’s preference that it be called the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”)

Trump, meanwhile, at the White House suggested that Musk’s opposition was linked to his own business interests—in doing so perhaps offering a reminder of the influence politicians can have on companies’ fortunes—and wrote on Truth Social that the billionaire had been “wearing thin.”

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives on CNBC Thursday wondered whether the fracture might create a regulatory overhang for Musk as Tesla seeks to broaden its next-generation businesses, autonomous vehicles among them. Trump later wrote on the social media platform Truth Social that “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”

“Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” Trump said in the White House Thursday. “He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re gonna have to cut the EV mandate.” (“This bill was never shown to me even once,” Musk replied on X.)

Their back-and-forth raises inevitable questions about political power and the possible redrawing of lines around policy in Washington, but there’s also the matter of shares of Tesla, which have dropped substantially as Musk and Trump have exchanged words. “All this can’t be good for shareholders,” Gerber Kawasaki CEO Ross Gerber wrote on X.

“Does Trump now not start to play nice in the sandbox with Musk?” asked Ives on CNBC. “Does this beef between Musk and Trump actually continue to increase—and then the positive things you expected from an autonomous perspective, and regulatory, now that’s off the table because of what’s happening here.”

Musk’s move away from Washington work was seen partly as evidence that he might spend more time working at Tesla, to say nothing of his other businesses, but his attention appears divided.

The same could be said for him and Trump.

“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said Thursday. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk posted a short while later.

This article has been updated since it was first published to incorporate Trump’s Truth Social posts.