“He hasn’t said bad [things] about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. But I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Trump went on to argue Musk may be suffering withdrawal symptoms from the prestige and power of being in the White House and proximate to the president.
“I think he got out and all of a sudden he wasn’t in this beautiful Oval Office. He’s got nice offices too, but there’s something about this one,” Trump said.
“He’s not the first. People leave my administration and they love us. And then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile.
“I don’t know what it is, it’s sort of ‘Trump derangement syndrome’. They leave, and they wake up in the morning and the glamour’s gone, the whole world is different, and they become hostile.”
Trump also suggested Musk was upset because the administration withdrew its support for Jared Isaacman, a fintech billionaire and former Democratic donor, to become the head of space agency NASA.
Elon Musk has been a vocal critic of the Republicans’ spending bill.Credit: Getty Images
Musk: ‘Without me, Trump would have lost’
Musk was reacting to Trump’s remarks in real time on his social media platform X.
In response to the president saying Musk knew the One Big Beautiful Bill Act better than anyone, Musk posted: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it.”
Musk spent nearly $US300 million campaigning for Trump and GOP candidates at last year’s election, either directly or through his political action groups.
On Friday AEST he said: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election. Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate… Such ingratitude.”
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Since formally departing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency on Friday with a friendly Oval Office farewell, Musk has been raging against the budget bill, arguing it increases the budget deficit and is fiscally irresponsible.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $US2.4 trillion to the deficit, with $3.7 trillion in tax cuts offset by $1.3 trillion in spending reductions.
The bill is Trump’s key domestic policy priority and must be passed by both houses of Congress before he can sign it. It passed the House of Representatives by a single vote, 215-214, and though the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, its passage is not guaranteed.
Musk has this week urged his 220 million followers on X to lobby their senators to “kill the bill”, and said any members of Congress who voted for it should be turfed out of office at next year’s midterm elections.
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