Trump Not Interested in Mending Relationship With Musk

President Donald Trump confirmed this weekend that his once-close relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk is now over.

“I would assume so, yeah,” Trump told NBC News on Saturday, when asked if their alliance had come to an end. When pressed on whether he had any interest in repairing the relationship, the president simply answered, “No.”

Trump also issued a stark warning to Musk during the interview, saying the SpaceX and Tesla CEO would “pay the consequences” if he decided to fund Democratic candidates in the upcoming election cycle. “If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump said. “He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that.”

The president added that, although he technically has the authority to revoke Musk’s federal contracts, “I haven’t given it any thought.”

These remarks followed a week of intensifying conflict between the two men. Musk, who had once praised Trump and reportedly played a quiet advisory role early in his presidency, launched into a public tirade against Trump’s domestic policy agenda on social media. On his platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk called Trump’s legislative proposal “a disgusting abomination.”

He even suggested that Trump should be impeached and replaced by his vice president, JD Vance, a proposal Vance dismissed with incredulity.

“The idea that … the president should be impeached — I’m sorry, it’s insane,” Vance said during a podcast taping with comedian Theo Von in Nashville, which was released Saturday.

Vance avoided attacking Musk directly, saying, “My loyalties are always going to be with the president, and I think that Elon, he’s an incredible entrepreneur. I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now, because he’s gone so nuclear.”

Vance acknowledged Musk’s frustration with the Washington political process, saying: “It’s a good bill. It’s not a perfect bill. Like, the process of DC — if you’re a business leader, you probably get frustrated with that process because it’s more, you know, bureaucratic, it’s more slow-moving.”

Meanwhile, Musk appears to have backtracked on several of his more incendiary claims. Numerous posts targeting Trump, including accusations that the president is mentioned in the “Epstein files,” a call to “mark this post for the future,” and a threat to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, were quietly deleted from his X account. Musk also erased the post where he claimed Trump misrepresented his opposition to the domestic policy bill.

However, some of Musk’s criticisms remain online. He did not delete a post arguing that Trump’s proposed tariffs would drive the U.S. into recession during the second half of the year. Another post claiming Trump wouldn’t have won the presidency without Musk’s backing is still visible.

As the fallout continued, The New York Times reported that President Trump has taken a symbolic step in severing ties with Musk: he has decided to sell his bright red Tesla, which he acquired in March and typically kept parked on West Executive Avenue near the White House. According to a White House official, the car will soon be put up for sale.