Donald Trump and Elon Musk may have found their own personal “forever war,” now that the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest man have renewed their feud.
Trump, who has made retribution the central focus of his second term as president, is vowing to turn Musk’s own wrecking machine – the inaccurately named Department of Government Efficiency – against Musk’s many billions in federal contracts. And, being Trump, he also suggested just deporting the South African-born billionaire.
Musk, who has been lashing out at Trump and his Republican allies in Congress for the also inaccurately named “Big Beautiful Bill” that slashes health care for the working poor to preserve tax cuts for wealthiest Americans, is now drumming up interest in a new political party for some retribution of his own in next year’s midterm elections.
It’s getting pretty caustic. And that’s not surprising, coming from two men who have always gone heavy on disdain and light on dignity. So you have to wonder, will Musk go there again? Will he drop another Epstein “bomb?”
Trump and Musk: A no-love story
That’s a reference to Jeffrey Epstein, a former Trump wingman who pleaded guilty to soliciting minors for sex in 2008 and then killed himself in federal prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges during Trump’s first term as president.
Musk used a June 5 post on X, his social media hellhole, to point out what was already known – Trump and Epstein were tight enough at one time that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet. This came during the first volley of insults between Musk and Trump, just after he left DOGE and was fuming over Trump’s budget bill
“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk said in his post. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
Musk later deleted that and posted on June 11 that he regretted some of his posts about Trump because “they went too far.”
But that was when the first eruption between the two was dying down. On Tuesday, July 1, Trump’s budget bill cleared a Senate vote in a tiebreaker vote and now goes back to the Republican-controlled House, where more drama seems likely.
And here – as the House considers significant Senate changes to language the House first narrowly approved its own version on May 22 – is Musk threatening to make politicians who vote for the legislation regret it during the midterms.
MAGA’s Epstein obsession isn’t going anywhere
Musk dropped the Epstein bomb with precision last month because he knows Trump and his administration have been taking serious heat from his MAGA supporters, who consume conspiracy theories and crave confirmation. They want Trump to release the “Epstein files” and are getting increasingly impatient.
Remember, a vocal segment of the MAGA crowd during Trump’s first run for president was convinced that top Democrats ran a pedophile ring out of the basement of a Washington, DC, pizzeria (that had no basement, and no pedophile ring).
Guess who used X in 2023, during Trump’s third run for president, to revive that ridiculous conspiracy theory? Musk posted about it and then deleted the post, as he was starting to lean toward backing Trump’s campaign. Musk spent nearly $290 million to help Trump win reelection.
Musk has a problem here. Like Trump, he tries to make all things in politics transactional to benefit his businesses building electric cars, running satellite systems, launching rockets and more. Trump’s budget bill plays poorly for some of those businesses, and Trump’s ire may do even more harm.
But the world’s richest man can’t really cry poor about that to all of us, can he? So, also like Trump, he’ll seek to attack with distraction. The Epstein files are potent weapons in such a fight, thanks to the ineptitude of Trump and his administration.
Trump’s base is unhappy about the Epstein files. Will Musk use it?
In a softball interview with Fox News during the 2024 campaign, Trump appeared to say he would release the Epstein files. But the news site Semafor caught that the televised version of that interview edited out this quick follow-up from Trump, who waffled and waivered, adding that he might now because “you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there.”
Which “people” do you think Trump was thinking of there? I think Musk knows.
Trump’s team has tried head fakes at transparency. Attorney General Pam Bondi enlisted the support of Trump “influencers” in February, calling them to the White House to collect binders of Epstein documents that backfired when they turned out to be previously available to anyone who knows how to Google.
Bondi, again speaking at the White House on May 7, said the FBI was examining “tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn.” But FBI Director Kash Patel, speaking on Joe Rogan’s podcast a month later, seemed to walk back Bondi’s claim about what those videos show.
Trump’s been in office now for 23 weeks. He’s done plenty. Releasing the Epstein files is not one of them.
Polling shows that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is deeply unpopular with a significant majority of Americans. Which means he needs his base now more than ever to apply pressure as Republicans in the House squabble about the legislation.
That base is unhappy with Trump about the Epstein files. And that’s a vulnerability Musk may find impossible to resist.
