President Donald Trump pulled out a new weapon in his escalating war of words with tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday, threatening to go after his lucrative federal contracts in a post on Truth Social.
Musk has been a massive ally of Trump for months, contributing millions of dollars and an entire independent campaign operation to his election in 2024 and helming the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project which has seen widespread purges of the civil service and a freeze of spending on federal contracts across the board.
But in recent weeks, and as Musk left his formal job advising the White House, the two have seen a growing rift.
On Truth Social Thursday, Trump wrote, "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!"
Musk was reportedly enraged by Trump's decision to pull the nomination of one of Musk's billionaire associates to head up NASA. He has subsequently been attacking Trump's "big, beautiful bill" to extend his 2017 tax cuts and cut $1 trillion from Medicaid, food stamps, and green subsidies, calling the legislation a "disgusting abomination" that wrecks the government's finances and telling supporters to call members of Congress to "kill the bill."
Musk's companies have received an estimated $38 billion in federal money, both from subsidies and credits for Tesla's electric vehicles and SpaceX contracts for space missions.
Trump's legislation potentially already stands to hurt Tesla's bottom line by eliminating clean energy and vehicle incentives, but up to this point Musk has shrugged this off, saying it will hurt his competitors more than his own business.