When the relationship between President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX/X.com leader Elon Musk went sour, it did so very quickly.
Trump and Musk stood side by side in the White House on Friday, May 30 when the president held a media event to thank Musk for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). And Trump told reporters that although Musk's work with DOGE had ended, he looked forward to working with him in the future.
But less than a week later, Trump and Musk were hurling insults at one another. After Musk called Trump's "big, beautiful bill" a "disgusting abomination," Trump lambasted him during a Thursday, June 5 press conference and told reporters, "I'm very disappointed with Elon…. Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore."
Musk is now threatening to fund primary challenges against Senate Republicans who vote for Trump's megabill. And "War Room" host Steve Bannon is calling for Musk, a native of South Africa, to be deported.
During a Saturday morning, June 7 appearance on MSNBC, Michael Cohen — Trump's former personal attorney and fixer — predicted that infighting within the MAGA movement will get a lot uglier in the months ahead and that Trump will use the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, to attack Musk.
"Where Elon Musk is making a mistake: the feud should not have gone on the way that it did," Cohen told MSNBC's Ali Velshi. "And I say that because while Elon Musk may be the richest man in the world, Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world."
Cohen argued that Trump's "sycophants" want to be what he was before he turned against the president: "the guy that's in Donald Trump's orbit 24/7."
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"The problem, though, is it never ends well for anybody," Cohen told Velshi. "Remember, it was Rudy Giuliani, at one point in time, constantly whispering into the ear. It doesn't end well for anybody, and it's not going to end well for Elon Musk. Because now, the dark overlord…. Steve Bannon comes in with his 12 shirts, five jackets, and he already is doing what I had said that Trump was going to do — which was to pull a Mohammed bin Salman on all of these mega-billionaires that cross him…. When you start hearing people like Steve Bannon make comments: we're going to nationalize SpaceX…. We're going to revoke his immigration status. He's South African."
When Velshi asked Cohen if there is any possible way that Trump and Musk can bury the hatchet, the former Trump attorney responded that Musk burned that bridge permanently when he posted a "below the belt" tweet falsely claiming, without evidence, that Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Cohen stressed that having worked closely with Trump for years, he saw zero evidence of him being involved in Epstein's crimes in any way.
Cohen predicted that Trump's allies are "going to really go after Elon Musk like nobody has seen ever in this country, because they can."
The former Trump ally turned scathing critic told Velshi, "One thing Elon doesn't understand is this political guerrilla warfare that they're going to conduct against him…. While Elon Musk is taking a step back thinking Trump is taking a step back, what Trump is actually doing is weaponizing the Department of Justice through his attorney general and other people — and they are going to drop the hammer on him out of nowhere when he least expects it. That's the playbook. And again, this is political guerrilla warfare at the highest level."
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