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Trump and Musk Are Friends Again · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  On June 6th, 2025, Donald Trump told ABC News that Elon Musk had
• 0:04
  lost his mind. He said he had no interest in
• 0:06
  speaking to him. Few hours earlier, he told CNN
• 0:09
  the same thing. The two wretchest men in
• 0:11
  American politics, the president in the billionaire who helped
• 0:14
  put him into office, were at war.
• 0:16
  Musk had called Trump's signature spending bill a
• 0:19
  disgusting abomination. Trump had called Musk very
• 0:22
  disappointed. Musk said Trump would have lost
• 0:24
  the election without him, and Trump threatened to cancel his
• 0:27
  government contracts. Seven months later, on January
• 0:30
  4th, 2026, Elon Musk posted a photo on X.
• 0:34
  He was sitting at a table with Donald Trump and Melania at Mar
• 0:37
  a Lago, the caption read. Had a lovely dinner late last
• 0:40
  night with the president and first lady. 2026 is going to be
• 0:43
  amazing now. The world's most public
• 0:45
  political breakup ended quietly over dinner at a Country Club in
• 0:49
  Palm Beach. And the reconciliation came less
• 0:52
  than 72 hours after U.S. special forces captured Venezuelan
• 0:55
  dictator Maduro in a nighttime raid on his compound Krakus, the
• 1:00
  operation from Mar a Lago, flanked by Secretary of State
• 1:02
  Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hecs.
• 1:05
  And with hours, Musk was on X congratulating him.
• 1:08
  This is a win for the world, he wrote.
• 1:10
  A clear message to evil dictators everywhere.
• 1:12
  The same evening, Starlink announced it would provide free
• 1:15
  broadband service to the people of Venezuela through February
• 1:18
  3rd. The announcement came shortly
• 1:19
  after dinner ended. Video from the Mar a Lago dining
• 1:22
  room showed Trump and Musk arriving together as guests
• 1:25
  applauded. Whatever happened between June
• 1:27
  and January, however they patched things, is that
• 1:29
  Venezuela appears to have sealed the deal.
• 1:31
  Now. The feud began with a spending
• 1:33
  bill. On May 22nd, 2025, the House
• 1:36
  passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump's signature
• 1:38
  legislative package combining tax cuts, border security
• 1:42
  funding, Medicaid work requirements, and the rollback
• 1:45
  of clean energy credits. Congressional Budget Office
• 1:48
  projected it would add $3.8 trillion to the federal deficit
• 1:52
  over 10 years. The national debt stood at 36.2
• 1:55
  trillion, and Musk had spent months promising that DOGE would
• 1:58
  cut $2 trillion from federal spending.
• 2:01
  The bill appeared to undo everything he had claimed to
• 2:03
  accomplish. His website said DOGE had saved
• 2:05
  $175 billion, though journalists in fact checkers disputed those
• 2:09
  figures. Federal spending in April 2025
• 2:12
  was actually up 5% year, over $27 billion more than April of
• 2:16
  2024. And the Big beautiful bill was
• 2:18
  not compatible with the DOGE mission.
• 2:19
  Either the bill was right or Musk was right, but both could
• 2:23
  not be true. Five days after the bill passed,
• 2:25
  Musk sat for an interview with CBS.
• 2:27
  He said he was disappointed to see the massive spending bill,
• 2:29
  frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just
• 2:32
  decreases it and undermines the work the doge team is doing.
• 2:35
  He added that a bill could be big or it could be beautiful,
• 2:38
  but he did not know if it could be both.
• 2:40
  And the day after that interview aired, Musk announced he was
• 2:43
  stepping down from his role as a special government employee,
• 2:46
  leading that he'd served 130 days, the maximum allowed under
• 2:49
  federal rules for this position. Trump gave him a ceremonial key
• 2:52
  to the White House in an Oval Office send off on May 30th.
• 2:55
  Musk wore a black doge over a bruised right eye that he blamed
• 2:58
  on his young hung song. The two men smiled.
• 3:00
  Trump said Musk was not really leaving.
• 3:02
  Four days later, those smiles were completely gone.
• 3:05
  On June 3rd, Musk began hosting at 3:32 PM.
• 3:09
  He warned that politicians who supported the bill would be
• 3:12
  fired in November 2026. Three hours later, he called the
• 3:15
  legislation a disgusting abomination.
• 3:17
  The next day, he wrote that bankrupting America was not
• 3:19
  acceptable. Then kill the bill.
• 3:21
  Trump responded in the Oval Office with German Chancellor
• 3:24
  Frederick Merz on his side. Elon and I have had a great
• 3:27
  relationship, he said. I don't know if we will anymore.
• 3:30
  Then Elon Musk fired back, said without me, Trump would have
• 3:33
  lost the election. The Democrats would control the
• 3:34
  House, the Senate would be 5149. And the subtext was clear, Trump
• 3:39
  owes Musk. Trump did not see it that way.
• 3:41
  And by June 6th, he was telling reporters that Musk had lost his
• 3:43
  mind. He was not interested in
• 3:45
  speaking to him. He suggested he might cut
• 3:47
  federal contract with Musk's companies.
• 3:49
  Musk unfollowed Trump allies Stephen Miller and Charlie Kirk
• 3:52
  on X Politico reported that a reconciliation call was
• 3:55
  scheduled, but that call never happened.
• 3:57
  And some things don't happen. And here on the podcast, I'll
• 4:00
  tell you about that in one second.
• 4:01
  But I've been digging through these analytics of the show and
• 4:03
  notice that 37, about 37% of you are following the channel.
• 4:07
  Forever grateful for you. Thank you so much.
• 4:09
  But what's missing is the other 63% who haven't hit the follower
• 4:12
  subscribe button. And I've been doing independent
• 4:15
  journalism covering Elon Musk and his companies for around six
• 4:18
  years, starting with SpaceX and NASA and now everything else,
• 4:21
  Elon Musk. And I'm going to continue for
• 4:23
  the next 10 years on my own independently.
• 4:24
  And all they ask from you is one second of your time to hit the
• 4:27
  follower subscribe button on the the platform you're watching or
• 4:30
  listening on right now. I'm extremely grateful to have
• 4:32
  you here and I would love to have you in this community.
• 4:34
  So thank you for hitting the follow or subscribe button.
• 4:36
  Now let's get back into some Musk and Trump drama.
• 4:39
  The relationship between Trump and Musk predates the 2024
• 4:43
  election. But not my bunch.
• 4:44
  In July 2022, Trump called Musk a bullshit artist after his deal
• 4:49
  to acquire Twitter appeared to be falling apart.
• 4:51
  Musk responded by calling Trump too old for the presidency and
• 4:54
  endorsing Ron Santos instead. Trump posted that Musk had come
• 4:58
  to the White House begging for subsidies, would have gotten on
• 5:00
  his knees a fast. The two men despised each other
• 5:03
  publicly and regularly. Then 2024 happened.
• 5:06
  Musk contributed approximately $250 million to pro Trump
• 5:09
  effort. He used his platform to amplify
• 5:11
  Trump's messages daily. He appeared at rallies.
• 5:13
  He jumped up and down on stage in Pennsylvania.
• 5:15
  He had a chainsaw. And after Trump won, Musk was
• 5:18
  appointed to lead Doge. He moved into the White House
• 5:20
  complex. He was a constant presence in
• 5:21
  the Oval Office. He attended Cabinet meetings.
• 5:24
  He stood behind Trump during executive order sightings.
• 5:26
  Tesla's sales suffered. The company's stock fell as
• 5:30
  Musk's political alignment alienated buyers.
• 5:32
  In an April earnings call, Musk told investors he would spend
• 5:35
  less time on government work. He blamed the media for over
• 5:38
  representing political coverage. But the damage was done, and the
• 5:41
  criticism of the spending bill was the final break.
• 5:43
  The months between June and September were brutal.
• 5:46
  In July, Trump escalated and a rally in Michigan.
• 5:48
  Maybe it's time he went back to where he came from, he said.
• 5:51
  Musk is a naturalized citizen, born South Africa.
• 5:53
  The comment echoed rhetoric typically reserved for political
• 5:56
  enemies. Musk suggested he might form his
• 5:59
  own political party. He continued to criticize
• 6:01
  federal spending on X. Trump stopped posting about Musk
• 6:04
  entirely, ghosted him. CBS noted that Trump had
• 6:07
  previously mentioned Musk about 6 times per week, and by summer
• 6:10
  the references all stopped. The two most powerful men in
• 6:13
  Republican politics were not speaking.
• 6:15
  Then Charlie Kirk died. Kirk was the founder of Turning
• 6:17
  Point USA, a conservative youth organization that had become a
• 6:20
  major force in Republican politics.
• 6:22
  He was 30 one year, and that's a shame that he died.
• 6:24
  But his memorial service was held in September at State Farm
• 6:27
  Stadium in Glendale, Esorta. Trump attended, so did Elon
• 6:30
  Musk. There's a picture of them in a
• 6:31
  private box engaged in conversation.
• 6:33
  Musk posted a picture with the caption for Charlie.
• 6:36
  Whatever they discussed, it began the thaw.
• 6:37
  In November, Musk attended a White House dinner honoring
• 6:41
  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam.
• 6:43
  Now a Fox Business reporter asked Trump on December 2nd
• 6:46
  whether Musk goes back in a circle of friends.
• 6:48
  Well, I really don't know, Trump replied.
• 6:49
  I mean, I like Elon a lot. It was not a reconciliation, but
• 6:52
  it was not a war. At this point, the dinner at Mar
• 6:54
  a Lago appears to have finished the job.
• 6:55
  Timing is difficult to ignore, too.
• 6:57
  Musk has announced he will fund Republican candidates in the
• 7:00
  2026 midterm elections. He remains dissatisfied with
• 7:03
  federal spending, but its conservative commentator Eric
• 7:06
  Doherty noted on X. He understands that we are up
• 7:08
  against and knows he can tip the scales against the destructive
• 7:12
  left. The Venezuela operation gave
• 7:14
  both men a reason to be seen together again.
• 7:15
  Musk could praise Trump's desist action against a dictator.
• 7:20
  Trump could accept Musk back into the fold without appearing
• 7:23
  to capitulate. Starling's free service to
• 7:25
  Venezuela gave the reunion a tangible, deliverable system of
• 7:28
  cooperation rather than conflict.
• 7:30
  And whether the relationship survives another policy
• 7:32
  disagreement remains to be seen. But for now, the two most
• 7:35
  volatile personalities in American politics are having
• 7:38
  dinner together and calling the year ahead amazing.
• 7:41
  Now, the story of Trump and Musk is not really about Trump and
• 7:43
  Musk, though. It's about what happens when two
• 7:45
  men who need each other also cannot stand each other.
• 7:48
  Musk needs federal contracts. SpaceX has billions in NASA and
• 7:52
  Defense Department business. Tesla operates with federal
• 7:55
  subsidies and tax credits. Starlink requires regulatory
• 7:58
  approval. Trump needs musks, money, his
• 8:01
  platforms, his ability to dominate the conversation.
• 8:03
  Neither man is accustomed to needing anything from anyone.
• 8:06
  Neither man is accustomed to being told no.
• 8:08
  When those two personalities collide, alpha males, the result
• 8:11
  is predictable. Feuds, threats, insults traded
• 8:14
  on social media platforms that they both own.
• 8:17
  But eventually self interests prevail.
• 8:19
  Eventually they find themselves at a table in Palm Beach eating
• 8:22
  dinner with the First Lady while guests applaud and cameras
• 8:25
  capture the moment. This is how power works.
• 8:27
  It is never personal, it is always transactional.
• 8:30
  And this transaction has finally been completed.