Donald Trump has revealed his true feelings about Elon Musk amid an increasingly public feud between the once-close allies.
Musk played a significant role in Trump’s second presidential campaign last year, even going so far as to claim that Trump wouldn’t have defeated Kamala Harris without his support.
As president, Trump appointed the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a newly formed agency tasked with cutting unnecessary federal spending.
However, the relationship has since deteriorated, with Musk stepping down from his role and tensions between the two escalating.
The pair’s feud seemingly stems from differing views over Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, with Musk dubbing it an ‘abomination’ and accusing the proposed legislation of undoing all the work he did at DOGE.
Musk was a key member of the Trump administration (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Dismissing that suggestion, Trump said he was ‘disappointed’ in the tech mogul and insisted that Musk knew the ins-and-outs of the bill before he left DOGE.
Musk later took to Twitter alleging that the president is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files in since-deleted tweets, which led to the White House stating the whole palaver was an ‘unfortunate episode from Elon’.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” Musk alleged on social media. “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
Musk added in a follow-up tweet: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Musk has since spoken out after making the controversial comments, and it appears the billionaire has some regrets about making them.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been involved in a bitter feud (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk wrote on Twitter today (June 11).
While many would expect that relationship to now over, Trump has indicated it may not be the end for himself and his former ‘first buddy’.
“Look, I have no hard feelings. I was really surprised that that happened… I think he feels very badly that he said that, actually,” the president said on the Pod Force One podcast with New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.
Trump continued: “I guess I could [patch things up with him] but we have to straighten out the country. And my sole function now is getting this country back to a level higher than it’s ever been. And I think we can do that.”
When asked previously whether he believed the relationship was over, Trump told press in the Oval Office: “I would assume so, yeah. I’m too busy doing other things.”
