Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s relationship has had its highs and lows – and it’s currently certainly at a low point.
When two billionaires, one of whom is the US president and the other owns one of the largest tech companies in the world, are fighting, it has far-reaching effects.
At the moment, Tesla is facing losing billions thanks to President Trump cutting state support for green industries, according to analysis from Sky News.
For his part, Musk is using his social media platform, X, to slam the president, making connections between Trump and the Epstein files – a claim he’s made before.
Here’s a closer look at what went down between the two billionaires and what’s going on between them now.
What happened between Elon Musk and Donald Trump?
While more recently the world has been used to Musk and Trump getting along, that wasn’t always the case.
Back in 2022, Trump referred to Musk as a ‘bulls*** artist’, while Musk initially backed Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential election.
However, the two would eventually unite for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, with the tech billionaire backing the president publicly.
His public endorsement came after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.
As well as making public appearances and posting on X, Musk donated $288 million to Trump’s campaign.
This would result in Musk stepping into the White House in the newly-made Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Musk was charged with making the government more efficient, which would eventually lead to widespread layoffs across the government – and the infamous ‘justify your job’ email.
Serving as a special government employee, Musk was only set to work in government for 130 days – which would take him to April 15. However, it would come crashing down just before that.
On May 27, Musk criticised Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, which included provisions on tax cuts, immigration enforcement, and healthcare. The tech billionaire argued that the bill would increase the deficit and underdo much of DOGE's work.
On Truth Social on June 5, Trump said that Musk’s withdrawal of support stemmed from disagreements about the "EV Mandate", going on to threaten to take away Musk’s government contracts.
This led Musk to allege that Trump was included in the Epstein Files later the same day, followed by a call for Trump to be impeached a few days later.
The posts were the beginning of weeks’ worth of back-and-forth sniping on the two men’s respective social media platforms.
While there was a brief period of peace between June 9 and 11, in the wake of the protests in LA, Musk renewed his attacks on Trump’s bill on June 28.
Writing on X, he said: "The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country," and that it would be "political suicide for the Republican Party."
On July 17, Musk reiterated his allegations that Trump is included in the Epstein files in a flurry of messages on X, confirming that things are still tense between the two billionaires.
