This Trump/Musk Feud Is a New Circle of MAGA Hell

On Thursday, Trump said Musk developed Trump Derangement Syndrome, then Musk tweeted that Trump would have lost the election “without me,” and neither has stopped posting since.

By Lauren Tousignant | June 5, 2025 | 3:22pm

Photo: Getty Images Politics

This Trump/Musk Feud Is a New Circle of MAGA Hell

If the first circle of MAGA hell was Donald Trump’s golden escalator ride in 2016 and the second circle of MAGA hell was his first entire term, I’d say we’re currently somewhere between the fourth circle (the slow decay of women’s rights and autonomy) and the fifth circle (potentially kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance and throwing a million-dolllar, North Korean-esque military parade). And floating somewhere in our current between-circles limbo is a bonus circle of MAGA Hell: the fallout of Musk and Trump.

Obviously, this was bound to happen. A friendship between the richest man in the world and a guy who wishes he were the richest man in the world—both accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women—was never going to end with the exchange of diamond-studded friendship necklaces. But they’re both obsessed with the internet and addicted to posting, which is making their very public feud an especially irritating event to live through.

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Their fight started a few weeks ago, when Musk began trashing Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” and seemed to reach a boiling point on Wednesday, when Musk tweeted, “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.” (Naturally, Musk couldn’t care less about the millions of Americans this bill would hurt if passed, he’s just “butthurt” about his standing in the administration and salty that it might screw over Tesla.) But Wednesday was just the warm-up.

On Thursday, Trump responded, and then Musk tweeted back, and Trump posted back on Truth Social, and I fear we’re now trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario of egomaniacs with social media accounts.

“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here…,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday. “He had no problem with it, all of a sudden he had a problem, and he only had a problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate.” (The “EV mandate” is the electric automobile tax credit that Tesla spent at least $240,000 lobbying for.)

Trump then told reporters he thinks Musk just really misses the White House and accused him of developing Trump Derangement Syndrome. Musk quickly responded to a clip of Trump’s remarks on Twitter, writing, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” He then added, “Such ingratitude.” He’s continued to post Trump memes, troll GOP Congress members, and rage about how bad the bill is. (Which, for the record, is very, very bad.)

After his press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Trump hopped on Truth Social to say more about Musk. “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Trump wrote. He quickly followed that up with, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Then Musk tweeted that Trump “is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

Who knows what will happen next? Will Musk take his flamethrowers to the Oval Office? Will Trump stuff Musk into Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket and ship him off to Mars? Will Musk fully crash out and reveal how he and Trump stole the 2024 election? Will they literally murder each other? Fingers crossed for all of the above.

But whatever the outcome—and as long as we all make it out alive—at least we finally have a public record of Musk buying the election for Trump. It’s the little things.

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