An MSNBC panel discussion on the Republican-backed megabill still being negotiated in the Senate turned to the parallel war between Donald Trump and Elon Musk that is casting a cloud over the bill's fate.
With Musk firing off a series of posts on his X account — openly threatening GOP lawmakers who vote for the sharply contested bill — Trump returned fire early Tuesday and added a threat of his own aimed at Musk's fortune, which has been bolstered by government contracts.
According to the fuming president, he is more than willing to sic the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on the man responsible for creating it.
With "Morning Joe" co-host Willie Geist reading Trump's broadside to the panel, MSNBC contributor Sam Stein noted that money is a cudgel that both men are wielding in their battle.
"He's the world's richest man, he could fund, to a huge degree, primary challenges or general election campaigns," Stein explained. "He also was the Republican Party's biggest donor. And then for a while he was the most important aide in the White House, and yet, in a matter of days, he's gone to someone who's just sort of lobbing Twitter criticisms and making threats that people are largely ignoring."
"Hanging over all of this is what Trump threatened, which is that Elon Musk has huge amounts of business with the federal government that is just hanging out there," he continued before pointing out, "I mean, just yesterday, I think, SpaceX scored — like it was announced that SpaceX scored an $81.6 million contract to launch U.S. military weather monitoring balloons."
"I mean, that's a huge amount of money and we know that Trump's pretty vindictive," he added. "So, you know, we're in a weird place. But I do ultimately think Trumpism is more important to Republicans than Elon's money for their political survival."
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