Trump and Musk feud in real time as bromance implodes in spectacular fashion
A ‘disappointed’ Trump threatened the tycoon’s US contracts, while Musk said the president would have lost the election without him
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Bromance implodes as Trump ‘very disappointed’ by Musk’s bill criticism
Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s unlikely bromance imploded in spectacular fashion on Thursday as the US president and his billionaire former aide tore into each other in a very public, real-time divorce.
Trump said in a televised Oval Office diatribe that he was “very disappointed” with criticisms from his top donor of a “big, beautiful” spending bill before Congress, before threatening to tear up the tycoon’s multibillion-dollar US government contracts.
The South African-born Musk hit back live, saying that the Republican would not have won the 2024 election without him and slamming Trump on social media for “ingratitude”.
As the row got increasingly bitter, Musk also posted that Trump “is in the Epstein files”, referring to US government documents on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial for sex crimes.
Shares in Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle manufacturer plummeted about 15 per cent as the astonishing row escalated – wiping off more than US$100 billion of the company’s value.