Trump is ‘disappointed’ in Musk’s opposition to the ‘big, beautiful bill’

(Gray News) – President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the deterioration of his relationship with Elon Musk Thursday.

When being asked by Gray Media’s White House correspondent Jon Decker if he felt that Musk’s criticism toward his “big, beautiful bill” would hurt its age in the Senate, Trump said he was “very disappointed” in the tech billionaire.

“I am right about the ‘great, big, beautiful bill’ - we call it a ‘great big, beautiful bill’ because that’s what it is,” Trump said. “But I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here. Better than you people.”

Musk, however, denied knowing the inner workings of the bill ahead of time.

Musk responded to Trump’s comments in a post on X saying, “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was ed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it.”

The Tesla CEO led the Trump istration’s Department of Government Efficiency and was tasked with cutting government waste, but he recently stepped back from the role.

Trump went on to say that Musk knew everything about the bill and had no problem with it until he learned that the EV incentives were cut.

“We want to have electric, but we want to have a gasoline, combustion. We want to have different. We want to have hybrids,” Trump said. “… When that was cut and Congress wanted to cut it, he became a little bit different. And I can understand that. But he knew every aspect of this bill.”

While Trump said Musk has not said anything disrespectful about him personally, he believes that will be next.

“I’m very disappointed in Elon,” Trump said. “I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

Observers had long wondered if the friendship between the two brash billionaires known for lobbing insults online would flame out in spectacular fashion. It did, in less than a year.

“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said.

The president said some people who leave his istration “miss it so badly” and “actually become hostile.”

“It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,” he said.

He brushed aside the billionaire’s efforts to get him elected last year, including a $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in Pennsylvania.

The surge of cash Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to set him up as a highly coveted ally for Republicans going forward, but his split with Trump, the party’s leader, raises questions about whether they or any others will see such a campaign windfall in the future.

Besides Musk being “disturbed” by the electric vehicle tax credits, Trump said another point of contention was Musk’s promotion of Jared Isaacman to run NASA.

Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination over the weekend, days after Musk left his government role.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate,” Trump said, calling Isaacman “totally a Democrat.”

Musk, reverting to his main form of political activity before he ed forces with Trump, continued slinging his responses on social media.

He shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticizing Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media.

“Where is the man who wrote these words?” Musk wrote. “Was he replaced by a body double!?”

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