Musk declares war on Trump as split over ‘big, beautiful’ bill gets personal

A stunning day of insults traded between two of the world’s most powerful men followed the public division between Musk, formerly head of the DOGE initiative, and the president who saw the Tesla chief off with an Oval Office goodbye just one week ago.

As the tweets and posts kept coming, stunned watchers from across the political spectrum were breaking out the popcorn. By the end of the afternoon, the pair’s myriad assortment of friends and political allies were desperately (and publicly) calling for a truce.

It may already be too late.

Elon Musk, known for his ability to dial every interpersonal conflict up to 100 at the drop of a hat, did so on Thursday. In multiple tweets, he insinuated that the US president was in the “Epstein Files” — the so-called investigation into sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan detention center. That was the reason, Musk said, the unredacted investigation into Epstein’s death was not released, and for so many questions remaining about the wealthy pedophile and the activities he and his network of influential friends got up to.

Musk sent more than 50 in total throughout Thursday. In one, he acknowledged that Trump’s tariffs were projected by some economists to have put the US on course for a recession by the end of the year. In another, he groused that Trump was “ungrateful” for his help in winning the 2024 election.

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By the end of the day, it was clear that Musk had blown far past the point of retaining any allies in the Republican caucuses on Capitol Hill. His rapid descent into personal attacks and insinuations of darker conspiracies afoot was sure to lose even the unhappiest critics of the “one big, beautiful bill” who were originally thrilled to see Elon in their camp.

Especially after Musk responded “yes” to a tweet from Malaysian Twitter troll and political commentator Ian Miles Cheong, stating that Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should take over.

Trump, for his part, fired back occasionally but was clearly satisfied to sit back and watch the world’s richest man spin out. Declining to address any of his former ally’s insinuations, Trump wrote: “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.”

Musk may have unknowingly ceded ground in the dispute by devolving into personal attacks — particularly one most frequently uttered by left-leaning critics of the president on Twitter. It was hard to see the feud as anything but the result of bruised egos: at one point, Musk posted a “raised-eyebrow” emoji in a quote tweet of grainy, years-old MSNBC footage showing Morning Joe discussing Trump appearing on camera at a party with the disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker.

Whatever the case, the bromance between Trump and Musk is now officially over and would take a miracle — or a rewriting of immediate history — to repair.

Don’t expect to hear the word “DOGE” out of Trump’s mouth any time soon. This feud is likely to get worse before it gets better, as there are few men the two respect sufficiently who could moderate efforts to repair the growing rift.

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Instead, this is likely to be the end of Elon Musk’s politicking for the Republican Party.

Already publicly having committed to taking a step back, Musk comes out of the first half of 2025 having been burned in ways that few people in human history can really say they’ve experienced. After spending a record sum to elect Trump and Republicans in 2024, Musk devoted significant time and energy to DOGE, only to see the results loudly denounced by vast swaths of the electorate and torn apart by the press.

His personal brand, and that of his company, were tied to the effort only to see his reputation torn to shreds, Tesla’s profits plummet, and his relationship with the president end in tragedy.

In a way, the real winner of Thursday’s social media brawl was Mike Johnson. The Speaker of the House just watched someone who was poised to become the biggest obstacle to further progress on the budget reconciliation plan seemingly self-destruct in record time.

There are many still publicly hoping that the bill will undergo changes in the Senate. Some want to divide it up, while several members of the House Freedom Caucus have lamented that more cuts to Medicaid and other programs were not included.

“I'm all in for more cuts to the bill. It's big, but it's not beautiful yet,” wrote Rep. Andy Ogles in an X post Thursday morning, which would be reposted by Musk.

By the end of the day, Ogles was trying to put lipstick on a pig.

“Some are focused on the big beautiful brawl — but everyone in Congress should be focused on making the Big Beautiful Bill better,” he wrote later in the day.

If Musk doesn’t reverse course over the next few hours or days, the conservative holdouts against the “big, beautiful bill” in the House and Senate may see much of their political cover evaporate.