Elon Musk is apparently not feeling so great about some of the volatile things he said about President Donald Trump last week. The billionaire has since seemingly tried to make amends with his onetime ally, but one expert in political science thinks Musk’s sudden U-Turn reveals quite a lot … about Trump.
Musk addressed his public falling-out with Trump in a post on Monday, writing on his platform X, formerly Twitter: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”
The Tesla CEO has evidently cooled down quite a bit since he leveled a series of fiery attacks at the president just days prior. The relationship between two of the most powerful men in the world began to unravel early last week, when Musk publicly criticized Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill.
Things then escalated quickly on social media last Thursday. During the real-time public spat, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Musk “went Crazy” after he left his position leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. He also threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts.
Musk, for his part, charged on X that the reason the Jeffrey Epstein files haven’t been released is that Trump is mentioned in the documents about the disgraced financier and sex offender. The billionaire also suggested that he supported the idea of Trump getting impeached.
Trump later warned in a phone interview with NBC on Saturday that Musk would face “serious consequences” if he backed Democrats in opposing his signature legislation.
Musk has since deleted some of his inflammatory tweets about Trump, but it’s unclear where his relationship with the president will go next. Trump indicated last week that he had no intention of speaking with the billionaire, who reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars to back his presidential campaign.
Todd Belt, professor and political management program director at The Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, said that the falling-out between Trump and Musk, and Musk’s quick reversal, proves that Musk “failed to understand” one thing about Trump that continues to need everyone’s attention: “Trump’s power is the lock he has on Republicans in office.”
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“Republican voters are almost exclusively Trump voters now. There are no more never-Trumper Republican members of Congress — they have been voted out of office,” Belt said. “I think that Musk egotistically thought that his wealth would buy him power and influence, but he failed to realize that what power he had was mediated by Trump, and Trump could take it away.”
“Trump has loyalists in Congress and has filled the executive branch with loyalists, so Musk has no real political power,” he continued. “He may still have the adoration of some tech-bros, but that’s not real political power.”
GOP lawmakers have long faced criticism for showing unwavering loyalty to Trump, even when the president’s policies are at odds with their past positions.
The Trump-Musk feud may seem like a “silly soap opera,” but there are reasons for the public to care, Belt says.
Belt was surprised that Musk’s reversal came so quickly after the explosive blow-up last week. “With the enormous egos of the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man, I thought that it would be a more gradual reconciliation,” he said.
But nonetheless, while the spat may have played out like a “silly soap opera” on social media, Belt cautions that there are some reasons for the public to care about the Trump-Musk feud.
Belt said that Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink — the world’s largest satellite constellation — have “a tremendous impact on the nation’s national security.”
NASA relies on SpaceX to launch science missions and transport crews and cargo to and from the International Space Station with the company’s Dragon space capsules. During the back-and-forth between Trump and Musk on Thursday, Musk said at one point that he would “begin decommissioning” the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft “immediately.” He later appeared to walk back that statement in another post on X.
Overall, Belt thinks that Musk’s “significant pendulum swing in tone” combined with allegations surrounding his drug use may cause many in the public, including his investors, to question his “competency to run his businesses.”
“Musk entered government service thinking he would be lauded for his ability to cut government spending, but he ran into the reality that what the government spends money on impacts people’s lives both through services and employment,” he said.
Was Musk’s reversal “just about saving his businesses, which are heavily reliant on government contracts and subject to administrative regulation?” Belt considered.
“If that were the case, at least the reversal would be rational,” he said.
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