Elon Musk says he 'regrets' online posts about Donald Trump in climbdown after bitter row with President
11 June 2025, 08:27 | Updated: 11 June 2025, 09:03
Elon Musk has said he 'went too far' with online posts about Donald Trump after claiming the US president's name appeared in the Epstein files.
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Musk posted today: "I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far."
Musk posted a series of tweets on X last week as a bitter rift emerged between the pair. The posts were later deleted.
Among them, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO described the president's sweeping tax and spending bill as a "disgusting abomination".
He said the bill was "outrageous" and it will "burden American citizens".
I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 11, 2025
Over the weekend, Mr Trump said he had no desire to repair his relationship with Musk.
Asked on Saturday whether he had any plans to repair the relationship, he said simply "no."
Asked if he thought his relationship with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was over, Mr Trump said, “I would assume so, yeah.”
A huge row erupted between the pair last week in a public feud kick-started when Mr Trump was asked during a White House meeting with Germany's new leader about Mr Musk's criticism of his spending bill.
Musk had condemned the president's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" before Trump hit back on Thursday in the Oval Office, saying he was "very disappointed in Musk".
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He threatened to use the US government to hurt Mr Musk's bottom line by going after contracts held by his internet company Starlink and rocket company SpaceX.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Mr Trump wrote on social media.
"Go ahead, make my day," Mr Musk quickly replied on X.
Hours later, Mr Musk announced SpaceX would begin decommissioning the spacecraft it used to carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for Nasa.
Then in a huge escalation Musk claimed Trump was "in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!"
After Trump started criticising Musk, shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla plunged more than 14%, knocking about 150 billion dollars (£110 billion) off Tesla's market valuation.
Mr Musk lost about 20 billion dollars (£14.7 billion) on his personal holding of Tesla.
Musk later offered up an especially stinging insult to a president sensitive about his standing among voters: "Without me, Trump would have lost the election."
"Such ingratitude."
Trump's spending bill would unleash trillions of dollars in tax cuts and slash spending but also spike deficits by 2.4 trillion dollars over a decade and leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.