President Donald Trump has said he is “disappointed” with Elon Musk after the billionaire publicly criticised his signature tax bill.
Mr Trump suggested that his former backer and adviser missed being in government – and has “Trump derangement syndrome”.
He added: “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
On Tuesday, the world’s richest man called the president’s tax and spending bill “outrageous” and a “disgusting abomination” – days after abruptly leaving his position spearheading the Department of Government of Efficiency, known as ‘DOGE’.
The bill, which includes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, was passed by the House Republicans in May, and has been described by the president as a “big, beautiful bill”.
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The tech billionaire attacked the tax cuts on his platform X on Tuesday, writing, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
In American politics, “pork” is a political metaphor used when government spending is allocated to local projects, usually to benefit politicians’ constituencies.
Shortly after the president expressed his disappointment in Musk – the SpaceX boss responded.
“False”, he wrote on X on Thursday.
“This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
In another scathing tweet, Musk claimed responsibility for Donald Trump’s re-election success.
He wrote: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
Trump told reporters on Thursday that Musk was unimpressed that electric vehicle incentives – consumer tax credits – are being debated in the Senate to be potentially cut. Musk is the CEO of electric automaker Tesla.
An additional point of contention was the billionaire’s public promotion of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire commercial astronaut, to run NASA.
Mr Trump said he “didn’t think it was appropriate”, as Isaacman was “totally a Democrat”.
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Last Thursday, Musk revealed on X that his scheduled time as a “special government employee” was coming to an end.
Before the news broke, Musk’s father told Sky News his son was “not a very good politician”.
But speaking to Gillian Joseph on The World, Errol Musk insisted there was “no rift between Elon and Donald Trump”.
