President Donald Trump on Thursday floated a plan to end all federal contracts with Elon Musk’s companies as the feud between the former allies intensifies.
Musk’s companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, have gotten more than $30 billion in federal government contracts. Trump and congressional Republicans are also targeting the subsidies that benefit Musk’s companies, which are likely worth billions of dollars more.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
The post comes as a rift grows between Republicans and Musk, a former adviser to Trump, over the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the tax, energy and defense megabill the GOP is working to pass. Musk came out against the legislation this week, citing deficit concerns, to Republicans’ chagrin.
Trump joined in against Musk earlier Thursday, saying Musk opposes the bill because it seeks to roll back electric vehicle incentives, which are important to Tesla. He said he was “very surprised” and “very disappointed” with the billionaire. Murk denied the president’s claim.
SpaceX is a major contractor for NASA, as well as defense and intelligence agencies. Starlink, the satellite internet service provider that’s part of SpaceX, gets government contracts too, as does Tesla.
The Washington Post reported in February that Musk’s companies have gotten $38 billion in federal contracts.
In response to Trump’s latest salvo, Musk first brushed it off. “Go ahead, make my day,” he wrote on X, responding to a post about the importance of SpaceX to the International Space Station.
He later escalated it, seeking to implicate Trump in the sex trafficking case of Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump “is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote. “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
Musk also announced that SpaceX would start to decommission its Dragon line of spacecraft, the vehicles it uses for supply and crew missions to the International Space Station, over the plans to cancel contracts.
