Elon Musk rejected a peace offering from Donald Trump after the president revealed he was not planning to “destroy” the Tesla CEO’s empire.
In the midst of an on-again, off-again, explosive public feud that culminated in Musk dropping the bomb that “Donald Trump is in the Epstein files,” the president threw out a surprise olive branch.
“I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before!” he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.
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The post was being seen as an effort to find a truce between Trump and one-time close ally Musk, whose relationship has spectacularly broken down.
Trump also spoke about not taking away “the large scale subsidies he [Musk] receives from the U.S. Government.”
Musk, who stepped down from a role in Trump’s administration overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency, wasn’t buying it. He responded to Trump’s post by taking it apart bit by bit.
“The ‘subsidies’ he’s talking about simply do not exist. DJT has already removed or put an expiry date on all sustainable energy support while leaving massive oil & gas subsidies untouched,” he said, referring to Trump by his initials.
That appeared to be a reference to the fact that Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” has scrapped the $7,500 federal EV tax credit that benefited Tesla.
Musk moved on to his other company, SpaceX, which he said “won the NASA contracts by doing a better job for less money.”
“Moving those contracts to other aerospace companies would leave astronauts stranded and taxpayers on the hook for twice as much!” Musk contended.
Musk also sarcastically clapped back against Trump’s promise not to “destroy Elon Musk’s companies.”
In response to a tweet about the news, he wrote: “Phew.”
In June, Trump publicly warned that axing Musk’s contracts would save the country billions of dollars.
“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” he said.
Just weeks earlier, Musk asserted on X that Trump “is in the Epstein files” and said that was “the real reason they have not been made public.” He later deleted the post.
Damning new reports suggest that Attorney General Pam Bondi informed Trump in May that his name appears in the documents—reports the White House has dismissed as “fake news.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
