Trump and Musk: A Timeline of Alliance, Fallout, And The Epstein Files Bombshell

The near-oligarchic power duo between the U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk -the world’s richest person - is showing signs of strain- sooner than anticipated.  

Once, a viral photo of Musk gleefully jumping in support of Trump symbolized the strength of their association. Now, Musk is accusing Trump of appearing in the Epstein files. The tables have turned. 

This week, the feud has spilled widely across the internet. Trump's flagship tax and spending proposal, the so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill', was denounced by Musk on X. 

The two high-profile individuals have had an on-and-off relationship for years. Musk - just before the 2016 presidential election, told CNBC - that he did not think Trump should be president.  

“He doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States," he said. 

In 2017, he stepped down from his positions on the presidential advisory councils in protest of Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.  

Trump, during a January 2020 interview with CNBC called Musk "one of our great geniuses." It took Trump just two years to backtrack and say, “so he's another bullshit artist." 

However, Musk - after acquiring Twitter and rebranding it as ‘X’ - unbanned Trump’s account, which was removed after the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. 

Trump’s Presidential Campaign: 

Cut to Trump’s 2025 presidential campaign, billionaire Musk announced that he "fully” endorsed Trump after the Pennsylvania campaign rally, where an attempt to assassinate the former president was made. This endorsement proved to be a pivotal moment in the Republican Party's trajectory.  

By August last year, Trump had hinted that if elected President, the administration would consider adding Musk to his Cabinet or an advisory role.  

In response, Musk shared an AI-generated image of himself standing at a podium labeled ‘D.O.G.E.’ - an acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency - with the caption, “I am willing to serve.” 

Suffice it to say, Trump and Musk crafted a near-unbreakable narrative - one that ultimately paved the way for Trump’s resounding victory and his return to the Oval Office this January. 

As was expected, almost a week after the November victory for the Republican leader - Trump declared that Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy were to lead a newly minted Department of Government Efficiency.  

"Together, these two wonderful Americans will pay the way for my Administration to dismantle the Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies," Trump said. 

The months of April through June: 

Cut to April 2025, Musk announced that he would be stepping back from DOGE. "Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla," he said. By May, he had stated that he would be spending less time in politics, also that, “in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.” 

By the end of May, the Trump administration had announced Musk’s departure procedure. What followed was a bitter commentary on Trump's tax-and-spending package.  

Musk - who had already called it a “massive spending bill,” entirely abandoned any professional courtesy. He stated that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” is a “disgusting abomination,” later adding that it defeats all the cost savings achieved by the DOGE team at “great personal cost and risk.” 

June 5 to June 6: 

Trump, who now regularly posts his proclamations on Truth Social - a media and technology platform he founded in 2021 - has gone all in on Musk. 

What began as a crack in their alliance has now widened into a full-blown feud, spilling beyond professional bounds and descending into sharp, personal jabs. 

“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office - just days after the end of a supposedly cordial partnership. 

On June 5, Trump posted that “the easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” Musk responded by posting that he would immediately decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which provides NASA transport to and from the International Space Station. 

Musk, meanwhile, is flooding X—the social media platform he owns—with reposts and jabs. He fished previous tweets of Trump criticising a Republican minister for raising the debt ceiling, and captioning it “wise words” 

Musk responded with ‘Kill Bill’ on a post mentioning that the Senate is losing confidence in the reconciliation bill. 

However, the biggest personal attack came on June 6, when he posted that Trump, “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” adding that it is time to drop the really big bomb.  

Trump has not responded to the allegation yet.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, as quoted by Sky New, "This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill [a Republican tax and spending bill] because it does not include the policies he wanted.” 

"The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again." 

Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who became the central figure in one of the most high-profile sex trafficking scandals. He was arrested in 2019 by federal prosecutors in New York for operating a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls - and later committed suicide in his prison cell. 

While once hailed as tech-and-power besties, Trump and Musk have had a messy fallout that appears unlikely to be repaired for now. As memes take over the internet, offering two break-up advice - a war of words ensues, severely complicating the financial and political landscape in the U.S. and beyond.