The battle of the billionaires has begun. It’s Elon musk versus Donald Trump. The world’s richest man versus arguably the most powerful.
The feud’s flashpoint is a law called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”. It’s Trump’s signature budget bill and it’s poised to cut taxes, mostly for just extremely wealthy Americans. The bill is expected to increase the US budget deficit by $2.4 trillion. The bill has cleared the US House of Representatives. That’s their lower house of parliament. It now awaits passage in the upper house, or Senate.
But Tesla tycoon Elon Musk doesn’t want it to go through. On Tuesday, just days after parting ways with the White House, he broke his silence. Musk called the bill “a disgusting abomination”. This was the first salvo, and the trump administration tried to downplay it. But then trump was asked about musk during an oval office press conference. Trump started off gentle enough, but he isn’t really known for letting things slide. Things began to unravel soon enough. Trump accused Musk of being angry over the removal of an electric vehicle subsidy.
Americans receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying an electric vehicle. That means they can lower their final tax bill by $7,500. It’s an incentive to encourage EV adoption. Elon Musk has benefited from the tax credit, because it has spurred the sale of Tesla cars. So, Trump implied that Musk was upset because the “Big Beautiful Bill” was going to eliminate subsidies for EV purchases. Musk shot back in real time. He put up this post on his social media platform X. Musk told Trump to cut EV subsidies, but also gut all the other budget ballooning “PORK”. Pork here refers to wasteful government expenditure with no long-term benefits. Musk says the "Big Beautiful Bill" is full of this metaphorical pork. That is why he says he’s opposed to the bill.
It was still an ideological spat over the budget, until Musk made things personal. Musk eventually put up a post highlighting the fact that he had poured around $300 million of his own money into Trump’s election campaign. He could do this because the US has very shoddy election funding laws. Musk openly bragged about how he personally swung the election in Trump’s favour, and said that Trump was now being an ingrate. Trump wouldn't have liked that. After all, he likes to claim victory even when he loses an election. So, Musk taking all the credit may not have gone down well with the US president.
Trump put up a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, saying that the easiest way to save money was to terminate Musk's government subsidies and contracts. It looked like a threat, and Musk didn’t take kindly to that.
Musk put out a tweet saying he would begin decommissioning the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The US space agency NASA relies on the SpaceX Dragon to transport astronauts between the Earth and the International Space Station. Musk effectively told Trump that any move against SpaceX would lead to consequences. NASA and the US Defense Department have multiple contracts with SpaceX. Since SpaceX is a private company, and the government contracts often have a national security angle, the exact values of the contracts and subsidies aren’t publicly available. But they’re estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars at the very least. So, both Trump and Musk have levers to pull when it comes to SpaceX.
Space is already a point of contention between Musk and Trump. On Sunday, Trump had rejected the candidate Musk had backed to head NASA. Trump also mentioned this as a possible reason for Musk having turned against him. So, Trump had rejected Musk’s pick for NASA. He then threatened to terminate SpaceX government contracts. And Musk said he would decommission the SpaceX Dragon capsule, which would mean even less business for him. Musk may have been feeling the heat from the impending loss of money and influence, because he then went for the nuclear option.
Musk put up a tweet reminding the world of Trump’s connection to the convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Trump was a known associate of Epstein. There are videos of them partying together in the 1990s. But there is no proof that Trump was part of Epstein’s child prostitution ring. Epstein died in prison in 2019, and it was ruled a suicide by hanging. This was during Trump’s first term as US president. The Trump administration had released some documents related to Epstein in February, but they were heavily redacted. Musk now claims the files were not released in their entirety because Trump was in the files.
Musk has his own Epstein controversy. In 2014, he was photographed at a party with Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was Epstein’s accomplice, and in 2021, she was convicted of procuring underage girls for him to abuse. Musk has always maintained that he didn’t know Maxwell, and she had “photobombed” him during that party.
Either way, after hours of the social media mudslinging fest, it seems Musk calmed down. He first put out a tweet saying the wouldn’t decommission the SpaceX Dragon capsule. Then he agreed with a post calling for him to make peace with Trump. So, after implying that Trump's a pedophile, it seems Musk might be willing to extend an olive branch. The question is, will Trump take it?
