NEWS STORY : Trump Throws Tantrum as Elon Musk Calls on President to be Impeached
STORY
What began as a cordial alliance between two of America’s most outspoken figures has erupted into a full-blown public feud this week. In a series of increasingly personal attacks, former President Donald Trump and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk traded barbs over policy, politics and past allegiances prompting White House aides to arrange a high-stakes conference call aimed at halting further escalation. The dispute first surfaced on Thursday when Trump, ostensibly irked by Musk’s criticism of his sprawling “One Big Beautiful Bill” tax and spending package, warned via Truth Social that he might cancel all federal contracts with Musk’s companies. Within hours, Musk retaliated on X (formerly Twitter) arguing that the former president would have lost the 2024 election if not for Musk’s financial backing and public endorsements.
Trump’s threat to sever government contracts came alongside pointed remarks about Musk supposedly inflating prices and “acting unstable.” Trump insisted that axing agreements with Tesla and SpaceX could lock in substantial savings for beleaguered taxpayers and Musk fired back by suggesting he might decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. At the heart of the dispute lies deep mistrust over fiscal policy and Musk lambasted the “One Big Beautiful Bill” for hiking the deficit by an estimated $3 trillion and stripping electric-vehicle subsidies, warning on X that new tariffs championed by Trump “will cause a US recession by late 2025.”
By Friday morning, administration insiders say that White House aides quietly arranged a call between Musk and senior Trump advisers in hopes of cooling tempers before the standoff threatened even broader economic fallout. Aides worry that if Musk follows through on withdrawing Dragon spacecraft services, NASA will face severe delays in crew rotations and supply runs to the International Space Station. Meanwhile, Tesla’s share price, which plunged by over 20 percent in a single session on the news, rebounded as traders anticipated a possible detente.
