“I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem,” Trump told CNN on Friday.
When asked if he had a phone conversation with the Tesla CEO, who left the Trump administration last week, Trump said, “No. I won’t be speaking to him for a while I guess, but I wish him well.”
The Feb. 5 feud began with Trump reacting to Musk’s opposition to the House GOP bill that would make the 2017 tax cuts permanent and includes provisions related to American energy and securing the border. It would also lift the debt ceiling by $4 trillion and repeal the $7,500 EV tax credit.
“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” he said in the Oval Office, sitting next to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Musk said that Trump would not have won the presidency and the GOP would not have captured the House had it not been for the entrepreneur’s efforts, worth $300 million. He also said that the GOP would only control the Senate with 51 seats and not 53 had it not been for him.
Trump said Musk “knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here.” Musk denied that and said he was never shown a copy of the bill despite it being publicly available.
“False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” Musk said in a social media post.
The president said that Musk is upset that the EV credit would be repealed in the bill, thereby negatively affecting Tesla. Musk denied this and said he would not mind the mandate being eliminated.
“Whatever,” he said in a post. “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”Trump also said Musk was upset at him withdrawing Jared Isaacman’s nomination to lead NASA. Musk supported Isaacman.
The president called for the elimination of government subsidies for Musk’s companies.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
