President Trump said on Saturday that his relationship with Elon Musk was likely beyond repair after the two sparred publicly on social media this week, and he warned there would be “serious consequences” if Mr. Musk financed candidates to run against Republicans who voted in favor of the president’s domestic policy bill.
In a phone interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker, Mr. Trump said he had no plans to speak with Mr. Musk, calling the tech billionaire “disrespectful” to the office of the president. When asked whether he had any desire to repair his relationship with Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump said, “No.”
Mr. Musk, who poured millions of dollars into the Trump campaign last year, spearheaded a massive government restructuring project in recent months, cutting thousands of federal jobs before he returned to running his businesses last week.
Mr. Musk’s vociferous opposition to the president’s bill, expressed on social media, touched off the two men’s dispute on Thursday. But he has since removed his most vicious social media posts about Mr. Trump, notably his accusation that the Trump administration was blocking the release of information about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein because the files somehow implicated the president, who had been a friend of Mr. Epstein’s for years before falling out with him.
Another of Mr. Musk’s deleted posts was a vow that his company SpaceX would decommission its Dragon spacecraft, which NASA has used to transport crew to the International Space Station. That comment came in response to a post by Mr. Trump on Truth Social that he could save the government billions of dollars by canceling Mr. Musk’s federal contracts.
Mr. Trump was ask on an Air Force One flight to New Jersey on Friday how seriously he was considering canceling Mr. Musk’s contracts. Mr. Trump did not rule it out.
“He’s got a lot of money. He gets a lot of subsidy, so we’ll take a look at that,” Mr. Trump said. “Only if it’s fair for him and for the country, I would certainly think about it. But it has to be fair.”
Jonathan Swan is a White House reporter for The Times, covering the administration of Donald J. Trump. Contact him securely on Signal: @jonathan.941
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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