The once-chummy alliance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump has exploded into a fiery public feud — and it’s shaking up the political world. Musk is now backing calls to impeach the former president and replace him with Vice President JD Vance, while warning that Trump’s policies could trigger a major economic downturn by year’s end.
It all kicked off when conservative influencer Ian Miles Cheong posted on X that Trump should be ousted and replaced with Vance. Musk’s blunt one-word reply? “Yes.”
But that was just the beginning.
Musk followed up with a chilling prediction: Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda, he said, would plunge the U.S. into a recession by the second half of the year. Then came the bombshell — Musk accused Trump of being named in Jeffrey Epstein’s files, suggesting that’s why they haven’t been released to the public.
Tensions soared when Musk threatened to deactivate SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft — critical to NASA missions — after Trump reportedly floated the idea of canceling government contracts with his companies. Trump ally Steve Bannon hit back hard, branding Musk a “national security risk” and even suggesting he should be deported, questioning Musk’s immigration status.
As the war of words intensified, Musk tore into a Republican-led spending bill, calling it bloated and wasteful — and slamming it for undercutting the lean financial strategies at Tesla and SpaceX. Trump fired back, saying Musk was simply bitter over the loss of EV subsidies and his failed attempt to place an ally at the helm of NASA.
“I asked him to leave the administration — then he went CRAZY!” Trump fumed.
Musk wasn’t having it. He dared Trump to pull federal contracts and mocked the legislation as being filled with “disgusting pork.” “Bills should be slim and beautiful,” he wrote on X, “not big and ugly.”
And Musk didn’t stop there. He boasted that Trump would’ve lost the 2024 election without his backing — pointing to the $290 million he claims to have poured into Trump’s campaign. “Such ingratitude,” Musk posted, adding that while Trump has “3.5 years left,” he himself will be a force for “40+ years.”
Even Kanye West chimed in with a plea: “Broooos please noooooo. We love you both so much.”
Trump tried to downplay the chaos on Truth Social, saying Musk’s betrayal didn’t bother him — though he added that it “should have come sooner.” At a White House event, he sidestepped questions about Musk’s Epstein accusations. A Trump insider scoffed at the allegations, saying Trump had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago years ago. “If Elon really believed Trump was in deep with Epstein, why did he spend six months hanging around him and say he ‘loves him as much as a straight man can love another straight man’?” the source jabbed.
What started as a high-powered bromance has now turned into a political firestorm — with the fate of the Republican Party, and possibly the White House, hanging in the balance.