The Trump Musk differences over the former’s Big Beautiful Bill – BBB – has imploded into a full scale war between the world’s most powerful man Trump and the world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk who has threatened he will unseat senators who support the legislation and the Trump has threatened to cut subsidies on government contracts to Musk totalling over $38 billion.
Both men have a lot to lose if the public spat does not end immediately and a meeting is expected between the two shortly, though White House denied anything was in the offing.
The outcome will show whether Power buys money or Money buys power. Trump’s BBB puts a hole in the government’s budget with a deficit of over $2.7 trillion in a decade which has severely angered Musk who was tasked with cutting government spend which he could only partially with a spent of $135 billion to effect savings of $175 billion sacking tens of thousands’ of government employees from jobs considered redundant.
As chief admin of DOGE Musk promised to save $2 trillion for the government and revised it to $1 trillion and when he left after 130 days of hard work, could achieve only a fraction of the pledge.
Trump’s tax cuts offer $400,000 in savings to the extra rich billionaires starting with those earning $4 million a year and torpedoes all the gains achieved by Musk. Musk has felt frustrated that DOGE attempts have gone to waste and Trump is livid with Musk’s public comment that the BBB is a “disgusting abomination.”
The public feud — X vs Truth Social — and implosion is having an effect on the GOP with none of them wanting to get into their crosshairs for fear of losing their seats in their constituents. Either, which way their seats are in danger particularly of Congressmen who voted for the bill with democrats crying foul or Musk threatening to unseat them in the 2026 November midterm elections.
The differences between the two former buddies is taking a dramatic twist threatening the survival of the GOP in the next elections as Republicans might lose the house to democrats going for their jugular over Medicaid and Medicare cuts and eliminating 8.6 million from health care net.
GOP lawmakers and operatives said Republicans should be scared of getting crosswise with either Trump or Musk — a tough task when they’re fighting each other.
Trump and Musk go ‘for the jugular’ as they exchange escalating attacks on social media
The romance may be dead, but Republicans worry that an escalating feud between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk could live on, leaving collateral damage in its wake for weeks, months or even years, GOP leaders fear.
At the centre piece of the Towering Inferno is the Clash of the Titans over Trump’s agenda, the “big, beautiful bill,” which Musk is trashing publicly and privately. Musk has threatened to spend millions to kill the legislation and oust Republican lawmakers who vote for it.
“He does not give a f— about Republicans or the RNC, or House seats, or whatever,” a Musk adviser said Thursday in the middle of a social media war between Trump and Musk, who had never aligned with the Republican Party until the last few years. The adviser pleading anonymity to speak candidly about the blow-up commented: “He (Musk) will blow them up; he will. … I mean, we already know Republicans are going to lose the House. (November 2026 midterm elections) Senate will likely be fine, but Elon does not give a s— about that party stuff.”
Republican lawmakers care a lot — especially when it comes to their own congressional seats and chairmanships, which could be in jeopardy if Musk tried to oust them from power in next year’s midterm elections.
Interviews with GOP lawmakers and operatives suggest Republicans should be scared of getting crosswise with either Trump or Musk — a tough task when they are slinging mud, insults and threats at each other. In short, other Republicans are like the kids caught between parents in the midst of a possibly brutal divorce.
“I’m staying out of it,” said Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a competitive Nebraska district. “There’s a good verse in Proverbs: ‘Stay out of fights.’ I’m staying out of this one.” But Trump allies are taking shots at Musk for his comments about Trump and even encouraging Trump to take action against him.
“People including myself are recommending to the president that he pull every contract associated with Elon Musk and that major investigations start immediately,” said Steve Bannon, a White House adviser in Trump’s first term and a frequent critic of Musk.
Bannon, who was jailed last year by the courts for instigating the riots on January 06 at the Capitol after Trump went ballistic calling the 2020 elections a fraud on the public as it was allegedly rigged, said, the South African-born Musk’s immigration status, security clearance, reported drug abuse (tryst with the dangerous anaesthetic Ketamine) , relationship with China and “involvement with attempting to get President Xi to the inauguration” should all receive scrutiny.
Getting nastier by the minute
Sounds more like a Hollywood White House drama or caper, the Trump-Musk buddy-tripping , how long can the world’s most powerful man and its wealthiest man pretend that they aren’t in competition? But few in Washington could have predicted that the resulting inferno would consume their professional and personal relationships so quickly.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2025
By Thursday afternoon, Musk was reposting a suggestion that Trump should be impeached. In the hours before that, Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Musk for turning on his signature legislation, which would cut taxes by $3.7 trillion over a decade and slash government spending by $1.3 trillion — leaving a $2.4 trillion deficit — over the same period.
Musk and his allies bristled at the suggestion by Trump and White House officials that he was angry because the bill would kill tax benefits for electric vehicles, like those made by Musk’s Tesla Company. With Musk leaving from TESLA to handle DOGE, profits at the EV making company plummeted, net worth of TESLA took a nosedive in the stock markets with the tariff’ wars, and FY Quarter result showed a nasty dip of 71% loss in profit earnings.
While shareholders put pressure on Musk to abandon DOGE and return to TESLA, Musk was angered that DOGE was achieving neither results nor was TESLA by association with the President. As he went public with his frustration, Trump said he was disappointed and would consider cutting contracts to Space X. Space X is a closely held company and is not listed on the public stock exchanges.
Many of the contracts come under national security considerations and it would be like “Cutting the Nose to Spite the Face”. Any cuts to Space X would be self-defeating for the government considering it is in close race with NASA and is showing an edge.
Musk spent $288 million in the 2024 elections, mostly to help elect Trump, according to campaign finance records, and Trump rewarded him with a high-profile post as the face of the new Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE. The role positioned Musk as the avatar of a push to cut the size and scope of the federal government — a role that turned him into a controversial figure as he appeared to revel in firing workers and closing agencies.
At one point, Musk wielded a fake chainsaw on a stage to illustrate his post as cutter-in-chief to the utter disgust of the nation. Last week marked the end of that period when the two men held a friendly Oval Office news conference to announce Musk’s departure from the government.
But now, Trump says Musk was “wearing thin” as a special government employee and the featured player at DOGE. Trump said Thursday on Truth Social that the easiest way to cut more government spending would be to cancel federal subsidies for Musk’s business ventures.
Musk fired back by picking at a scab involving the Trump administration’s withholding of some documents from its hyped release of records pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein, a one time associate of powerful figures — including Trump — who died in prison after being charged with sex-trafficking of minors.
The Trump administration has released some new information from those records, but most of it has already been public. Musk posted that the “Epstein files” include Trump’s name. Trump and Epstein knew each other, and Trump’s name appeared on flight records for Epstein’s plane, but Trump has never been implicated in Epstein’s abuse of underage girls.
Musk also predicted the economy would be in recession by the second half of this year as a result of Trump’s policies.
The Impact of the Fallout
Only a few months back, Musk said he would put $100 million into political committees associated with Trump. That money never came — and now, it won’t, the Musk adviser said.
White House’s ‘No plans’ for a Trump-Musk call to tamp down their feud, White House chief of staff says
In addition, Republicans have to worry that vast sums will be used against them if they vote for Trump’s bill. “It’s gone,” the Musk adviser said of the money once earmarked for Trump’s use. “He’s going to go nuclear. He will support Democrats if needed; he absolutely will.”
Democrats watched Thursday’s contretemps with glee. “This is Christmas,” a Democratic Party operative said in a text message. But even on a more substantive level, it gave some of Trump’s adversaries’ hope that his agenda would sink under the weight of Musk’s threats.
“The most important thing that’s happening here is that Musk is killing this terrible bill. If he’s willing to do that, then welcome,” said Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic operative. “This is doing enormous damage to Donald Trump. There is no version of this that is good for him. There is nothing here positive for Trump. He looks weak and reckless; he can’t control his buddy.”
Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025
History seems to be repeating itself. In the early years of the Biden era, the former president’s BBB – Build Back Better initiative with a $1.7 trillion budget was sunk by Joe Mancin, a fellow democrat from West Virginia, and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer from California who played a definitive role in sinking Joe’s initiatives. Biden agreed to a severe cut in his climate change thrust and the budget was slashed to around $1 trillion which itself was considered huge by GOP leaders. BBB of Biden was sunk; BBB of Trump now faces the same fate from within with rebel hold outs in the senate. “President Trump is the boss, and there can be only one boss. If anything, this deals a blow to the Democrats’ lame attempts to paint the president as a puppet of the world’s richest man,” said an operative, who was given anonymity to speak candidly about the two powerful men. “On the other hand, I could see them both back in the Oval bro-ing it up again in a month, as it may be just the Art of the Deal.”
Some GOP strategists said that the damage could be contained — but that it’s not yet clear whether that will happen. “It depends on how long it goes and how nasty it gets,” said a former Trump campaign adviser who counts congressional candidates among his clients.
Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who chairs the House GOP’s campaign arm and is in charge of protecting Republicans’ three-seat margin in the chamber, said he believes the rift will “blow over.” But asked whether he thought Trump and Musk would make up, he just shrugged his shoulders. As feud explodes into public view, Trump implies government could cut contracts and subsidies to Musk’s companies
The once chummy relationship between the president and the world’s richest businessman has deteriorated into a social media flame war.
President Donald Trump has escalated his sudden rupture with Elon Musk by implying the government could sever ties with the tech titan’s businesses. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social.
Various estimates have been put forward about just how much Musk’s firms, primarily SpaceX and Tesla, benefit from U.S. government contracts and subsidies. The Washington Post has put the figure at $38 billion, with SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell estimating that company alone benefits from $22 billion in federal spending. Reuters has reported that the true figure is classified because of the nature of many of the contracts Musk’s firms are under.
NASA relies on SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The agency’s only other option at the moment is to pay around $90 million for a seat aboard Russia’s Soyuz capsule.
Trump ‘very disappointed’ by Elon Musk’s criticism of GOP spending bill
Later Thursday afternoon, Musk posted that he would begin “decommissioning” SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which regularly flies astronauts and cargo to the ISS, in response to Trump’s threat. NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said the agency “will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space.” “We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met,” she said in a statement on X.
Tesla, meanwhile, has benefited from approximately $11.4 billion in total regulatory credits aimed at boosting electric-vehicle purchases, though that figure also includes state-level subsidies. Musk has claimed he no longer needs the credit, which he says now primarily benefits rival.
Following Trump’s threat, shares in Tesla, which had already fallen 8% on Thursday as the tit-for-tat escalated on social media, declined as much as 15% following Trump’s post. SpaceX is privately held, and its shares do not trade on the open market.
Trump’s warning also raises the spectre that Trump could resurface pending government investigations into Musk’s firms. According to a report in April from Democratic staff of the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Musk’s firms were facing $2.37 billion in potential federal liabilities when Trump took office in January.
Since then, many of those actions have been paused or outright dismissed alongside the rise of the previously Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency, which gutted many of the agencies looking into Musk’s businesses.
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