Amid the fireworks of his spectacular breakup with Elon Musk last week was a striking admission by President Trump that once could have led to subpoenas.
As he lashed out at Mr. Musk for disloyalty, Mr. Trump threatened to cut off the billionaire’s federal contracts in retaliation, effectively acknowledging what his critics have long said, that he looks at the government as his personal instrument for dispensing favors to friends and penalizing those who cross him.
In the old days, that might have been cause for a corruption investigation. In the modern era, it’s just another Thursday. Mr. Trump has long since abandoned the kinds of rules and traditions that would constrain a president from employing the power of his office to personally steer federal contracts to allies and away from enemies. And even more remarkable, he has no hesitation about saying it out loud.
“The Musk quote is just further proof that Trump and the late King Louis share a common view of the world: The state, it is me,” said Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center and a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “And yes, this is an example of Trump publicly and improperly threatening to use the enormous contracting power of the federal government as a weapon to punish someone for criticizing him. It is a complete abuse of power.”
Mr. Trump’s second term so far has been a 139-day quest for “retribution,” the word he used during his campaign, one that has bent, broke and busted through seemingly every boundary of the presidency. He has used the highest office in the land to take revenge against prosecutors, F.B.I. agents, law firms, news organizations, generals, Harvard University, former Biden administration officials and, yes, former Trump administration officials who have made it onto his enemies list.
There has been little subtlety about it. He has sought to cripple law firms with executive orders that specifically explained that he was going after them because they employed, or used to employ, people who angered him. He has stripped security clearances and even security guards from former officials he deemed personally disloyal. Just last week, he ordered an investigation into former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s use of an autopen, never mind that Mr. Trump has used one too.
Mr. Trump openly said in another executive order that he was directing the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to investigate Chris Krebs, a former election security official from his first term, because, among other things, Mr. Krebs “falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.” In other words, in Mr. Trump’s rendering, refusing to go along with his lies about election fraud constitutes an offense meriting investigation.
Mr. Trump, the first convicted felon ever elected president, has also turned the White House into a moneymaking venture beyond what any of his predecessors ever have. In less than five months in office, he and his family and related businesses have made hundreds of millions of dollars from his cryptocurrency and various deals around the world with investors and firms that have an interest in government policy.
Mr. Musk, who contributed nearly $300 million to elect Mr. Trump last year, became a case study in the ways that the president has blurred the lines between public and private interests. Given status as a special government employee while still running his businesses, Mr. Musk was granted wide latitude to slash through federal agencies.
Mr. Musk had a personal financial interest in which parts of government were dismantled and which were not. His own firms have received billions of dollars in federal contracts over the years, including promises of $3 billion across nearly 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies in 2023 alone. But as it happened, Mr. Musk’s government restructuring project never seemed to target his own business the way that foreign aid and other contracts were.
By the time he arrived in Mr. Trump’s White House, Mr. Musk was also at odds with multiple government agencies regulating his businesses. At least 11 federal agencies were investigating or suing his companies before Mr. Trump reclaimed the White House, including the Justice Department, Transportation Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Aviation Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Labor Relations Board — all of which now answer to Mr. Trump or his appointees.
By Mr. Trump’s own admission, he also gave Mr. Musk the right to name his own close associate, Jared Isaacman, to be the administrator of NASA, which contracts with Mr. Musk’s SpaceX rocket company. The move would have been seen as a clear conflict of interest in any other administration.
That decision ultimately fueled the Trump-Musk split when an aide told the president that Mr. Isaacman had contributed money to Democrats, leading Mr. Trump to confront Mr. Musk and withdraw the nomination. The final break came when Mr. Musk publicly excoriated Mr. Trump’s tax cut and policy bill, which is forecast to add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
As the two fired back and forth at each other Thursday, Mr. Trump took direct aim at Mr. Musk’s private enterprises. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” the president wrote in a social media post. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Some conservatives suggested that Mr. Trump was just making a point, not actually planning to take action against Mr. Musk’s contracts. “It suggests to me that the president sometimes makes statements in social media for rhetorical effect, without intending to make policy,” said Michael W. McConnell, a Stanford Law School professor and former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George W. Bush.
But some of Mr. Trump’s allies not only hoped he was serious but also urged him to go further. In addition to canceling contracts, Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump strategist, said the president should also order investigations into Mr. Musk’s reported drug use and immigration status, adding that “he should be deported from the country immediately.”
The White House did not respond to a question about whether it would be appropriate for the president to cancel federal contracts of someone who angered him. “President Trump is focused on making our country great again and passing the One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
But Mr. Trump sounded serious in an interview with NBC News on Saturday, warning Mr. Musk not to contribute money to Democrats opposing the fiscal bill. “If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” the president said without describing what the consequences might be.
It could be difficult for Mr. Trump to cancel some of Mr. Musk’s contracts, given NASA’s reliance on SpaceX. But critics said there was little doubt that Mr. Trump would be willing to target Mr. Musk’s contracts if possible to satisfy his own pique. “We see that in so many areas, not just the law firms,” said Andrew Weissmann, who was a deputy to the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, both of whose former law firms were targeted even though neither work there anymore. “Harvard would be a prime example. But this is very clear what is motivating it.”
Presidents who sought to intervene in individual cases involving private businesses for political or financial reasons have gotten in trouble in the past. Richard M. Nixon faced an investigation when his Justice Department settled an antitrust case against International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation after a $400,000 contribution to finance the 1972 Republican National Convention. Democrats considered adding the matter to the Watergate articles of impeachment against Mr. Nixon but ultimately opted against it.
Mr. Trump sought in his first term to use his office to pick business winners and losers depending on his political interests, according to former aides. He repeatedly looked for ways to hurt Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon who also owned The Washington Post. When Amazon bid for a $10 billion cloud computing contract, an aide once recalled that Mr. Trump said, “Don’t give it to Bezos because he never supports me.”
Eventually, the Pentagon awarded the contract to Microsoft, prompting a lawsuit from Amazon accusing Mr. Trump of exerting improper pressure. After Mr. Trump lost re-election in 2020, the Pentagon rescinded Microsoft’s contract and later canceled the contract altogether. Mr. Trump likewise repeatedly pressed aides to raise U.S. Postal Service shipping rates for Amazon, which would hurt its business. One aide recalled Mr. Trump raising the matter at least 30 times.
Mr. Trump similarly told aides to call the Justice Department to stop a merger between Time Warner and AT&T that involved another bête noire, CNN. The aides later said that they deemed it inappropriate and never did so, but they added that when the Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit on its own, Mr. Trump assumed it had been done at his behest.
In this second Trump term, the Federal Communications Commission, now led by a Trump appointee, has opened an investigation into CBS that parallels a $20 million lawsuit that Mr. Trump filed against the network because he did not like the way “60 Minutes” edited an interview last year with Vice President Kamala Harris, his election opponent.
Shari Redstone’s Paramount Global, the owner of CBS, is considering settling the lawsuit, which comes as she seeks to complete a multibillion-dollar sale to Skydance, an acquisition that requires approval of the Trump administration. Both Paramount and the F.C.C. say the dispute is not related to the merger. But even some conservative groups have called the F.C.C. inquiry inappropriate, expressing fear that it would legitimize actions against conservative groups.
Mr. Trump has also used his pardon power and authority over the Justice Department to spare political allies, including some who have contributed large amounts to his political efforts. And Mr. Trump’s S.E.C. has put on hold a fraud lawsuit against Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire and major investor in a separate crypto venture largely owned by a company tied to Mr. Trump. Mr Sun attended a recent gala dinner with the president and toured the White House.
One major difference between Mr. Trump’s first term and his second is that the Supreme Court has since ruled that, as president, he has immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts,” which is how he has defined his use of power to target enemies. And so he has no evident reluctance to make abundantly clear what he would like to do with that power to those who get out of line.
Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.
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