Musk vs. Trump: A power couple tumbles into a messy divorce
AnalysisAlexander Panetta
| CBC News | Posted: June 5, 2025 7:29 PM | Last Updated: June
6
As feud erupts into the open, president threatens former ally;
Musk appears to call for impeachment
Media | Threats, insults as Trump-Musk feud explodes into
public view
Caption: U.S. President Donald Trump’s feud with the world’s
richest man, Elon Musk, has exploded into public view as the
two trade threats and insults on social media. Trump accused
Musk of going ‘crazy,’ while Musk alleged Trump is ‘in the
Epstein files.’
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It's splitsville for a global power couple. Donald Trump and
Elon Musk are tumbling into a messy public divorce, with
unusual political fallout.
Tension between the erstwhile Oval Office buds bubbled into
open view Thursday, as they exchanged digs in public and on
their own social media sites.
It got ugly, quickly. Within hours, Musk appeared to call for
Trump's impeachment. Meanwhile, Tesla stock had plunged, as the
market feared the president might punish Musk businesses.
The official cause of the breakup between the world's most
powerful elected politician and its richest man was the hefty
U.S. federal budget deficit.
Musk has been disparaging the president's signature budget bill
since leaving his government role last week, fuming recently
that the legislation will plunge the U.S. deeper into its debt
hole. He called it "a disgusting abomination."
Image | 2176089209
Caption: Trump and Musk in happier times: Here the billionaire
jumps on stage in celebration at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa.,
months after Trump had survived an assassination attempt there.
(Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
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Trump's reply: Musk is just bitter. He suggests Musk is unhappy
with parts of the bill that hurt his electric-vehicle business.
He also suggests the Tesla billionaire misses the action in the
White House.
And because this is Donald Trump's Washington, the chancellor
of Germany happened to be seated in the room, witness to one
side of the feud.
"Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will
anymore," Trump told reporters during a lengthy photo op
Thursday in the Oval Office with Friedrich Merz.
"He's not the first. People leave my administration and they
love us. And then at some point, they miss it so badly.... I
don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump Derangement Syndrome,
I guess they call it," he said.
"They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour's
gone, the whole world is different — and they become hostile. I
don't know what it is."
Image | Trump
Caption: Trump even held an event to support Tesla for Musk,
speaking to reporters as he picked out a model for himself at
the White House in March. (The Associated Press)
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It degenerated from there.
Trump continued the dispute on his own social-media site. On
Thursday afternoon, he posted on his social-media platform Musk
was "wearing thin," and suggested he'd fired him.
"I asked him to leave," Trump wrote on Truth Social, to which
Musk responded on X, formerly Twitter, "Such an obvious lie. So
sad."
The president also uttered a thinly veiled threat: Trump wrote
that one easy way to trim the federal budget is to cancel
government contracts with Musk's companies, worth billions. "I
was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" Tesla stock
plunged abruptly, dropping 14 per cent within a couple of
hours.
'Without me, Trump would have lost'
Musk, meanwhile, has been using X, the enormous online
megaphone he owns, to rail at the administration.
He's disputing that his own business interests soured him on
the budget bill. The legislation, which has passed the House
but faces an uncertain path in the Senate, eliminates an EV tax
credit.
And he's demanding a little more gratitude after he dumped the
equivalent of nearly $400 million Cdn into electing Trump and
his allies.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election," Musk posted
Thursday on X. "[Democrats] would control the House and the
Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate."
He later replied, "Yes," to a tweet calling for Trump's
impeachment. Musk also predicted Trump's tariffs will cause a
recession.
Embed | Twitter
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And in an eye-poppingly personal string of tweets, Musk
referred several times to Trump's encounters with the late
sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, offering no evidence or detail
to buttress his ominous insinuations.
Hints of trouble in political paradise
It's an abrupt plot twist: The pair were all smiles and praise
for each other just last week, as Musk announced his departure
from Washington.
But there were hints of trouble in political paradise.
There were occasional reports of blowups between Musk and other
members of the administration, and the New York Times reported
that sources were concerned about Musk's frequent use of
different drugs, including, allegedly, so much ketamine that it
was affecting his bladder. Musk denied it.
WATCH | Musk's time in the Trump administration comes to an
end:
Media Video | The National : Elon Musk gets Oval Office
send-off from Trump
Caption: U.S. President Donald Trump lauded billionaire Elon
Musk’s time heading the Department of Government Efficiency
during an event marking the end of Musk’s controversial tenure
in the Trump administration.
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Now Musk has gone from White House consigliere to chief heckler
in under a week — a speed record even for D.C.
As is custom in Trump-era Washington, the human-resources
gossip risks overshadowing the substantive challenges of the
U.S. government.
With American debt levels ballooning, and the cost of servicing
the $36 trillion national debt recently outpacing even military
spending, Musk was tasked with controlling finances.
He slashed countless offices, programs, research initiatives,
and even the entire agency that oversaw U.S. international aid.
Still, it put only a modest dent in federal spending. Musk's
DOGE project has eliminated an estimated $170 billion US, less
than one-10th of the annual budget deficit.
Image | USA-TRUMP/SEC
Caption: Elon Musk holds a chainsaw onstage in February as he
attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in
Maryland. For a time, the billionaire helped the Trump
administration make deep cuts to the public service. (Nathan
Howard/Reuters)
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Musk's uncertain legacy in government
If anything, the initiative demonstrated that actually halting
the growth of the national debt would require real sacrifices
from Americans: Either popular programs get cut or taxes go up.
Even if Musk had eliminated all U.S. foreign aid, he could do
it 25 times over, and the U.S. would still have a deficit, and
the debt would keep growing. That's because the vast majority
of U.S. federal spending is on pensions, the military, public
health, income support, and paying past debt.
But some of Musk's critics say his legacy in government can't
be counted solely in terms of public finances.
The co-author of a report titled Corruption In Plain Sight said
at least 32 federal investigations into Musk companies might
have vanished during his months in politics — in part, because
the investigating agencies were defunded or the investigators
were fired.
"Musk's legacy under DOGE is something that has benefited him,
largely," said Margaret Poydock of the Economic Policy
Institute, a group focused on fighting inequality that's funded
mostly by union or left-of-centre donors.
She cited several examples, like the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance Programs, which screens federal contractors for
workplace bias and racial discrimination, and can fine and
punish offenders.
It was auditing Tesla, but it was gutted quickly after Trump's
inauguration. The U.S. Agency for International Development,
meanwhile, had been investigating Musk's company Starlink over
its service of satellites supplied to Ukraine; he eliminated
the agency.
"I think that's pretty egregious," Poydock said.
Thursday's stock-market plunge, however, illustrated Musk's
dalliance with politics also included downside risks. Unlike
some relationships with Donald Trump, this one didn't come with
a prenup.
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