Elon Musk claimed Thursday afternoon that President Donald Trump is ‘in the Epstein files’ – a dramatic escalation amid their spectacular falling out.
Musk also suggested that Trump should be impeached – and replaced with 40-year-old Vice President J.D. Vance.
Moments before the Epstein charge, Trump had taken to Truth Social and said he had asked Musk to leave his administration and said the billionaire went ‘CRAZY!’
With that, Musk announced that it was ‘time to drop a really big bomb.’
‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,’ Musk wrote. ‘Have a nice day, DJT!’
Jeffrey Epstein is a serial child sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
Trump pledged to release the files related to Epstein, with Attorney General Pam Bondi releasing some pages in February, but most of that information was already in the public domain.
‘Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,’ Musk added.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.
Trump didn’t directly respond to Musk’s Epstein charge, instead posting what amounted to a shrug on Truth Social, while also continuing to back the ‘big, beautiful bill.’
‘I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,’ Trump wrote. ‘This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.’
Later he ignored shouted questions from reporters on Musk’s Epstein charge as he hosted the National Fraternal Order of Police executive board in the State Dining Room.
Meanwhile Musk kept on going, using a raised eyebrow emoji to highlight an X post that detailed a quote Trump once gave on Epstein, who was found to be a serial pedophile.
Musk used the same emoji and shared a clip from MSNBC that showed a 1992 party that both Trump and Epstein attended.
In the past few days, Musk has grown increasingly critical of the ‘big, beautiful bill’ Republicans are trying to pass through Congress – arguing it reversed his work with DOGE – but on Thursday, he took aim at Trump himself.
Trump took to Truth Social Thursday afternoon after first criticizing Musk in the Oval Office.
‘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.
The president then threatened to pull SpaceX and Tesla’s government contracts.
‘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!’ Trump wrote.
Musk then taunted Trump to act.
‘This just gets better and better,’ he wrote. ‘Go ahead, make my day …’
In a follow-up post, Musk said he would ‘begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.’
The Dragon is how NASA astronauts currently travel to the International Space Station – and how supplies make it there.
As the fight continued, Tesla shares plummeted by 17.6 percent.
After the Epstein charge, anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West entered the chat.
‘Broooos please noooooo. We love you both so much,’ West wrote.
Trump’s swipes came after Musk said the Republican would have lost the 2024 election had it not been for the world’s richest man’s help.
‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,’ Musk claimed. ‘Such ingratitude,’ the billionaire added on X.
Musk had publicly endorsed Trump on the heels of the July 13th assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and poured $290 million of his fortune on the Republican’s campaign.
The billionaire also joined Trump on the campaign trail when he returned to the site of the Butler shooting in early October, a month before Election Day.
Trump said he likely still would have won the key state of Pennsylvania without Musk’s assistance, partly because Kamala Harris didn’t choose the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, to be her running mate.
Even with Shapiro on the Democratic ticket, Trump claimed, ‘I would have won Pennsylvania, I would have won by a lot.’
Musk said that was laughable.
During the transition, Trump announced that Musk would run the newly created Department of Government Efficiency or ‘DOGE,’ allowing the businessman to take a chainsaw to alleged waste, fraud and abuse.
Those efforts didn’t play well with the American public, with Musk formally out last week.
Now the 53-year-old South African-born billionaire is asserting that he has more staying power in U.S. politics than the 78-year-old president.
‘Oh and some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years,’ Musk said Thursday afternoon, responding to a post from MAGA agitator Laura Loomer.
Loomer said she was reporting from Capitol Hill and that Republican lawmakers were trying to determine if it was better to side with Trump or Musk.
Musk’s latest online assault of Trump came moments after the president went on a tirade about the billionaire while hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office.
‘Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more, I was surprised,’ Trump said.
The president suggested that Musk was angry – not over the bill ballooning the deficit – but because the Trump administration has pulled back on electric vehicle mandates, which negatively impacted Tesla.
He also indicated that there was a problem when he rejected Musk’s preferred nominee to lead NASA because his choice was a Democrat.
‘And you know, Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and they’re having a hard time the electric vehicles and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy,’ Trump said. ‘I know that disturbed him.’
Shares of Tesla dipped 8 percent amid the spat.
Over the weekend, Trump pulled the nomination of Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Isaacman had worked alongside Musk at SpaceX.
‘He recommended somebody that I guess he knew very well, I’m sure he respected him, to run NASA and I didn’t think it was appropriate and he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat,’ Trump continued. ‘We won, we get certain privileges and one of the privileges is we don’t have to appoint a Democrat.’
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