Former adviser taunts president over links to Epstein while Trump threatens to cancel contracts for Musk companies

Elon Musk called for Donald Trump to be impeached after mocking his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies in an extraordinary social media feud on Thursday.

The deterioration of their once close relationship into bitter acrimony came over the course of several remarkable hours during which the president and the world’s richest man hurled deeply personal insults over matters significant and insignificant.

In the most churlish moment of the astonishing saga, Musk said on X the reason the Trump administration had not released the files into Epstein was because they implicated the president. He later quote-tweeted a post calling for Trump to be removed and said Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    3 days ago

    Elon’s going to lose this fight. All the other rich people backing Trump still think the snake won’t bite them, and Elon doesn’t have the same cult of personality Trump does. He had some good will for a while, but he’s been burning that ever since the weird pedo guy thing, and that’s nowhere near Trump’s fucking cult energy. Forty years from now there’s still going to be dumbasses and edgy teens talking about how they heard a rumor that Trump is still alive out there in the wastes that used to be middle America.

    • Don_alForno@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      3 days ago

      Elon doesn’t have the same cult of personality Trump does

      He used to, but then he started associating with Trump.

      • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        2 days ago

        He really used to - remember all the iron man shit? The image of the benevolent billionaire who was going to open up space? I’m ashamed to admit I was tempted to believe too.

        He lost the positive public image before he started associating with trump tho. I think what happened was he fired his PR team because he thought he could do better himself. Right around the time he got pissy and was calling that cave diver a pedo, the guy who saved a bunch of kids in Thailand. It was all downhill from there and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone piss away so much public goodwill so quickly.

        • Alaik@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 days ago

          Im gonna be honest, I never bought into the whole Phony Stark persona but I did but him at the same level as Bill Gates, (no such thing as a good billionare, but he’s doing SOME good things with his ill gotten gains).

          The dudes brain is fucking fried for sure now. If he hadn’t hurt so many people, id almost feel bad for him.

      • mcv@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        2 days ago

        It seems he wasn’t aware that his cult following came from the other end of the political spectrum.

        Well, not quite the other end, but environmentally inclined business friendly liberals are still not quite Trump’s crowd.