Trump Calls Elon Musk ‘Crazy’ as Billionaire Fires Back with Epstein Files Bombshell

US President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday (6 Jun) to cut off government contracts with Elon Musk’s companies. The threat came as the relationship between the president and the tech billionaire unravelled publicly on their rival social media platforms.

Trump said in a televised Oval Office diatribe that he was “very disappointed” after his former aide and top donor criticised his “big, beautiful” spending bill before Congress.

The pair hurled insults at each other on social media. Musk posted, without proof, that Trump was referenced in government documents on disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Shares in Musk’s Tesla car company plunged following the row. The South African-born tech tycoon vowed that he would end a critical US spaceship program.

Musk’s Criticism of Congressional Spending Bill Triggers Public Dispute

House Republicans approved a legislative package on 22 May that combines tax breaks, spending cuts, border security funding and other priorities. House committees laboured for months on the bill, which underwent late changes to win over holdouts in the Republican conference.

The bill exceeds 1,000 pages and is titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Republicans made one last round of revisions before the bill reached the House floor, boosting the state and local tax deduction to win over centrists and speeding up the work requirements in Medicaid to win over those who did not believe the bill did enough to curb spending.

The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act moved to the Senate. It would usher into law Trump’s vision for a new “Golden Age”, led by efforts to shrink social safety net programmes to pay for a 10-year extension of his 2017 tax cuts.

Musk left the Trump administration days after publicly criticising the spending bill. Musk literally got a black eye, which was reportedly caused by one of his sons.

On 28 May, Musk criticised the bill in an interview with CBS News. “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk added.

In a separate interview with the Washington Post, Musk said: “The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realised. I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”

On 3 Jun, Musk wrote on his X platform: “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.”

“It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to US$2.5 trillion (~SGD$3.4 trillion) and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

Musk also posted on X: “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” referring to the Senate elections scheduled to be held on 3 Nov 2026.

On 4 Jun, Musk made several posts on X about the bill, writing that “a new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by five trillion dollars”.

In another post later in the day, he wrote: “Call your Senator, Call your Congressmen, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”

He also called the spending bill the “Debt Slavery Bill”, as, according to him, the bill contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history.

Trump and Musk Exchange Public Insults Over EV Mandates and Epstein Claims

On 5 Jun, 12:00PM Eastern Time (6 Jun, 12:00AM Singapore time), Trump addressed Musk’s criticisms after he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“Elon is upset because we took the EV mandate, and you know, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “They’re having a hard time – the electric vehicles – and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidies. And, you know, Elon knew this from the beginning.”

“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” he added. “He said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. But I’m, I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

He went on to say Musk knew the inner workings of the bill.

At 12:10PM on 5 Jun, Musk posted on X: “Slim Beautiful Bill for the win”.

Musk then replied to this post on X at 12:13PM, writing: “Keep the good, remove the bad.”

Musk appeared to respond in real time to Trump’s claims from the Oval Office about the EV mandate. “Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil& gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill,” he said.

“In the entire history of civilisation, there has never been legislation that is both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.”

At 12:25PM, Musk responded to a clip of Trump from the Oval Office that said Musk knew the inner workings of the bill. “False. 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!” Musk wrote on X.

At 12:44PM, Musk, in a repost of X user Jesse Paltan’s post, who compiled a number of Trump’s old tweets in a picture, wrote: “Where is this guy today?”

At 1:57PM, Musk launched a poll on X with the question: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 per cent in the middle?” The poll is now pinned to his X account. More than four million people have voted.

At 2:37PM, Trump hit back on his social media platform, Truth Social: “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”

Trump, in another Truth Social post, also said that he did not mind Musk turning against him, but “he should have done so months ago”. “This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, US$1.6 trillion (~SGD$2.2 trillion) Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68 per cent Tax Increase, and things far worse than that,” Trump said.

“I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

He added that the easiest way to save “billions and billions of dollars” was to “terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

Epstein Files

At 3:10PM, Musk alleged that Trump is featured in secret government files on rich and powerful former Epstein associates. “Time to drop the really big bomb: (Trump) is in the Epstein files,” Musk posted on X. “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

Supporters on the conspiratorial end of Trump’s base allege that Epstein’s associates had their roles in his crimes covered up by government officials and others. They point the finger at Democrats and Hollywood celebrities, however, not at Trump himself, and no official source has ever confirmed that the president appears in any of the material.

Musk did not reveal which files he was talking about, and offered no evidence for his claim.

Musk, in a later post, responded to Trump’s statements about the cancellation of his government contracts and said that “SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately”.

The vessel ferries cargo and people to the International Space Station for the US.

Trump had previously denied any connection to Epstein, saying he was never on his plane, or his “stupid” island.