It’s over: US president no want to make up with Musk, who dredged up allegations of hyperlinks to intercourse offender Epstein.
United States President Donald Trump has warned billionaire former ally, and marketing campaign benefactor to the tune of a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, Elon Musk in opposition to funding Democratic candidates within the nation’s 2026 midterm elections because the pair’s volcanic break-up continues to play out on the world stage.
“He’ll need to pay very critical penalties if he does that,” Trump instructed US community NBC Information in an interview revealed Saturday, with out spelling out what the repercussions is perhaps for the tech mogul, whose companies profit from profitable US federal contracts.
Trump aides, numerous Republicans, and key rich donors to the GOP have urged the 2 to mood the bitter feud and make peace, fearing irreparable political and financial fallout.
However, requested whether or not he thought his relationship with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was over, Trump mentioned, “I’d assume so, yeah”.
The interview featured Trump’s most intensive feedback but on the spectacular bust-up that noticed Musk criticising his signature tax and spending invoice as an “abomination”, tensions escalating after he went on to focus on one-time hyperlinks between the president and the late intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
By Saturday morning, Musk had deleted his “massive bomb” allegation that Trump featured in unreleased authorities recordsdata on former associates of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 whereas dealing with intercourse trafficking fees.
“That’s the actual motive they haven’t been made public,” he mentioned in Thursday’s put up on X.
The Trump administration has acknowledged it’s reviewing tens of 1000’s of paperwork, movies, and investigative materials that his “MAGA” motion says will unmask public figures complicit in Epstein’s crimes.
Trump was named in a trove of deposition and statements linked to Epstein that have been unsealed by a New York decide in early 2024. The president has not been accused of any wrongdoing, however he had an extended and well-publicised friendship with Epstein.
Trump has denied spending time on Little Saint James, the non-public redoubt within the US Virgin Islands the place prosecutors alleged Epstein trafficked underage women for intercourse.
Simply final week, Trump had given Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting position on the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE).
Vice President JD Vance mentioned Musk was making a “large mistake” going after Trump, although he additionally tried to downplay his assaults because the frustrations of an “emotional man”.
“I hope that finally Elon comes again into the fold. Possibly that’s not doable now as a result of he’s gone so nuclear,” he mentioned within the interview with comic Theo Von, launched Friday.
Trump additionally instructed NBC that it was the Division of Justice, slightly than he, that had determined to return Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, the place he faces fees of transporting undocumented migrants contained in the nation.
Trump added that he had not spoken to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele about Abrego Garcia’s return.