In a deepening public feud, Elon Musk has fired back at President Donald Trump’s assertion that his companies will continue to enjoy federal subsidies, with the tech billionaire stating unequivocally that these incentives have already been scrapped.
This latest war of words marks a further deterioration in the relationship between the two powerful figures, a relationship that has devolved from a close alliance into open hostility in a matter of weeks.
President Donald Trump, speaking on Thursday, suggested he would not touch the federal subsidies benefiting Elon Musk’s companies, stating his desire for Musk to continue to prosper. Musk, however, immediately took to the social media platform X to offer a starkly different reality.
“The ‘subsidies’ he’s talking about simply do not exist,” Musk wrote in a post on the same day. He argued that the Trump administration has already “scrapped or slapped expiry dates on every clean energy incentive while leaving massive oil & gas subsidies untouched.”
The “subsidies” he’s talking about simply do not exist.
DJT has already removed or put an expiry date on all sustainable energy support while leaving massive oil & gas subsidies untouched.
SpaceX won the NASA contracts by doing a better job for less money. Moving those
Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, is already feeling the impact of these policy changes. During its earnings call on Wednesday, the company acknowledged that the removal of the $7,500 EV tax credit under President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” would affect its US sales.
On Wednesday’s earnings call, Vaibhav Taneja, Tesla’s chief financial officer, described the “abrupt change” as a key reason why the company now has a “limited supply of vehicles in the US this quarter.”
Regarding his aerospace company, SpaceX, Musk asserted in his X post on Thursday that it wins federal contracts purely on merit.
He stated that his rocket company is “doing a better job for less money.” He further argued that rerouting SpaceX’s work to “other aerospace companies would leave astronauts stranded and taxpayers on the hook for twice as much.”
The White House, Tesla, and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider on this latest exchange.
From bromance to blowup
This public sparring is a dramatic reversal from just a few months ago. Musk had been a prominent backer of President Trump during last year’s presidential campaign, reportedly spending at least $277 million to support Trump and other GOP candidates in the 2024 elections.
He enjoyed a close relationship with the President, who, shortly after his victory in November, appointed Musk to head the White House “DOGE” office, a body tasked with leading the administration’s cost-cutting efforts.
That was then. The relationship began to publicly fracture on June 5, when Musk launched a blistering attack on President Trump’s signature tax bill in an X post, labeling it a “MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK.”
In the same post, he also appeared to claim credit for Trump’s victory in the election, writing, “Such ingratitude.”
The response from the President was swift and severe. Hours later, Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts in a Truth Social post, framing it as the “easiest way to save money in our Budget.”
This drew a tit-for-tat response from Musk, who threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which is used for NASA missions, before quickly walking back the comment.
A few days later, Musk appeared to express some regret over the escalating feud, stating that some of his posts about Trump “went too far.” However, any détente was short-lived.
On July 1, President Trump suggested that the DOGE office should take a “good, hard, look” at Musk’s own companies. This came after Musk announced he would start a new political party and would work to defeat GOP politicians who had voted for Trump’s tax bill.
“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.”
Musk responded with a direct challenge to the President to follow through on his threat: “I am literally saying CUT IT ALL. Now.”
The markets have not been as confident as Musk. Tesla’s stock fell by 5% after Trump’s post on July 1 and is down by over 24% year to date.
According to an analysis published by The Washington Post in February, Musk’s business empire has received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the last 20 years.
On Wednesday’s earnings call, Musk himself acknowledged the challenging road ahead for Tesla. He told investors that the company is entering a “weird transition period where we will lose a lot of incentives in the US.”
“Does that mean like we could have a few rough quarters? Yeah, we probably could have a few rough quarters,” Musk conceded.
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