A timeline of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's falling out

Business Insider

Elon Musk and Donald Trump's friendship unraveled publicly over a tax bill dispute. Here's how their recently fragile friendship fractured on Thursday, minute-by-minute.

Transcript

00:00Did Trump and Musk just break up?

00:03It all started when Musk started speaking out against Trump's big, beautiful bill,

00:07aka the Republican spending bill.

00:09He started out by speaking out against how it was wasteful and reversed the efforts he

00:12was making with the Department of Government Efficiency, which he just officially left

00:16about a week ago.

00:17Things started to escalate on Wednesday when Musk stopped holding back about how he really

00:21felt about the bill.

00:22Musk posted on X,

00:23I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore.

00:26This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.

00:30Things took a turn after that.

00:32Musk continued to go off about the bill, increasing the national deficit.

00:35Trump addressed the beef from the Oval Office on Thursday, saying he and Elon Musk had had

00:39a great relationship, past tense.

00:42The president said he didn't know if that would continue.

00:44I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost

00:49anybody sitting here.

00:51Meanwhile, Musk kept tearing into the president online.

00:53He even took credit for the 2024 Republican victory, which, reminder, he poured about

00:58$300 million into.

01:00Then things really started to heat up.

01:02Trump said Musk quote, went crazy on Truth Social because the tax bill didn't have EV credits

01:06and threatened to cancel Musk's government contracts, which are key to his businesses.

01:11Then Musk posted on X that Trump is in the Epstein files.

01:14Didn't he say that's why they haven't been released?

01:16Yeah.

01:17Musk said that he was decommissioning a SpaceX aircraft and even that the president should be impeached.

01:22It's all unfolding really quickly, and we're seeing Tesla stock nosedive in real time.

01:27The stock was down about 14% at market close.

01:30I mean, I spoke to a couple of shareholders who were surprised that they even lasted this

01:35long in a relationship.

01:37And that's something I've heard a lot, like you have two men with incredibly big egos and

01:41personalities and some people expected this relationship to end before the inauguration.

01:45It's 5.35 on Thursday now, and who knows what'll have happened by the time this posts

01:49in the morning.

01:50We're going to be giving you guys all the latest updates 24-7, no matter what happens.

01:54So head to businessinsider.com for all the latest news.

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