Trump feared a fight with Musk could undermine his signature bill. Then their feud erupted

The staggering and exceedingly public rupture in the world’s most consequential and unprecedented partnership was a long time coming. But the surreal state of suspended animation that consumed Washington as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk traded escalating blows on social media obscured a 48-hour period that illustrated a profoundly high-stakes moment for the White House. Trump’s entire economic agenda is sitting on a knife’s edge. Its most critical components are running up against deadlines and locked in a series of complex negotiations with limited margin for error. In two days, Musk managed to undercut, attack or inflame just about all of it. “He’s kind of been a ticking time bomb for a while now,” one person familiar with Musk’s unique and unprecedented role in the White House told CNN. “But this is, and has always been, so much bigger than him and explains why we ended here after the last few days.” Musk was never a key player on Trump’s economic team and wasn’t involved in drafting the agenda or at the table for the implementation efforts that launched when Trump entered office. Musk had scrapped with Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and had worn out his welcome in the power centers of the administration, multiple senior officials told CNN. But the billionaire’s rolling and increasingly scorched-earth attacks on Trump’s sweeping tax and spending package this week posed an acute threat to the cornerstone of Trump’s legislative agenda. Trump stays (mostly) quiet For all the ways Trump’s tariff-centric economic approach has created chaos and uncertainty across the global financial system, the underlying data has continued to show the US economy in a stable and resilient place. But Trump and his top economic officials are in the midst of a high-wire act to maintain and, ultimately, they say, dramatically accelerate US economic growth. Musk’s tirade served as the backdrop of Trump’s critical meeting with key Republican senators on Wednesday afternoon, irritating White House advisers trying to balance the House-passed version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and competing Senate priorities. Musk’s stream of consciousness attacks centered on the deficit projections tied to the bill, which economic scorekeepers universally agree will pile trillions onto the soaring US debt over a decade. The White House has insisted the bill will pay for itself – and has rapidly accelerated its messaging efforts to rebut any analysis that says otherwise to mollify fiscal hawks on Capitol Hill. Yet Trump held his fire, in part because of an effort to avoid an escalation that would trigger Musk to declare all-out war against Republican lawmakers weighing the future of a bill essential to his entire agenda, according to two White House officials. On Thursday, as he weighed in on it during press spray with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz ahead of their private meetings that were heavily focused on trade and the economy, Musk’s real-time reaction took it there anyway. By the time Speaker Mike Johnson arrived at the White House for his own meetings, an all-out war had broken out between the two and included Musk taking a clear swipe Trump’s tariffs. Johnson was with Trump in the Oval Office watching in real time as Musk declared the equivalent of social media nuclear war. Johnson, who deftly navigated his miniscule minority to get Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” through the House, is an essential player during the Senate effort that threatens to crack the fragile compromise between House conservatives and more moderate members. He’s urged Musk to de-escalate, traded texts with him and repeatedly defended the bill from his attacks to reporters. Trump threatened the government contracts of Musk’s business empire Thursday and placed a round of calls to reporters on Friday morning that focused primarily on making public there would be no call between the two men, despite efforts by allies to arrange the start of a peace process. There’s now talk of selling the Tesla that Musk brought to the White House, one White House official said. But Trump again chose not to engage on the issue throughout the rest of the day. There were no social media posts about Musk. A scheduled swearing in and signing of an executive order were also closed to the press. In part, Trump didn’t want to completely crowd out a morning of good economic news, according to a person familiar with the matter. But Trump has also told Republican lawmakers he understands how difficult Musk can make the path ahead in their legislative efforts. He’s made clear, repeatedly, that he thinks Musk has “gone completely crazy,” according to one lawmaker, and is cognizant of the pressure on his House and Senate allies. Musk poses a real threat Musk’s attacks, and his political threats to the same lawmakers who depended on his deep pockets in 2024 and planned to rely on them again in the midterm elections, undeniably add yet another complication to a moment defined by uncertainty. He has also amped up his rhetoric against Trump’s tariffs – another cornerstone of the administration’s economic agenda – at a volatile and critical moment in a dozens of complex and fluid negotiations. The second US-China bilateral trade talks, which were set in motion during Trump’s call with Xi, will take place on June 9 in London, Trump announced Friday. Trump’s economic team has dismissed Musk’s tariff attacks, saying his opposition is well known and his argument is undercut by current economic data and Trump’s first term tariffs. “We can have disagreements about it, but I would simply say that everybody during our first term who said that the tariffs were going to be recessionary and inflationary were obviously, obviously and widely wrong,” Navarro told reporters on Thursday. The sweeping price increases predicted in the wake of Trump’s market rattling April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement haven’t emerged and economic activity remains durable despite pervasive pessimism in consumer and business sentiment surveys. The May jobs report Friday showed another month of steady job growth outpacing expectations. That has provided ample evidence for White House officials to dismiss outright concerns that the survey data is a leading indicator for turmoil to come. Still, Musk holds some important tools in his shed if he wanted to undermine Trump’s tariff agenda – although it’s not yet clear that is is considering using them. For example, many foreign governments have sought to sign contracts with Musk’s Starlink service, which some diplomats have told CNN was viewed as helpful to trade talks. ‘Full steam ahead’ White House officials insist Musk’s dramatic turn against Trump and the cornerstone of his legislative agenda won’t ultimately move the needle as lawmakers grind through the most critical stage for the bill. “We’re full steam ahead, moving forward,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Thursday on CNN News Central. Their arguments in favor, but more importantly the alternative if it fails – a sweeping $4 trillion tax cut due to the expiration of the individual tax cuts in Trump’s 2017 law that expire at the end of the year – will ultimately get it over the finish line, officials say. Trump needs this bill to pass. His economic agenda was always predicated on its sweeping package of tax cuts and incentives even as much as Trump’s expansive tariff regime, which was designed to re-orient the global trading system, incentivize massive investment in the US, secure substantial market access for US firms and drive significant new revenues into the federal coffers. Senate Republicans spent this week grappling with the complex balancing act of merging their priorities with the House version of Trump’s tax cuts and incentives package – a bill that passed by a single vote. The Trump-backed deadline of July 4th to sign the bill, which was always aspirational at best, is now widely understood to be impossible, according to three senior GOP senate aides. Congressional Republicans, many of whom had also grown annoyed with Musk over the last few months, have largely dismissed the billionaire’s fiery opposition to the bill. But the fiscal hawks seeking deeper spending cuts have started to utilize an ally that has already demonstrated a bank account and social media company that carry with them the kind of power and reach without much modern precedent. White House officials are united in their confidence they can navigate the exceedingly tight timeline, complexity and whip counts ahead. But even they implicitly nod to a deeply uncertain reality when asked for their own economic forecasts. “It’s hard to give a very precise forecast for growth, because we have yet to see exactly how the tax bill shapes up between the reconciliation process, between the House and the Senate,” said Stephen Miran, Council of Economic Advisors Chairman, on CNBC Friday. “And we have yet to see exactly how the trade deal shape up as they as they will, I expect, continue to be made in coming weeks, so it’s hard to give a precise forecast when the policy details are still being worked out.” Musk wasn’t as cautious with his own forecast the afternoon prior. “The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,” Musk posted.