President Donald Trump said Thursday he’s “disappointed” with Elon Musk after his former backer and advisor lambasted the president’s signature bill. It's now creating a war of words between the two former White House cohorts.
Trump suggested the world’s richest man misses being in the White House and has “Trump derangement syndrome.”
The Republican president reflected on his breakup with Musk in front of reporters in the Oval Office as Musk continued a storm of social media posts attacking Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and warning it will increase the federal deficit.
“I’m very disappointed in Elon," Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Musk has called Trump’s big tax break bill a “disgusting abomination.” Trump added Thursday that Musk "knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody," and only developed a problem with it after discovering cuts to EV mandates. Musk is the co-founder and CEO of the electric car giant Tesla.
The billionaire responded swiftly to the president’s criticism on X, his social media platform.
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“Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill,” Musk wrote. “Slim and beautiful is the way.”
He said it was “very unfair” that electric vehicle incentives were being cut while fossil fuel subsidies are left intact.
Musk also rejected Trump’s statement that he was aware of what the legislation would look like.
“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!”
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