Trump and Musk confirm fallout with tech mogul tying president to Epstein scandal

In a spat more fitting for a barroom brawl than a conversation between two adults in the world’s most public arena, Elon Musk and Donald Trump clashed this Thursday in an unpleasant exchange that escalated until the president threatened on his platform Truth Social to “terminate Elon’s government subsidies and contracts.”

The world’s richest man fired back on X with a “really big bomb”: “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” referring to the list of individuals allegedly involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile network held by authorities. “Have a nice day, DJT!”

It had all started at a meeting at the White House between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. It was the first time the two leaders had met since Merz’s election on May 6, and the encounter unfolded in a cordial tone — set early on by the visitor’s gift: the birth certificate of Trump’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, framed in gold. Trump thanked him for the gesture, joked about giving it a place in the Oval Office, and used the moment to address Musk’s recent criticisms of the Republican tax plan, which had overshadowed the meeting in the media.

Trump said he was “very surprised” and “disappointed” by the criticisms from his former ally regarding the tax bill, which the White House is currently pushing for in Congress. The world’s richest man, concerned about the debt increase the bill would bring — dubbed the “big, beautiful bill” — described it on Tuesday as “a disgusting abomination.” “Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump added Thursday when asked by reporters. “I don’t know if we will anymore.”

The U.S. president also claimed that Musk “knew the inner workings” of the tax bill and had no problem with it. He accused the magnate of changing his mind once he saw that the new version of the over-1,000-page bill would negatively affect his businesses — especially Tesla.

Almost immediately, the South African–born entrepreneur — who last week stepped down from his position heading the Department of Government Efficiency after 130 chaotic days of budget-slashing —responded to Trump on X, the social network he also owns. “False,” Musk wrote. “This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”

A little later, Musk went even further, criticizing Trump’s “ingratitude” in another post on X. “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate [instead of the current 53-47].”

The billionaire contributed a record-breaking amount of over $260 million to the campaign that brought Trump back to the White House. In a separate post, Musk questioned: “Where has that guy gone?” replying to someone who provided examples of Trump supporting spending cuts.

In another post, Musk wondered, “Where is this guy today?” in response to someone who shared evidence of times when the current president had advocated for spending restraint.

Trump-Merz meeting

Returning to the agenda that had brought them together at midday in the Oval Office, the U.S. and German leaders emphasized the strong ties between their two nations. “The relationship with Germany is very important,” said Trump, who congratulated his guest on his recent election victory and added that the two had spoken “on the phone many times about some of the world’s problems.”

The chancellor, who remained silent for most of the entire time, although at one point he spoke in German, noted that the two countries have “a lot in common,” adding: “We know what we owe” the U.S. for liberating Germany from the Nazis.

On the table were pending issues for Trump, who described Merz as a “difficult” negotiator — both for Germany and the European Union, which the chancellor was also representing. Topics included the trade imbalance between the two partners and the tariff war that Washington is using to try to tilt the scales in its favor, the demand for increased defense spending, and the best approach to ending the war in Ukraine.

Merz recalled that this Friday marks the anniversary of D-Day, the U.S. landings in Normandy. “The Americans once ended a war in Europe,” the German leader said. “America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war,” he said. “We both agree on this war and how terrible this war is, and we are both looking for ways to stop it.”

Trump, for his part, compared the conflict between Russian and Ukraine to a fight between “two children fighting in a park.” “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”

“And I gave that analogy to [Russian President] Putin yesterday,” Trump added. “I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting and suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart, before they’re able to be pulled apart.’”

It soon became clear that Merz had achieved the first — and perhaps most urgent — of his goals: avoiding becoming the latest world leader to be publicly roasted in front of millions from the Oval Office by Trump and his team. Before traveling to Washington, he had told his country’s public television that he didn’t “need a valerian” to have a calm conversation with the U.S. president.

With or without it, he didn’t suffer the kind of ordeal faced by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who in March ended up shouting at the U.S. president and vice president, who humiliated him, called him ungrateful, and eventually kicked him out of the White House. Nor did he experience the fate of South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, whom Trump forced to watch a video stitched together with footage taken out of context — or outright fake — which the Republican claimed was proof of a white genocide in the country.

Merz arrived in Washington with some groundwork already laid: since the February elections, Germany has removed the constitutional debt limit to allow unlimited investment in defense. He also came with a promise: this move will enable Germany to field the strongest conventional army in Europe. Not only that: Merz has expressed willingness to increase German military spending—from around 2% of GDP currently—to as much as 5%, as Trump has previously urged NATO allies to do. NATO leaders are set to meet this June in The Hague.

“I know that you’re spending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money; that’s a positive thing,” said Trump, who joked that General MacArthur would not approve of Germany rearming. “I think it’s a good thing. At least to a certain point,” he added. “There’ll be a point where we say, ‘Please don’t arm, if you don’t mind.’”

Another key topic for Merz, the leader of the EU’s largest economy, was to push forward a trade agreement with the United States that would ease the tariff threats Trump insists on calling “reciprocal,” including tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles. One of Trump’s favorite examples to highlight what he sees as unfair trade imbalances involves Germany: for him, the absence of “American cars” on Munich’s streets proves the global system is rigged against U.S. manufacturers.

Seated to the right on one of the Oval Office sofas was Vice President J.D. Vance, who had harshly criticized European leaders at the Munich Security Conference (which Merz described as “interference”) and who supported the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party during its recent campaign.

Additionally, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the designation of the AfD as right-win extremist was “tyranny in disguise.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition