U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said his relationship with his billionaire donor Elon Musk is over and warned of “serious consequences” if Mr Musk funds U.S. Democrats running against Republicans who vote for the president’s sweeping tax and spending bill.
In a telephone interview with NBC News, Mr Trump declined to say what those consequences would be but added that he had not had discussions about whether to investigate Mr Musk.
Asked if he thought his relationship with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was over, Trump said, “I would assume so, yeah.”
“No,” Trump told NBC when asked if he had any desire to repair his relationship with Mr Musk.
“I have no intention of speaking to him,” Mr Trump said.
However, Mr Trump said he had not thought about terminating U.S. government contracts with Mr Musk’s StarLink satellite internet or SpaceX rocket launch companies.
Messrs Musk and Trump began exchanging insults this week, as Mr Musk denounced Mr Trump’s bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
Mr Musk’s opposition to the measure complicated efforts to pass the legislation in Congress, where Republicans hold only slim majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate.
The bill narrowly passed the House last month and is now before the Senate, where Mr Trump’s fellow Republicans are considering making changes.
Nonpartisan analysts estimate the measure would add $2.4 trillion to the $36.2 trillion U.S. debt over 10 years, which worries many lawmakers, including some Republicans who are fiscal hawks.
Mr Musk also declared that it was time for a new political party in the United States “to represent the 80 per cent in the middle!”
Mr Trump said on Saturday that he was confident the bill would get passed by the U.S. July 4 Independence Day holiday.
“In fact, yeah, people that were, were going to vote for it are now enthusiastically going to vote for it, and we expect it to pass,” Mr Trump told NBC.
Republicans have strongly backed Mr Trump’s initiatives since he began his second term as president on January 20.
While some Republican lawmakers made comments to the news media expressing concern about some of Mr Trump’s choices, they had yet to vote down any of his policies or nominations.
Mr Musk deleted some social media posts critical of Mr Trump, including one that signalled support for impeaching the president, appearing to seek a de-escalation of their public feud which exploded on Thursday.
During his first term as president, the House, then controlled by Democrats, twice voted to impeach Mr Trump but the Senate both times acquitted him.
The White House and Mr Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday on the deleted posts.
People who have spoken to Mr Musk said his anger began to recede and they thought he would want to repair his relationship with Mr Trump.
One of the X posts that Mr Musk appeared to have deleted was a response to another user posting: “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and (Vice President) JD Vance should replace him.” Mr Musk had written “yes.”
On Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast – recorded on Thursday as the feud between Messrs Trump and Musk unfolded and released on Saturday – Mr Vance called Mr Musk’s criticism of Mr Trump a “huge mistake.”
“I’m always going to be loyal to the president, and I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear.
But I hope it is,” said Mr Vance, describing Mr Musk as an “incredible entrepreneur.”
Mr Trump is due to attend an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight card on Saturday in New Jersey.
Since his second election win, he has attended two previous UFC mixed martial arts fight cards with Mr Musk. Mr Musk is not expected to attend on Saturday.
Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, bankrolled a large part of Mr Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, spending nearly 300 million dollars in last year’s U.S. elections and taking credit for Republicans retaining a majority of seats in the House and retaking a majority in the Senate.
Mr Trump named Mr Musk to head an effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending, lauding him at the White House only about a week ago for his work as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Mr Musk cut only about half of one per cent of total spending, far short of his brash plans to axe two trillion dollars from the federal budget.
