--- title: The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space description: It’s a breakup that stands to shake up Trump's entire second term. And we are all in the blast radius. canonical: https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-06-05T20:47:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:53:02.123Z article:section: Politics og:title: The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space og:description: It’s a breakup that stands to shake up Trump's entire second term. And we are all in the blast radius. og:url: https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab7047a2fdc3f83f/6998c72f1f67094aa0f56738/GettyImages-2217850826.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Trump Holds Press Conference With Elon Musk in White House's Oval Office og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space twitter:description: It’s a breakup that stands to shake up Trump's entire second term. And we are all in the blast radius. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab7047a2fdc3f83f/6998c72f1f67094aa0f56738/GettyImages-2217850826.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=4961cf52-c10c-44e9-8739-fca26c1e2267&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: ‘I’m Very Disappointed in Elon’: Trump Says ‘Great Relationship’ With Musk May Be Over [Watch (HLS stream): ‘I’m Very Disappointed in Elon’: Trump Says ‘Great Relationship’ With Musk May Be Over](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/nXkMbeb1.m3u8) (1:25)  _Published 2025-06-05. President Donald Trump says he's "very disappointed" with Elon Musk after he slammed the Republican tax bill and told reporters the tech billionaire who recently left his administration has "Trump Derangement Syndrome."_  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jun 5, 2025 8:47 PM UTC President Donald Trump says he's "very disappointed" with Elon Musk after he slammed the Republican tax bill and told reporters the tech billionaire who recently left his administration has "Trump Derangement Syndrome."  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jun 5, 2025 8:47 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ If you look at the Pentagon’s organizational chart, President Donald Trump is atop the pecking order, carrying the title and power his predecessors enjoyed as Commander in Chief. But judging from the last 24 hours in Washington, as the world’s most powerful man has gotten into a tit-for-tat schoolyard feud with the world’s richest man, a more apt title comes to mind: Chief Petty Officer. Sitting in the Oval Office and on a dueling social media platform of his making, the billionaire President is [lobbing threats](https://time.com/7291495/trump-says-great-relationship-with-musk-may-be-over/) and invectives at fellow billionaire Elon Musk, who just last week enjoyed the kind of warm sendoff seldom offered to outgoing Cabinet secretaries, who in Trump's first term were summarily fired on Twitter. Now that Musk owns Twitter—renamed X—the tables are turned, and Musk can use the same platform to derail Trump’s agenda from afar. It’s a breakup that stands to shake up the entire second term of Trump. And it’s all playing out with more drama than a _Housewives_ reunion. The unscripted unraveling comes as Washington is facing a self-imposed time crunch to finish work on a massive piece of legislation that accomplishes much of the agenda Trump promised as he sought the most unlikely return to power. It carries huge tax breaks, spending to tighten the border and immigration, and drastic cuts to programs promoting clean-energy programs. It’s that last bit that seems to have sparked the shocking split between the two men who, until days ago, seemed to be of a sharedmind to trash the federal infrastructure with disregard to its effects. Trump wanted to scale back the size of government and [gave Musk a sledgehammer](https://time.com/7213409/elon-musk-us-government-trump/) and full access to just about every corner of it. **Read more:** [_Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Stumbles in Senate as Musk Ramps Up Bid to ‘Kill’ It_](https://time.com/7291303/trumps-big-beautiful-bill-stumbles-in-senate-as-musk-ramps-up-bid-to-kill-the-bill/) But when Musk left Trump’s side, he seemed suddenly cleared of any sense of loyalty. He started lobbing his problems with House Republicans’ "One Big Beautiful Bill." He called it an abomination, a debt bomb, a mistake that would cost incumbents their jobs if they didn’t reverse course. He said Trump would never have been elected without his financial help. (That one is probably right, as Musk was the single largest patron of efforts to get Trump back in power.) And, for good measure, in a social media post mid-afternoon Thursday, Musk said Trump is in the unreleased dossier about those involved in a sex trafficking operation of disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. As Trump responded in kind, the world was left watching a brawl involving two masters of the universe who, given their power and resources, could better the course of human history if only they would focus. Trump said Musk “went CRAZY!” Trump threatened to take away all contracts from Musk’s companies, including the SpaceX firm that has quickly become a critical player for NASA. (Musk’s orbit benefits from at least $38 billion in loans, subsidies, tax credits, and outright contracts, according to a Washington _Post_ [analysis](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/elon-musk-business-government-contracts-funding/?itid=lk%5Finline%5Fmanual%5F9).) And as the spat went into its third day, Trump decided that holding his tongue was no longer working for him: “Suddenly he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to cut the EV mandate that’s billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said, mentioning the electric vehicle provisions that stand to benefit Musk’s Tesla auto brand. Normally, billionaire spats make for good copy in the business sections of newspapers and the gossip columns of the tabloids. They’re fun, "other people" problems and a form of escapism. But this is not that. Programs like food aid for poor children, health care for seniors, and subsidies for day-to-day needs are in the balance. The security of borders and the safety and well-being of millions of immigrants living in this country stand to change dramatically. A reordering of a domestic agenda for the next three years is on the table. And instead of trying to win the argument on merits, Trump is sinking to Musk’s level and using his favorite tool of governance: transparent transactional threats. Musk, relishing in his relevance, seemed to be parked on X, hurling whatever he could grab. When one user noted that the U.S. government would be forced to walk away from the International Space Station and its upkeep without Musk’s SpaceX fleet, the tech savant amplified it: “Go ahead, make my day.” Bravado, maybe. But this is why for a generation the U.S. government kept so much of its core duties in-house, especially when it came to projects with huge barriers to entry. Now, with so much reliance on the billionaires with essential monopolies who can take the government hostage with their expertise, Trump is walking into this spat at a decided imbalance. Sure, he can match the pettiness, but he cannot match the political and technological heft. And that should elevate this well beyond a reality-show skirmish. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] I'm very disappointed because Ellen knew the inner workings of [00:03] this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. [00:08] He knew everything about it. [00:09] He had no problem with it. [00:10] All of a sudden he had a problem, [00:11] and he only developed the problem when he found [00:13] out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, [00:15] because that's billions and billions of dollars. [00:18] And it really is unfair. [00:19] We want to have cars of all types electric. [00:22] We want to have electric, but we want to have gasoline combustion. [00:27] We want to have different. We want to have hybrids. [00:29] We want to have all we want to be able to sell everything. [00:32] And if you saw the statements he made about me, [00:34] which I'm sure you can get very easily, [00:35] it's very fresh on tape. [00:38] He said the most beautiful things about me, [00:40] and he hasn't said bad about me personally, [00:42] but I'm sure that'll be next. [00:44] But I'm I'm very disappointed in Ellen. [00:46] I've helped Ellen a lot. [00:47] A lot of good things are happening in this room. [00:49] And I'll tell you, [00:51] it's not he's not the first people leave my administration and they love us. [00:59] And then at some point they miss it so badly. [01:02] And some of them embrace it and some of [01:05] them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. [01:08] It's sort of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I guess they call it. [01:11] But I we have it with others too. [01:13] They leave and they wake up in the morning and the glamour is gone. [01:18] The whole world is different and they become hostile. [01:22] I don't know what it is. [01:23] Someday you'll write a book about it and you'll let us know. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/"},"headline":"The Musk-Trump Implosion Can Be Seen From Space","datePublished":"2025-06-05T20:47:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:53:02.123Z","description":"It’s a breakup that stands to shake up Trump's entire second term. And we are all in the blast radius.","url":"https://time.com/7291550/elon-musk-trump-implosion-can-be-seen-from-space/","keywords":["The D.C. 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