WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.
Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland defense.
The impending nomination of Austin was confirmed by four people with knowledge of the pick who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the selection hadn’t been formally announced.
As a career military officer, the 67-year-old Austin is likely to face opposition from some in Congress and in the defense establishment who believe in drawing a clear line between civilian and military leadership of the Pentagon. Although many previous defense secretaries have served briefly in the military, only two — George C. Marshall and James Mattis — have been career officers. Marshall also served as secretary of state.
Like Mattis, Austin would need to obtain a congressional waiver to serve as defense secretary. Congress intended civilian control of the military when it created the position of secretary of defense in 1947 and prohibited a recently retired military officer from holding the position.
One of the people who confirmed the pick said Austin’s selection was about choosing the best possible person but acknowledged that pressure had built to name a candidate of color and that Austin’s stock had risen in recent days.
Austin is a 1975 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and served 41 years in uniform.
Biden has known Austin at least since the general’s years leading US and coalition troops in Iraq while Biden was vice president. Austin was commander in Baghdad of the Multinational Corps-Iraq in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president, and he returned to lead US troops from 2010 through 2011.
Austin also served in 2012 as the first Black vice chief of staff of the Army, the service’s No. 2-ranking position. A year later he assumed command of US Central Command, where he fashioned and began implementing a US military strategy for rolling back the Daesh militants in Iraq and Syria.
Austin retired from the Army in 2016, and he would need a congressional waiver of the legal requirement that a former member of the military be out of uniform at least seven years before serving as secretary of defense. That waiver has been granted only twice — most recently in the case of Mattis, the retired Marine general who served as President Donald Trump’s first Pentagon chief.
The Mattis period at the Pentagon is now viewed by some as evidence of why a recently retired military officer should serve as defense secretary only in rare exceptions. Although Mattis remains widely respected for his military prowess and intellect, critics say he tended to surround himself with military officers at the expense of a broader civilian perspective. He resigned in December 2018 in protest of Trump’s policies.
Loren DeJonge Schulman, who spent 10 years in senior staff positions at the Pentagon and the National Security Council, said she understands why Biden would seek out candidates with a deep understanding of the military. However, she worries that appointing a general to a political role could prolong some of the damage caused by Trump’s politicization of the military.
“But retired generals are not one-for-one substitutes of civilian leaders,” she said. “General officers bring different skills and different perspectives, and great generals do not universally make good appointees.”
Austin has a reputation for strong leadership, integrity and a sharp intellect. He would not be a prototypical defense secretary, not just because of his 41-year military career but also because he has shied from the public eye. It would be an understatement to say he was a quiet general; although he testified before Congress, he gave few interviews and preferred not to speak publicly about military operations.
When he did speak, Austin did not mince words. In 2015, in describing how the Islamic State army managed a year earlier to sweep across the Syrian border to grab control of large swaths of northern and western Iraq, Austin said the majority of Iraqi Sunnis simply refused to fight for their government.
“They allowed — and in some cases facilitated — Daesh’s push through the country,” Austin said.
He earned the admiration of the Obama administration for his work in Iraq and at Central Command, although he disagreed with Obama’s decision to pull out of Iraq entirely in December 2011.
Austin was involved in the Iraq War from start to finish. He served as an assistant commander of the 3rd Infantry Division during the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and oversaw the withdrawal in 2011. When Austin retired in 2016, Obama praised his “character and competence,” as well as his judgment and leadership.
Like many retired generals, Austin has served on corporate boards. He is a member of the board of directors of Raytheon Technologies.
Word of Austin’s selection broke a day before a meeting between Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and civil rights groups, many of whom had pushed the president-elect to pick more Black Cabinet members.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist, said Monday: “It’s a good choice that I think many in the civil rights community would support. It’s the first time we have seen a person of color in that position. That means something, in a global view, especially after such an antagonistic relationship we had with the previous administration.”
Sharpton, who is set to be in the meeting with Biden on Tuesday, called the choice “a step in the right direction but not the end of the walk.”
Politico first reported Biden’s selection of Austin.
Biden picks Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense
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Biden picks Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense
- Biden has known Austin at least since the general’s years leading US and coalition troops in Iraq while Biden was vice president
Harvard files legal challenge over Trump’s ban on foreign students. Overseas, admitted students wait
Harvard files legal challenge over Trump’s ban on foreign students. Overseas, admitted students wait
Winning admission to Harvard University fulfilled a longtime goal for Yonas Nuguse, a student in Ethiopia who endured a war in the country’s Tigray region, Internet and phone shutdowns, and the COVID-19 pandemic — all of which made it impossible to finish high school on time.
Now, it’s unclear if he will make it this fall to the Ivy League campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He and other admitted students around the world are anxiously tracking the school’s feud with the Trump administration, which is seeking to keep it from enrolling international students.
On Thursday, Harvard challenged President Donald Trump’s latest move to bar foreign students from entering the US to attend the college, calling it illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of White House demands. In an amended lawsuit filed Thursday, Harvard said the president was attempting an end-run around a previous court order. Last month, a federal judge blocked the Department of Homeland Security from revoking Harvard’s certification to host foreign students.
Admission to Harvard, then months of uncertainty
Increasingly, the nation’s oldest and best-known university has attracted some of the brightest minds from around the world, with international students accounting for one-quarter of its enrollment. As Harvard’s fight with the administration plays out, foreign students can only wait to find out if they’ll be able to attend the school at all. Some are weighing other options.
For Nuguse, 21, the war in Ethiopia forced schools to close in many parts of the province. After schooling resumed, he then took a gap year to study and save money to pay for his TOEFL English proficiency test in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
“The war affected me a great deal and when I found out the news that I was accepted to Harvard, I was ecstatic. I knew it was a proud moment for my family, teachers, mentors and friends, who were instrumental in my achievement,” he said.
The following months have been filled with uncertainty. On Wednesday, Trump signed a directive seeking to block US entry for Harvard’s international students, which would block thousands who are scheduled to come to the campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for summer and fall terms.
Harvard’s court challenge a day later attacked Trump’s legal justification for the action — a federal law allowing him to block a “class of aliens” deemed detrimental to the nation’s interests. Targeting only those who are coming to the US to study at Harvard doesn’t qualify as a “class of aliens,” Harvard said in its filing.
“The President’s actions thus are not undertaken to protect the ‘interests of the United States,’ but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard,” the university wrote.
In the meantime, Harvard is making contingency plans so students and visiting scholars can continue their work at the university, President Alan Garber said in a message to the campus and alumni.
“Each of us is part of a truly global university community,” Garber said Thursday. “We know that the benefits of bringing talented people together from around the world are unique and irreplaceable.”
Crackdown on international students affects interest in the US
The standoff with Harvard comes as the administration has been tightening scrutiny of student visas nationwide. Thousands of students around the country abruptly lost permission to be in the US this spring before the administration reversed itself, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last week the US would “aggressively revoke” visas for students from China.
While many admitted students say they’re waiting to find out if they can come to the US, prospective students still in high school are starting to look elsewhere, said Mike Henniger, CEO of Illume Student Advisory Services.
“It is one blow after another,” said Henniger, who works with colleges in the US, Canada and Europe to recruit international students. “At this point, international student interest in the US has basically dropped to nil.”
The future of Harvard’s roughly 7,000 international students has been hanging in the balance since the Department of Homeland Security first moved to block its foreign enrollment on May 22.
For many, the twists and turns have been exhausting. Jing, a 23-year-old master’s student, is currently completing an internship in China this summer, and unsure if he can reenter the US for the fall semester.
“It is tiring, we all feel numb now. Trump just makes big news headlines once every few days since he got back to the White House,” said Jing, who agreed to speak under his family name out of concern about retaliation from the Trump administration.
Jing said he is going to watch and see what happens for now, in case the move against international students is a negotiating tactic that does not stick.
The possibility that Trump could block foreign enrollment at other colleges only raises the uncertainty for students planning to pursue their education overseas, said Craig Riggs, who has been working in international education for about 30 years and is the editor of ICEF Monitor. He said he urges families to consult carefully with advisers and not to overreact to the day’s headlines.
“The rules under which students would make this huge decision to devote years of their lives and quite a bit of money to studying at Harvard have been shown to change quite quickly,” Riggs said.
An aspiring economist, Nuguse was the only student accepted to Harvard this year from Kalamino Special High School, which caters to gifted students from underprivileged backgrounds from across Tigray.
After receiving acceptances also to Columbia University and Amherst College, Nuguse chose Harvard, which he had long dreamed of attending. He said he hopes it will work out to attend Harvard.
Nuguse was granted a visa to study at Harvard, and he worries it might be too late to reverse his decision and attend another university anyway. He received an email from Harvard last week, telling him to proceed with his registration and highlighting a judge’s order in Harvard’s favor in the dispute over foreign enrollment.
“I hope the situation is temporary and I can enroll on time to go on and realize my dream far from reality in Ethiopia,” he said.
Trump says it may be better to let Ukraine, Russia ‘fight for a while’ as Merz blames Putin for war
- Likens Ukraine-Russia war to a fight between two children who hate each other
- Vows to be “very, very tough” to both Russia and Ukraine “when I see the moment where it’s not going to stop”
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday that it might be better to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” before pulling them apart and pursuing peace, even as Germany’s new chancellor appealed to him as the “key person in the world” who could halt the bloodshed by pressuring Vladimir Putin.
In an Oval Office meeting with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the US president likened the war in Ukraine — which Russia invaded in February 2022 — to a fight between two children who hate each other. Trump said that with children, “sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” adding that he relayed the analogy to Putin in a call this week.
“I said, ‘President, maybe you’re going to have to keep fighting and suffering a lot,’ because both sides are suffering before you pull them apart, before they’re able to be pulled apart,” Trump said. “You see in hockey, you see it in sports. The referees let them go for a couple of seconds, let them go for a little while before you pull them apart.”
The comments were a remarkable detour from Trump’s often-stated appeals to stop the violence in Ukraine — and he again denounced the bloodshed Thursday even as he floated the possibility that the two countries should continue the war for a time. Merz carefully sidestepped Trump’s assertions and emphasized that the US and Germany both agree on “how terrible this war is,” while making sure to lay blame squarely on Putin for the violence and make the point that Germany was siding with Ukraine.
“We are both looking for ways to stop it very soon,” Merz said in the Oval Office. “I told the president before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia.”
Thursday’s meeting was the first time the two leaders sat down in person, and Merz left the public portion unscathed as he successfully avoided the kind of made-for-TV confrontation in the Oval Office that befell other world leaders such as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa. Trump and Merz began by exchanging pleasantries — Merz gave Trump a gold-framed birth certificate of the US president’s grandfather Friedrich Trump, who emigrated to America from Kallstadt, Germany, and Trump called the chancellor a “very good man to deal with.”
“He’s difficult, I would say? Can I say that? It’s a positive. You wouldn’t want me to say you’re easy, right?” Trump said, gently ribbing Merz. “He’s a very great representative of Germany.”
Merz told German reporters after the White House meeting that he had invited Trump to visit Germany, “his home country,” and added that the two leaders “get along well on the personal level.”
Trump and Merz had previously spoken several times by phone since Merz took office on May 6. German officials say the two leaders have started to build a “decent” relationship. Merz avoided the antagonism that defined Trump’s relationship with one of his predecessors, Angela Merkel, in the Republican president’s first term.
Merz emphasizes Ukraine support
The 69-year-old Merz — who came to office with an extensive business background — is a conservative former rival of Merkel’s who took over her party after she retired from politics.
Merz has thrown himself into diplomacy on Ukraine, traveling to Kyiv with fellow European leaders days after taking office and receiving Zelensky in Berlin last week. He has thanked Trump for his support for an unconditional ceasefire while rejecting the idea of “dictated peace” or the “subjugation” of Ukraine and advocating for more sanctions against Russia.
On Thursday, Trump also kept the threat of sanctions on the table — but for both Russia and Ukraine. He said he has not looked at bipartisan Senate legislation that would impose harsh economic punishments on Moscow, but said of sanctions efforts that “they would be guided by me,” rather than Capitol Hill.
“When I see the moment where it’s not going to stop ... we’ll be very, very tough,” Trump said. “And it could be on both countries, to be honest. It takes two to tango.”
For Merz’s part, he used Friday’s anniversary of D-Day — when Allied forces launched an assault that began the liberation of Europe from German occupation — to appeal to Trump to help lead the ending of another violent war on the continent.
Merz noted that June 6, 1944, began the liberation of Germany from a Nazi dictator and that “American is again in a very strong position to so something on this war and ending this war.”
“That was not a pleasant day for you?” Trump interjected to the German leader when he referenced D-Day.
At home, Merz’s government is intensifying a drive that his immediate predecessor, Olaf Scholz, began to bolster the German military after Russia invaded Ukraine. In Trump’s first term, Berlin was a target of his ire for failing to meet the current NATO target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, and Trump is now demanding at least 5 percent from allies.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, a White House official said the administration planned to stress to Germany that it should increase its defense spending and that the upcoming NATO summit in The Netherlands was a good opportunity to commit to Trump’s 5 percent pledge. But during an exchange with reporters, Trump praised Berlin: “I know that you’re spending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money. That’s a positive thing.”
Scholz set up a 100 billion euro ($115 billion) special fund to modernize Germany’s armed forces — called the Bundeswehr — which had suffered from years of neglect. Germany has met the 2 percent target thanks to the fund, but it will be used up in 2027. Merz has endorsed a plan for all allies to aim to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on their defense budgets by 2032, plus an extra 1.5 percent on potentially defense-related things like infrastructure.
Tariff trouble
Another top priority for Merz is to get Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest, moving again after it shrank the past two years. He wants to make it a “locomotive of growth,” but Trump’s tariff threats are a potential obstacle for a country whose exports have been a key strength. At present, the economy is forecast to stagnate in 2025.
Germany exported $160 billion worth of goods to the US last year, according to the Census Bureau. That was about $85 billion more than what the US sent to Germany, a trade deficit that Trump wants to erase.
“Germany is one of the very big investors in America,” Merz told German reporters Thursday morning ahead of his visit with Trump. “Only a few countries invest more than Germany in the USA. We are in third place in terms of foreign direct investment.”
The US president has specifically gone after the German auto sector, which includes major brands such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche and Volkswagen. Americans bought $36 billion worth of cars, trucks and auto parts from Germany last year, while the Germans purchased $10.2 billion worth of vehicles and parts from the US Trump’s 25 percent tariff on autos and parts is specifically designed to increase the cost of German-made automobiles.
There’s only so much Merz can achieve on his view that tariffs “benefit no one and damage everyone” while in Washington, as trade negotiations are a matter for the European Union’s executive commission. Trump hinted at that Thursday, saying the trade situation will mostly depend on the negotiations with the 27-country bloc.
“We’ll end up hopefully with a trade deal,” Trump said. “Or we’ll do something. We’ll do the tariffs.”
Trump recently delayed a planned 50 percent tariff on goods coming from the European Union, which would have otherwise gone into effect this month.
Germany’s Merz says he agreed to boost cooperation with Trump on trade issues
- Merz said he and Trump spoke at length about trade and tariffs during their meeting in Washington
- Trump has set a July 9 deadline for the 27-bloc EU and other trading partners to reach trade deals and avert steep tariffs
WASHINGTON: Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday said Germany, Europe’s largest economy, was ready to take over a greater leadership role on future trade agreements as the United States and the EU race to reach a trade deal before a July 9 deadline.
Merz told reporters he had a productive meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, and the two men had agreed to strengthen cooperation on trade matters and other issues.
Merz said he and Trump spoke at length about trade and tariffs during their meeting in the Oval Office, and over a lunch, where Merz said he highlighted the manufacturing facilities operated by German automakers in the United States.
“We will send officials to further deepen these topics. We want to reach a mutual solution,” Merz told reporters, noting that while the European Union was responsible for setting trade policy, Germany had a significant role to play given the size of its exports.
Trump has set a July 9 deadline for the 27-bloc European Union and other trading partners to reach trade deals and avert steep tariffs. US and EU officials met in Paris on Wednesday and said negotiations were constructive and advancing quickly.
Europe, already facing a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum and a 25 percent levy on car imports, could see tariffs on its exports to the US surge from 10 percent to as high as 50 percent if no deal is reached.
Merz told ZDF German television that he told Trump that German automakers produced about 400,000 vehicles in the United States, about the same number as in Germany, with some of those vehicles then exported back to Germany.
“There is a balance,” he said. “Can we not acknowledge that for every car that is imported another car is exported by the same manufacturer and drop the tariffs?“
Merz said he would also address the issue with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, adding that there was scope and potential momentum to reach a solution.
“If a trade dispute escalates, that hurts everyone, also hurts the German manufacturers in America and the roughly one million families in America that are paid by German firms,” he told Germany’s ProSieben television station.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll make progress. But we’re not yet at the goal line.”
Tesla stock plunges as Musk’s feud with Trump over GOP tax bill spooks investors
- The drop on Thursday wiped out nearly $150 billion from Tesla’s market value
Shares of Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker fell sharply Thursday as investors feared his dispute with President Donald Trump will hurt the company.
Tesla plunged closed down more than 14 percent as a disagreement over the US president’s budget bill turned nasty. After Musk said that Trump wouldn’t haven’t gotten elected without his help, Trump implied that he may turn the federal government against his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.
“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 his social messaging service Truth Social. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
The drop on Thursday wiped out nearly $150 billion from Tesla’s market value, partially reversing a big runup in the eight weeks since Musk confirmed that Tesla would testing an autonomous, driverless “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, this month.
Investors fear Trump might not be in such a rush to usher in a future of self-driving cars in the US, and that could slam Tesla because so much of its future business depends on that.
“There is a fear that Trump is not going to play Mr. Nice Guy when in come to autonomous,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. “The whole goal of robotaxis is to have them 20 or 25 cities next year. If you start to heighten the regulatory environment, that could delay that path.”
Trump’s threat to cut government contracts seem targeted more to another of Musk’s businesses, SpaceX, his privately held rocket company that received billions of dollars to send astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, provide launches and do other work for NASA. The company is currently racing to develop a mega rocket for the space agency to sent astronauts to moon next year.
A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite Internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk’s once-close relationship with the president.
On a trip with Trump to the Middle East last month, Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved his satellite service for aviation and maritime use. Though its not clear how much politics has played a role, a string of other recent deals for the company in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere has come as Trump has threatened tariffs and sent diplomats scrambling to please the president.
One measure of SpaceX’s success: A private financing round followed by a private sale of shares recently reportedly valued it at $350 billion, up from an estimated $210 billion just a year ago. Tesla shares initially got a lift from his support of Trump. In the weeks after Trump was elected, Tesla shares soared, hitting an all-time high on Dec. 17. But they gave back those gains during Musk’s time as head of a government cost-cutting group as Tesla’s reputation took a hit. They’ve recently popped higher again after Musk vowed to focus much more on Tesla and its upcoming launch of driverless taxis.
Trump threatens Musk’s government deals as feud explodes over tax-cut bill
- Trump asserted that Musk really objected to the president’s elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles
- Musk’s increasing focus on politics provoked widespread protests at Tesla sites in the US and Europe
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to cut off government contracts with billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, and Musk suggested Trump should be impeached, as the bromance between the president and his former adviser disintegrated into a barroom brawl.
Trump started the feud in remarks from the Oval Office. Musk quickly responded with posts on his social media site X, and within hours both were trading barbs on their respective social media platforms.
“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 his Truth Social.
Their sparring hammered shares of Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla, which lost about $150 billion in value, closing down 14.3 percent for the day.
Minutes after the closing bell, Musk replied, “Yes,” to a post on X saying Trump should be impeached.
Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress and are highly unlikely to impeach him.
The trouble between the two built up over the week. On Tuesday, Musk began denouncing Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. The president held his tongue while Musk, his former adviser, campaigned to torpedo the bill, saying it would add too much to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office he was “very disappointed” in Musk.
“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump said.
As the spat got increasingly bitter, Musk also posted that Trump “is in the Epstein files,” referring to US government documents on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial for sex crimes.
“That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information.
Besides Tesla, Musk’s businesses include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX and its satellite unit Starlink. The billionaire spent nearly $300 million in the 2024 election in support of Trump and other Republican candidates.
Musk, whose space business plays a critical role in the US government’s space program, said that as a result of Trump’s threats he planned to begin decommissioning SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Dragon is the only US spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s cheap, reusable Falcon 9 rockets have made it the world’s most active launch provider. Its vast Starlink network has disrupted the global satellite communications market.
Ever-present ally
After serving as the biggest Republican donor in the 2024 campaign season, Musk became one of Trump’s most visible advisers as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which mounted a sweeping effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending.
Musk was frequently present at the White House and made multiple appearances on Capitol Hill, sometimes carrying his young son.
Only six days before Thursday’s blowup, Trump and Musk held a joint appearance in the Oval Office, where Trump praised Musk’s government service and both men promised to continue working together.
A prolonged feud between Trump and Musk could make it more difficult for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections. In addition to his campaign spending, Musk has a huge online following and helped connect Trump to parts of Silicon Valley and wealthy donors.
Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending in the future.
Soon after Trump’s Oval Office comments, Musk polled his 220 million followers on X: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle?“
‘Kill the bill’
Musk’s blistering attacks this week targeted what Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill.” Musk called it a “disgusting abomination” that would deepen the federal deficit, and his posts amplified a rift within the Republican Party that could threaten the bill’s prospects in the Senate. Nonpartisan analysts say Trump’s bill could add $2.4 trillion to $5 trillion to the nation’s $36.2 trillion in debt.
Trump asserted that Musk really objected to the president’s elimination of consumer tax credits for electric vehicles.
Trump also suggested that Musk was upset because he missed working for Trump.
“He’s not the first,” Trump said on Thursday. “People leave my administration ... then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile.”
Musk wrote on X, “KILL the BILL,” adding he was fine with Trump’s planned cuts to electric vehicle credits as long as Republicans rid the bill of “mountain of disgusting pork” or wasteful spending.
He also pulled up past quotes from Trump decrying the level of federal spending, adding, “Where is this guy today?”
Trump, meanwhile, posted on Truth Social that Musk “went crazy.”
‘Ingratitude’
Politicians and their donor patrons rarely see eye to eye. But the magnitude of Musk’s support for Trump, spending at least $250 million backing his campaign, and the scope of free rein the president gave him to slash and delve into the government with the Department of Government Efficiency is eclipsed only by the speed of their falling-out.
Musk offered up an especially stinging insult to a president sensitive about his standing among voters: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk retorted. “Such ingratitude,” Musk added in a follow-up post.
Musk first announced his support for Trump shortly after the then-candidate was nearly assassinated on stage at a Pennsylvania rally last July. News of Musk’s political action committee in support of Trump’s election came days later.
Musk soon became a close adviser and frequent companion, memorably leaping in the air behind Trump on stage at a rally in October. Once Trump was elected, the tech billionaire stood behind him as he took the oath of office, flew on Air Force One for weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom and joined Cabinet meetings wearing a MAGA hat — sometimes more than one.
Three months ago, Trump purchased a red Tesla from Musk as a public show of support for his business as it faced blowback.
Musk bid farewell to Trump last week in a somewhat somber news conference in the Oval Office, where he sported a black eye that he said came from his young son but that seemed to be a metaphor for his messy time in government service.
Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to zing his critics on appearance, brought it up Thursday.
“I said, ‘Do you want a little makeup? We’ll get you a little makeup.’ Which is interesting,” Trump said.
‘Disgusting abomination’
The Republican president’s comments came as Musk has griped for days on social media about Trump’s spending bill, warning that it will increase the federal deficit. Musk has called the bill a “disgusting abomination.”
“He hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that will be next,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office, presaging the rest of his day. “But I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Observers had long wondered if the friendship between the two brash billionaires known for lobbing insults online would combust in dramatic fashion. It did, in less than a year.
White House aides were closely following the drama playing out on dueling platforms Thursday with bemusement, sharing the latest twists and turns from the feud between their boss and former co-worker, as well as the social media reaction and memes. Officials in the extremely online administration privately expressed the belief that like the other digital scuffles that have defined Trump’s political career, this would also work out in his favor.
Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that he and Musk had had a great relationship but mused: “I don’t know if we will anymore.”
He said some people who leave his administration “miss it so badly” and “actually become hostile.”
“It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,” he said.
He brushed aside the billionaire’s efforts to get him elected last year, including a $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in Pennsylvania. The surge of cash Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to set him up as a highly coveted ally for Republicans going forward, but his split with Trump, the party’s leader, raises questions about whether they or any others will see such a campaign windfall in the future.
Trump said Musk “only developed a problem” with the bill because it rolls back tax credits for electric vehicles.
“False,” Musk fired back on his social media platform as the president continued speaking. “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!”
In another post, he said Trump could keep the spending cuts but “ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”
Besides Musk being “disturbed” by the electric vehicle tax credits, Trump said another point of contention was Musk’s promotion of Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination over the weekend and on Thursday called him “totally a Democrat.”
Musk continued slinging his responses on social media. He shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticizing Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media.
“Where is the man who wrote these words?” Musk wrote. “Was he replaced by a body double!?”
On the White House grounds Thursday afternoon, Trump’s red Tesla still sat in a parking lot.
Following Trump’s remarks, a White House official, speaking on background, underscored the shift in the once-close dynamic between Musk and Trump.
“The president is making it clear: this White House is not beholden to Elon Musk on policy,” the official said. “By attacking the bill the way he did, Musk has clearly picked a side.”
