Jake Tapper tried to make sense of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s “friendship graveyard” after the pair spent the day sparring on social media.
On Thursday, Tapper took a whole seven minutes of “The Lead” to walk through the messy timeline of events between the once close political allies. It wrapped up a day of Musk and Trump trading blows on their respective social media platforms.
“Just in the last few hours, the relationship between President Donald J. Trump and billionaire Elon Musk has so rapidly disintegrated that Musk – without evidence – is now accusing President Trump of being in the as-yet-released Epstein Files,” Tapper noted on CNN. “The accusation from Musk is about as nasty as it gets, accusing somebody of being a pedophile and covering it up.”
The host continued: “We need to back up for a moment, though, and explain how we got to this particular friendship graveyard given that just six days ago when Elon Musk left his role as an advisor to the president and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, President Trump gave Musk the key to The White House – the ceremonial golden key. Mr. Trump may now be changing the locks as this feud today essentially escalated publicly in real-time.”
The Tesla CEO took to his X account Thursday morning with the Epstein claim less than a week after stepping down as the leader of DOGE.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote. “That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
He then added: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Trump finally broke his silence on Musk’s many posts about his dislike of the “Big Beautiful Bill” on Thursday after the tweets. He was also insistent that he would have won the 2024 election without the tech billionaire’s help, as Musk suggested.
“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump told White House reporters. “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Musk disagreed with the idea that Trump would have been victorious in the election, though. He tweeted that without his help, the Republicans would have been much weaker.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.” In an additional tweet, the billionaire accused Trump of expressing “such ingratitude.”
The barrage continued throughout the day. At one point, the president hinted that he had asked Musk to step back and then later threatened to terminate the Tesla CEO’s government subsidies.
“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 posted. “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’s latest message stated: “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that. I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT.”
