The feud between US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk appears far from over. The two will not be calling each other for the time being. According to a source in the White House, Trump also wants to get rid of his Tesla.
A quarrel between the two over a new Trump law escalated on Thursday. Earlier on Friday, it seemed that Trump and Musk would call each other. Musk suggested on X that a reconciliation would be a good idea. But there will be no conversation for the time being.
Trump does not want any contact with Musk for the time being. “I don’t even think about Elon. He has a problem. That poor man has a problem,” the president said in a conversation with CNN. Trump also wants to get rid of his Tesla. He bought the car a few weeks ago as a publicity stunt. The red car is still parked at the White House.
The feud arose after Musk criticized an economic plan by Trump. According to Musk, the law undoes the savings made by the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The top executive left that department at the end of last month as an advisor.
Musk started the feud by calling the bill “disgusting.” Trump replied that he was “disappointed” in Musk. The two then bombarded each other with all kinds of reproaches. Musk accused Trump of never having won the elections without his money. Musk also linked the American president to files surrounding the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump, in turn, said that stopping contracts with Musk’s companies, such as SpaceX, “would be the easy saving for the US.” Trump also claimed that Musk did not leave DOGE as an advisor of his own accord. “I asked him to leave,” he wrote on his platform Truth Social.
As a result of the feud, Tesla’s share price fell by 14 percent on Thursday. Some recovery followed at the opening of the stock exchanges on Friday.