We always knew President Trump and Elon Musk would break up at some point, but we didn’t expect it to be this messy.
With emotions running high, and rumors of ketamine in the mix, the Tesla CEO unleashed over 30 tweets (and counting) in the past day in a full-on campaign to kill Trump’s budget proposal, known as the Big Beautiful Bill. Musk appears most upset that the bill will increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars, undermining his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Trump, however, claims Musk is just upset that it kills EV incentives.
“I’m very disappointed with Elon. I’ve helped him a lot,” Trump said in the Oval Office when asked about Musk’s objections to the bill. “Elon knew the inner workings of the bill better than almost anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate.”
Musk shot back: “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!”
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In January, Trump signed an executive that revoked former President Biden’s 2021 executive order setting targets for EVs and emissions standards. At the time, he also said he was “considering the elimination of unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies” (aka the $7,500 federal EV tax credit).
The Big Beautiful Bill would terminate the “clean vehicle credit.” The program currently runs through 2032, but the BBB would cut it off by the end of this year. Automakers that have sold less than 200,000 EVs have until Dec. 31, 2026, which was the pre-Biden standard, NPR explains. The bill also imposes a new $250 fee for EV drivers, and a $100 fee for hybrids, collected annually during registration.
In the past, Musk has argued that cutting the credit would hurt his rivals more than Tesla. However, Tesla prominently advertises the credit on its homepage, using it as a sales tool following a 71% year-over-year profit loss in Q1.
Today, he still seemed more concerned about spending than EV incentives. “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.
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The mention of gas and oil subsidies is another notable break from Trump, who repeated “drill, baby, drill” on the campaign trail. Musk clarified in another retweet that his initial interest in electric cars was not environmental, but rather about long-term energy security.
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Musk also tweeted that Trump wouldn’t have won the election without him, and implied Trump is a hypocrite in a post resurfacing the president’s previous social media posts about reducing the deficit, asking, “Where is this guy today?”
Trump responded on Truth Social, claiming he asked Musk to leave DOGE because he was “wearing thin,” adding, “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!”
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Trump then threatened to terminate the many government subsidies and contracts held by Musk-owned businesses: “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” the president posted.
Musk’s companies have been awarded $38 billion over the years, according to The Washington Post, including a pivotal $465 million loan to help get Tesla off the ground. Trump was evaluating more subsidies for Starlink satellite internet in March.
(Credit: Truth Social)
The Big Beautiful Bill passed the House and is now with the Senate, where it faces significant challenges. If big changes are made, it will also have to go back to the House, where at least one lawmaker might not vote for it again.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was unaware the bill contained a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI legislation when she voted for it. “We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states hands is potentially dangerous,” she said on X. “This needs to be stripped out in the Senate.”
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