The alliance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is unraveling — with one of the richest men in the world and Trump trading threats and public insults on Thursday.
"It's really quite strange," said tech journalist Kara Swisher in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition. "But it's sort of in keeping with their relationship over the last year or so as Musk became very close to Donald Trump."
Trump and Musk's friendship breakup comes after the duo became allies during the 2024 presidential election. Musk donated close to $300 million to Trump's campaign, traveled the campaign trail with Trump, and eventually joined the Trump administration as an adviser and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, following Trump's inauguration in January.
But by March, Musk's role in the administration began to face questions. Musk reportedly clashed with Trump advisors, insulted cabinet members, and grew more vocal about disagreements with administration policies. It was announced in late May that he would be stepping down from his role leading DOGE. Musk said his decision to leave his government role coincided with the end of his "scheduled time" as a government employee.
Musk and Trump's fallout this week was fueled by Musk's criticism of the Republican mega-bill — which pushes forward the majority of Trump's domestic policy priorities. Musk raised concerns that the tax and spending bill conflicted with the work completed by DOGE and would increase the budget deficit.
While speaking with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Swisher shared her thoughts on Trump and Musk's issues, why she predicted their split months ago, and the dangers of two of the most powerful men in the country publicly feuding.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Steve Inskeep: I want people to know we talk from time to time. I don't really ask about your personal life. And I don't want to go too far here. But have you ever had a breakup like this?
Kara Swisher: Not like this. Not publicly like this. It's really quite strange, actually. But it's sort of in keeping with their relationship over the last year or so, as Musk became very close to Donald Trump.
Inskeep: What do you mean in keeping with their relationship?
Swisher: Well, I think he [Musk] sort of fell in love quickly. He sort of went crazy –jumping up and down, doing the chain saw thing, dedicating his life, moving into Mar a Lago. All this stuff. shifted rather dramatically because he sort of was somewhat neutral in politics. Had voted for Obama, [and] had a relationship with Trump in the first term, but certainly wasn't as deeply in love with him. – and I hate to use these terms– but it's really been quite intense. Calling himself B.F. or best buddy or first buddy. And Trump reciprocated, too.
Inskeep: What do you think drove Musk to speak out repeatedly until the president finally responded yesterday?
Swisher: I think he was forced out of the White House, essentially. They moved him along because of all the negatives that were starting to build up and the usefulness of Musk to Democrats –in terms of attacking a lot of things. He also disagreed a number of times. He called Peter Navarro a I think, a moron – and worse. He disagreed last year over the bill. If you remember, he started to complain publicly. And so he wasn't cooperative. He also was fighting with cabinet members, bullying people [and] staying there a lot. You know, he stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom quite a bit. But last November, I kind of predicted this would happen –it would be a spectacular breakup. I used the reference for the movie Highlander, which there can be only one. And in this case, in [the]Trump world, there can be only one, which is Donald Trump.
Inskeep: We talk about this as a relationship, as a kind of a personal beef, but there's some real substance here. The question of how much does a rich person get to buy when they start paying for somebody's election? Here's another thing that's on my mind. The president yesterday threatened to cancel "billions and billions" of dollars in contracts to Musk's companies. He's got SpaceX, he's got satellites. He's got a lot of things. This is what Trump did to Harvard. This is what Trump did to law firms.: I will punish your speech. What does it say that he now threatens to do that to a right wing ally?
Swisher: It's in his tool bag. He does it all the time. And of course, he did it obliquely by saying, I wonder why Biden didn't do it, or here's an idea, that kind of thing. It was his veiled threat. It's a little mobster, –'it's a nice business you got there, hate to lose it', that kind of thing. It's very typical of him to do so. I don't think it's a small thing because Musk has a lot of leverage too. He has a lot of important government contracts the government relies on. He also has enormous amounts of money. This is not [like] throwing Omarosa out of the White House. This is throwing the richest man in the world who has enormous power, has a huge platform, has a lot of means and methods to strike back. So it's not the smallest thing in the world. He's picking a fight.
Inskeep: Musk is then saying, I'm immediately going to decommission the Dragon space capsules, which would strand people –astronauts in space.
Swisher: He took it back.
Inskeep: He took that back? Okay. He's also at the same time saying, 'What an amazing timeline I have'. That's one of his tweets yesterday. Is all of this fake? Is any of this really happening?
Swisher: Everyone thinks it was fake. I think the reference to Jeffrey Epstein, sort – I first thought, oh, goodness sake, this is typical of these two. Because they're so much alike in so many ways. Everything's about look at me. They obviously didn't get hugged enough as children –either of them. But they need to be you know, they need the attention on them at all times. The thing is, this is the President of the United States [and]the richest man in the world. There's legislation that's pending. It's not a reality show. It's not a game and everything else. So when he did the Epstein stuff, I went, Oh dear, he went, he went to pedophile, which is something that. Speaking of bag of tricks, that's an Elon thing that he typically accuses people [of]. He was in a lawsuit over that issue a couple of years ago . And he did it to the speaker of the House. He does it all the time.
Inskeep: I want to ask about another serious potential consequence here. At the beginning of the administration, people were referring to Musk and a bunch of others as oligarchs. And so we looked into the history of so-called oligarchs in Russia. And there was a moment in Russia where there was an oligarch who had an opinion that President Vladimir Putin didn't like. And so Putin destroyed that oligarch and then all the other oligarchs and replaced them with his own people. Is that possible in the United States?
Swisher: Oh, well, I guess it's possible. Trump is somewhat incompetent at being an autocrat right now. And the people do fight back. And it's a slightly different situation than Russia is and the way Putin wields power. But certainly he has lots of things at his disposal. The issue is how many people can he fight at once. He's fighting Harvard [University]. Who's pushing back. He's fighting lawyers, some of whom are pushing back. And so at some point, he's fighting too many people. He can sic the Justice Department on Musk, but then it'll be very explicit. A lot of this is so explicit. The coin operated president who gets the rich guy [and] gives him the Lincoln Bedroom for the money. All this is so explicit. It's not like it hasn't happened before. And so explicitly fighting musk will be quite something. And Musk is not without his fans and again, without tools to fight back at Trump.
Inskeep: I guess if you were worried about the extreme concentration of power, –the world's richest man hanging out with the world's most powerful man– it's less concentrated now.
Swisher: I don't know. I find it worrisome –completely worrisome– that this is what we're doing. They're not being serious people. This is ridiculous. Trump is nearly 80 years old. Musk is in his fifties.This is toddler behavior.
Inkseep: Bill Ackman, another billionaire part of their coalition, urging them to make peace. And Musk seems to agree on social media. You think they'll just make up somehow?
Swisher: Maybe. Although I think Trump probably has had it with him, especially with the Epstein stuff. Bill Ackman, an insufferable hedge fund person, is not the person who should be making peace here but that's just my opinion.
Note: Trump told CNN Friday that he won't speak to Musk "for a while."
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