A heated debate and mutual criticism between Trump and Musk

 

Donald Trump and Elon Musk exchanged barbs on Thursday, days after the latter left office. The US president expressed "deep dissatisfaction" with his former ally's comments regarding the massive budget bill, and the world's richest man responded by saying that the Republican would have lost the presidential election without his support. Musk had denounced the massive budget bill that Trump is seeking to pass in Congress on Tuesday. In his first comment on the matter, Trump criticized the owner of SpaceX and Tesla when he received German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House. "Elon and I have had a great relationship. I don't know if it will continue," he told reporters in the Oval Office. "I was surprised" by Musk's criticism days after he left his position as head of the US president's government efficiency agency. "I was very disappointed, because Musk knew the ins and outs of this bill better than anyone else." "Those sitting here... suddenly he has a problem." Minutes later, Musk responded on his X platform, describing the 78-year-old president's statements about his knowledge of the bill's fine print as "wrong." The X owner attached a video of Trump saying Musk was upset about the loss of electric vehicle subsidies, with the word "wrong." Shortly after, the tech mogul escalated his rhetoric toward the US president, claiming he would have lost the November 2024 election without his support. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election. What disloyalty," Musk wrote. Tesla, the electric car company owned by Musk, suffered massive losses on Wall Street on Thursday due to the controversy. At approximately 7:05 PM GMT, the company's share price had fallen to $285.41, a loss of 14.04 percent, wiping more than $140 billion off its market value. The public spat comes less than a week after Trump held a farewell party for Musk in the Oval Office with Musk's term as director of the Efficiency and Resilience Commission, which is tasked with cutting federal spending, has ended. Tensions escalated between Trump and Musk after the latter denounced the budget proposal. Trump said he could understand why Musk was upset with some of his actions, including withdrawing his nominee to lead NASA. Trump describes the budget proposal as "big and beautiful," but Musk on Wednesday called it "huge and outrageous" and a "disgusting abomination." Amid the controversy, Trump threatened to cancel massive government contracts awarded to Musk, including for rocket launches and the use of the Starlink satellite service. US media reported the contracts were worth $18 billion. In response, Musk said his company, SpaceX, would begin "retiring" its Dragon spacecraft, which is vital for transporting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. "In light of the president's statement about canceling my government contracts, SpaceX will begin retiring the Dragon spacecraft immediately," Musk wrote in a post on Twitter.