Elon Musk has been quite outspoken regarding his opinions about Donald Trump.
Once appearing to be close allies, Musk and Trump’s relationship has taken a sharp turn as their once evident camaraderie has ended.
The tension began escalating when SpaceX CEO Musk resigned from the Department of Government Efficiency, commonly known as DOGE, and relations with the president have since deteriorated.
Musk has gone as far as associating Trump with the partially unsealed Jeffrey Epstein files and seemingly advocating for Trump’s impeachment. Here is a summary of Musk’s ongoing criticisms of the president.
In one instance on Twitter, Musk endorsed a user’s suggestion that Trump should be impeached and replaced by his vice president, JD Vance, as the new president.
The tweet said: “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.”
Musk shared this tweet and added ‘yes’ to it.
Supporters of Musk over Trump are now questioning if they can openly criticize the President’s largely unpopular tariff policies following Musk’s departure from the administration.
One user queried: “Can i finally say that trump’s tariffs are super stupid.”
Musk responded: “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year.”
In a significant statement, the Tesla CEO claimed that Trump is mentioned in some of the Jeffrey Epstein files, suggesting that this is why they remain partially undisclosed.
Musk tweeted: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
He further remarked: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Nevertheless, Musk did not provide evidence to back his claim, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the allegations, labeling them an ‘unfortunate episode from Elon’.
Following Trump’s announcement to cancel government contracts with Musk, the SpaceX founder threatened to phase out the Dragon spacecraft, the same shuttle that successfully returned Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station.
Trump stated on Truth Social: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Musk responded on Twitter: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
However, Musk later appeared to withdraw this threat in a Twitter reply, assuring that ‘we won’t decommission Dragon’.
Discussing Musk’s departure from DOGE, Trump accused the tech mogul of ‘wearing thin’ and suggested that he encouraged Musk to step down.
Trump commented on Truth Social: “I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
Musk retorted, calling this an ‘obvious lie’ and characterized Trump’s statements as ‘so sad’.