NEED TO KNOW
- President Donald Trump reflected on his working relationship with Elon Musk following their explosive social media feud.
- Trump said Musk “got a little bit strange” at the end of his White House tenure, allegedly for unknown reasons.
- The president also admitted that he was surprised the Tesla CEO ever supported him in the first place due to Trump’s opposition to an electric vehicle mandate.
While Donald Trump‘s working relationship with Elon Musk seems to have soured in recent weeks, the president recently admitted that he was surprised the tech billionaire ever supported him in the first place.
While signing a congressional resolution to overturn California’s electric vehicle mandate on Thursday, June 12, Trump said he was surprised that the EV issue wasn’t a bigger concern for the Tesla CEO from the outset of his campaign.
“I used to say, ‘I’m amazed that he’s endorsing me because that can’t be good for him,’ ” the president recounted. “I once asked him about it…because it was really strange [that he hadn’t brought it up].”
“He said, ‘Well, as long as it’s happening to everybody, I’ll be able to compete,’ ” Trump shared. “It was a very interesting answer.”
There were, however, real issues that came between the two toward the end of Musk’s tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency. On Thursday morning, Trump said, “Elon doesn’t like me,” before laughing it off and retracting the statement.
“He got a little bit strange, but I don’t know why,” the president continued, “over much smaller things than that.”
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There has been speculation that Trump withdrew his nomination of Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator due to the fallout from Musk criticizing his “Big Beautiful Bill.” Isaacman is a fellow tech billionaire who has worked closely with Musk and his SpaceX company in the past.
“I don’t think that the timing was much of a coincidence,” Isaacman said during a June 4 appearance on The All-In Podcastnoting he found out about the abrupt change of plans on May 30, the same day Trump and Musk held their final Oval Office press conference together.
“I was in D.C. for the last six months getting ready,” he added. “There were some people that, you know, had some axes to grind, I guess. And I was a good, visible target.”
Following his White House departure, Musk went on a multi-day rant on X, criticizing the president, taking credit for his 2024 election and even accusing him of keeping the Jeffrey Epstein files sealed because he is named in them— an allegationhe later deleted.
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In a post just after 3 a.m. ET on June 11, Musk began to walk back his social media tirade. He said he’d started to “regret some of my posts about President [Donald Trump],” adding that a few of his comments “went too far.”
Hours later, Trump shared his reaction to Musk’s statement in a brief phone interview with the New York Post.
“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” the president said.
