President Donald Trump signaled his relationship with Elon Musk, once one of his closest advisers, was badly damaged as a result of the Tesla CEO’s criticism of the reconciliation bill.
“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump told reporters during a bilateral meeting with the chancellor of Germany in the Oval Office. “I don’t know that we will anymore.”
Days after leaving his role in government, Musk has come out forcefully against the “one big, beautiful bill,” the vehicle by which the Trump administration is attempting to score a number of legislative victories.
Musk has singled out the impact of the reconciliation package on the national debt as his primary concern with the sweeping package. The CBO estimates that it would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit.
In a Wednesday post on X, Musk called for the bill to be killed and urged his followers to call their elected officials to express concerns.
“A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk said in a separate post.
But Trump told reporters he thinks it’s the repeal of electric vehicle credits that have set Musk on edge — the credit, which incentivizes customers to purchase EVs, could be a hit to Musk’s company Tesla.
“I’m very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people,” Trump said. “He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars. And it really is unfair.”
Musk almost immediately contradicted the president and said no one showed him the bill in advance of its passage.
“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,” he wrote in an X post as Trump was still speaking.
Just before Musk’s departure from government, there was more heartburn when his preferred pick to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, had his nomination pulled reportedly at the recommendation of other White House officials.
“I can understand why he is upset,” Trump said of the fracas over Isaacman’s nomination.
He also recalled a particular moment of disagreement between the pair over Musk’s appearance. “You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk, and even with a black eye.”
Musk showed up to his Oval Office appearance last Friday with a bruised eye, an injury he ascribed to roughhousing with his son.
“I said, ‘Do you want make up? We will get you make up.’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ which is interesting,” Trump continued.
To this point, the administration has publicly maintained indifference to comments from Musk. “Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” press secretaryb Karoline Leavitt said in response to questions about Musk’s comments during her media briefing Tuesday.
But privately, those in Trump’s inner circle have signaled Musk’s comments were getting under the president’s skin. Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly told Republican conference members in a meeting Wednesday morning that Trump was “pissed” about Musk’s comments.
“People leave my administration and they love us, and at some point they miss us so badly,” Trump said, adding later, “He hasn’t said [anything] bad about me personally. But I’m sure that’ll be next. But I’m very disappointed in Elon.”
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.