Trump Targets Musk’s Government Contracts to Save Billions
It’s not every day that a sitting U.S. President and one of the world’s richest men wage an open, scorched-earth feud online. But on Thursday, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk did just that, as their previously uneasy alliance publicly collapsed under the weight of mutual grievance — and, not incidentally, a multibillion-dollar federal tax and spending bill.
The latest round of blows came via Truth Social, where Trump accused Musk of going “crazy” after losing government backing for electric vehicles. “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave,” Trump wrote. “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted… and he just went CRAZY!”
It would’ve read like satire — if it weren’t the President of the United States and the CEO of Tesla trading fire over national energy policy.
A subsidy war wrapped in personal spite
Trump didn’t stop there. In a line that raised more than a few eyebrows among economists and defense analysts alike, he declared, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” Then came the jab: “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Now, let’s unpack that.
Musk’s companies — Tesla, SpaceX, and more recently Neuralink and The Boring Company — have benefited significantly from federal and state contracts over the years. According to Good Jobs First, Tesla alone has received over $2.8 billion in public subsidies since its founding. SpaceX has secured billions in NASA and Pentagon contracts, too. These aren’t handouts; they’re mostly performance-based or tied to R&D and infrastructure. But they are significant.
Musk’s response: sharp, pointed, and personal
Musk hasn’t been silent. In recent days, he’s accused Trump of “ingratitude,” noting that his companies have, in his view, contributed more to American industry and defense than “any bureaucrat.” And in a now-notorious X post, Musk even claimed Trump is named in the sealed Jeffrey Epstein files — a separate controversy, but one that makes clear just how fast the relationship has turned toxic.
What happens when tech and power part ways?
There’s something a little Shakespearean about all this. Musk and Trump have both cast themselves as disruptors, outsiders, even anti-elitists — despite being two of the most powerful men on the planet. Their alliance made sense, in a weird way. But the collision course they’re now on may reshape not just politics, but industrial policy and the future of public-private partnerships.
And here’s the tricky part: it’s not yet clear who wins. Musk doesn’t need Washington, exactly, but losing government contracts would sting. Trump, meanwhile, might gain politically from thumbing his nose at tech elites — but alienating an industrial base that’s delivered on defense, energy, and jobs carries risks.
This could fizzle, sure. Or it could escalate into something more defining: the unraveling of a model in which government has been not just a regulator, but an investor and patron of big tech.
