Elon Musk has been waging a full-throated campaign against Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill, calling the keystone of the president’s legislative agenda a “disgusting abomination” while trying to rally senators to oppose it.
Trump is not happy.
The president responded at length to Musk’s opposition to the bill while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, criticizing the former head of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), who officially left the administration last week.
“I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Trump added that Musk didn’t have a problem with the bill until after he left the administration, and suggested the world’s richest man may have developed a case of so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome. “He’s not the first. People leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly,” Trump said. “Some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. I don’t know what it is. It’s sort of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I guess they call it. We have it with others. They leave and they wake up in the morning and the glamor is gone and the whole world is different and they become hostile.”
Musk escalated his criticism of the bill, which includes massive cuts to social services like Medicaid in order to fund tax cuts for the rich, on Tuesday, writing on X that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.” Musk seems to be upset that the bill is expected to add trillions to the national deficit, although some, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have wondered whether he is actually upset that the bill will strip electric vehicle tax credits, which have helped his car company, Tesla.
Trump made the allegation himself on Thursday. “Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” the president said, adding that “he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate,” he said of Musk.
Musk responded to Trump in real time on X. “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!” he wrote.
“Whatever,” Musk added. “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. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.”
It’s safe to say now that Trump and Musk are in a full-fledged feud, one that follows plenty of speculation about the true nature of their relationship. The duo lauded each other less than a week ago as Trump bid Musk farewell from the administration during a press conference in the Oval Office. “Elon’s service to America has been without comparison in modern history,” Trump said, noting that he is “really not leaving.”
Trump’s tune now seems to have changed, as it does.
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