Trump
says Elon Musk will face 'very serious consequences' if he funds Democratic
candidates
In an
interview with NBC News, the president also said he assumes his relationship
with the tech billionaire is over following their recent falling out.
June 7,
2025, 6:26 PM GMT+2 / Updated June 7, 2025, 9:26 PM GMT+2
By Kristen
Welker and Alexandra Marquez
President
Donald Trump on Saturday said there would be “serious consequences” if tech
mogul Elon Musk funds Democratic candidates to run against Republicans who vote
in favor of the GOP’s sweeping budget bill.
“If he does,
he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump told NBC News in a phone
interview, but declined to share what those consequences would be.
The
president also said he has no desire to repair his relationship with Musk after
a feud between the two men erupted into public view earlier this week.
“No,” Trump
said when asked if he had any wish to do so.
Asked if he
thought his relationship with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was over, Trump said, “I
would assume so, yeah.”
Trump’s
comments were the most extensive since he and Musk exchanged threats and
attacks on X and Truth Social earlier this week. He added that he thought the
Republican Party was more unified than ever after the two men fell out in front
of the world.
Trump said
he has no plans to speak with Musk anytime soon. “I’m too busy doing other
things,” he said, adding, “I have no intention of speaking to him.”
Trump also
accused Musk of being “disrespectful to the office of the President.”
“I think
it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not
disrespect the office of the President,” he added.
Musk on
Thursday launched a barrage of posts on X against the president, including a
now-deleted post highlighting the onetime links between the president and the
late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“That’s
called ‘old news,’ that’s been old news, that has been talked about for years,”
Trump said on Saturday. “Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with
it. It’s old news.”
In the days
leading up to their public falling out, Musk had been critical of a GOP-led
spending bill that the House passed last month.
In the Oval
Office on Thursday, Trump responded to Musk’s criticisms, telling reporters,
“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill. I’m
very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
Shortly
after those comments, Musk launched his flurry of posts, including a
now-deleted post promoting a call for Trump to be impeached and another where
he said the president’s tariff agenda would cause a recession later this year.
Trump on
Thursday also responded with his own posts on Truth Social. In one post, he
wrote, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months
ago,” suggesting that Musk knew what was in the bill before it was passed.
He also
wrote on Thursday, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and
Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and
Contracts,” referring to federal contracts with SpaceX. “I was always surprised
that Biden didn’t do it!”
On Saturday,
Trump said he hadn’t given his suggestion about canceling Musk’s companies’
federal contracts any more thought.
“I’d be
allowed to do that,” he said, “but I have, I haven’t given it any thought.”
Trump also
responded to calls from outside allies, like conservative activist Steve
Bannon, who have said that Musk’s business dealings and immigration record
should be investigated by the federal government.
The
president told NBC News that he hasn't had those conversations. “I mean it’s
not something that’s on top of my mind right now," Trump said.
He also cast
doubt on the notion that Musk’s opposition to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”
is jeopardizing the bill’s chances of success, saying he’s “very confident”
that the bill will pass the Senate before July 4.
“The
Republican Party has never been united like this before. It’s never been. It’s
actually more so than it was three days ago,” Trump said.
Musk
contributed major financial support to Trump’s presidential bid in 2024,
spending over a quarter of a billion dollars to boost him in swing states last
year. In the first months of the administration, Trump put Musk in charge of
the Department of Government Efficiency, where he oversaw mass layoffs of
federal workers and the shuttering or partial closing of several agencies.
The feud,
Trump said, has made lawmakers see the benefits of the bill.
“I think,
actually, Elon brought out the strengths of the bill because people that
weren’t as focused started focusing on it, and they see how good it is,” Trump
said. “So in that sense, there was a big favor. But I think Elon, really, I
think it’s a shame that he’s so depressed and so heartbroken.”
During an
interview on “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” that was taped on Thursday but
released Saturday, Vice President JD Vance described Musk’s attacks on Trump as
"nuclear" and said that it may not be possible for Musk to "come
back into the fold."
“I’m always
going to be loyal to the president, and I hope that eventually Elon, kind of,
comes back into the fold,” Vance told podcaster Theo Von. “Maybe that’s not
possible now because he’s gone so nuclear.”
The vice
president also called it a “huge mistake” for Musk to target the president over
his frustrations with the House version of the bill, saying, “The process in
D.C., if you’re a business leader, you probably get frustrated with that
process because it’s more, you know, bureaucratic, it’s more slow moving."
He added,
"I think there’s just some frustrations there. But I really, man, I think
it’s a huge mistake for him to go after the president like that.”
Kristen
Welker
Kristen
Welker is the moderator of "Meet the Press."
Alexandra
Marquez
Alexandra
Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.
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