In my article published here on Jan. 24, 2025, we talked about Elon Musk’s troubled past with U.S. President Trump himself, emphasizing that Musk knelt in the face of Trump’s rise, but pointed out that he would not accept this subjugation and would try to get up again.
Indeed, Musk’s efforts to establish authority in the White House have dominated the news since the early days. In return, some members of Trump’s team have been in conflict with Musk from the very beginning. Just on Jan. 24, it was falsely claimed that Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, had prevented Musk from establishing a permanent base in the West Wing of the White House. On Feb. 19, Rick Wilson was on Times Radio saying that Musk had won, that he had complete control of the White House, and that Wiles had lost. But it wasn’t until the end of April that Wiles’ wish came true, and we read the news that “Trump’s Ice Maiden freezes Musk out of the West Wing” on May 1. This incident thoroughly exemplifies the struggle from the first day to the last day when Musk significantly reduced his role in the government.
Musk’s feud wasn’t limited to Wiles. He also had a heated exchange with Trump’s chief trade advisor, Pedro Navarro, over tariffs. Navarro called Musk a “car assembler,” looking out for his own business. Musk replied that Navarro was a “moron.” On the tariff issue, Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent formed an alliance and made Trump back down.
However, a big quarrel broke out between Bessent and Musk shortly after this incident. On April 16, Trump named the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service as Gary Shapley, Musk’s pick for the role. According to The New York Times, Musk went over Bessent’s head to get Shapley in the role, even though Bessent oversees the IRS in his capacity. On April 18, Trump ousted Shapley and gave the position to Bessent’s deputy, Michael Faulkender.
According to multiple witnesses, Musk and Bessent then got into a shouting match in front of Trump in the Oval Office. “It was quite a scene. It was loud. And I mean, loud,” one witness said. On April 23, news of the details of this fight came out.
The same day, Musk said starting in May, his time spent with DOGE will “drop significantly,” and he’ll allocate more time to Tesla. He also claimed Tesla robots were delayed by China tariffs. “Without having to do anything, Beijing already seems to have the upper hand here,” said CNN Beijing bureau chief Steven Jiang.
Jiang’s statement followed Tesla’s release of its first-quarter financial results on April 22, and they were “real, real bad.” The electric car company’s total revenue for the quarter fell 9.4% from the year prior, missing Wall Street expectations by around $1.8 billion.
Profits fell dramatically as well, with Tesla reporting 71% less net income ($409 million) compared to a year ago, when it earned $1.39 billion. Its shares have plummeted 44% in 2025 so far. MSNBC already concluded “Musk eyes the exit after humiliating turn in politics” after this data, and it was confirmed. They also calculated that Musk has lost over $1 billion per day under Trump.
There were also those who made comments along the lines of Trump should rein in Musk, who was getting out of control, and even tame him. As we wrote in the aforementioned article, names close to Trump, such as Steve Bannon, made heavy attacks on Musk. The serious damage done to Tesla by the Trump administration may be related to this. As a man with a high ego, it is impossible for Trump to like the statements that it’s Musk who won the election and that Musk is the real power and center of attention. That’s why he may have wanted to show the “real” boss.
On the Feb. 7 cover of Time, Musk was sitting at the decision-making table in the Oval Office. On March 7, The Times reported that Trump had reined in Musk for the first time, and since then, the cabinet has taken charge of federal firings. Speaking to Times Radio on March 13, Prof. Scott Lucas said that Trump was deliberately causing Tesla losses and, as he put it, “Elon Musk is taking a bit of bashing.” And on March 19, “Trump will cut off Elon Musk, it’s just a matter of time,” Joe Walsh told Times Radio. At the end, on May 2, in his sentences that included Elon Musk and were reported by Huffington Post with an explicit emphasis on Musk, Trump said, “If you look at some of these internet people, I know so many of them, Elon is so terrific. But I know, now all of them, you know they all hated me in my first term, and now they’re kissing my ass. It’s true. All of them. It’s true.” It can be argued that these statements essentially summarize what is happening.
However, it is also important to remember that in 2024, a report by Fox, a Trump supporter, stated that the reason Musk turned his back on the Democrats was because former President Joe Biden snubbed Tesla. This was also voiced in the following days. Considering that the Tesla business was so influential in determining how Musk would position himself, Trump’s direct attack on him and his humiliation by all opponents in the country may have even created a grudge in Musk’s inner world. He has already been at loggerheads with many Trump supporters for months. Therefore, if serious failures and reactions occur in the Trump administration, it would not be surprising for Musk to launch an attack with the idea that “the time has come.” It is obvious how many names that praised Trump a lot and whom Trump praised a lot later fell out. It is also possible that new ones will be added to these. In his interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, Musk’s sentence, “I think probably if you ask us both the same set of questions in two different rooms, 80% of the time we’d come up with the same answer,” was noteworthy. Although he said this to express their closeness to each other, a 1 in 5 difference in opinions is not insignificant, especially after what happened with Tesla.
Other side of the picture
Of course, Trump is also aware of these possibilities. His efforts to manage the process in a way that will not offend Elon Musk as much as possible and will even honor him can be interpreted as him now doing politics better. Moreover, even though Tesla suffered serious losses, the satellite internet provider Starlink, owned by SpaceX, has been one of the few companies to benefit as Trump’s tariffs bite, reaching deals in India and Vietnam. It’s reported that Musk was holding discussions with foreign leaders on government property due to his link to the president.
He also achieved his dream of the Starbase city, which we learned about in late 2024. The benefit of being a city is explained by the fact that he gained the authority to do many things that he could not do before. But he has a lot of work to do there, especially when we think that the city doesn’t even have a water line.
On the other hand, there are those who explain Tesla’s loss with people’s reactions to Musk’s political stance and the success of rival companies. It is also said that reading the issue through Trump is due to his enemies wanting to create a rift between the two. Although there is some truth to these, when we look at the whole picture, even with what we have conveyed here, we need to accept a direct or indirect Trump effect.
Indeed, on May 28, Musk criticized Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, saying he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, which increases the budget deficit … and undermines the work that the Doge team is doing.” All the more reason to think that the rift between the two men will be widened.
As a result, it is possible to say that despite the end of his role in the administration, he not only suffered losses but he had some gains in the process as well. However, it is difficult to imagine that someone as arrogant as he would accept that his story in politics would end with him being defeated, ostracized, and humiliated in this field. He may be looking to make a stronger comeback by combining his new gains and experience with what he already has, along with the ambition he seems to have. We would not be surprised if he wants to be a future president after Trump, or at least a powerful actor who determines next presidents. After all, through his mother, he’s a distant kin of former presidents like Millard Fillmore, Rutherford B. Hayes and William Howard Taft.
He rose to this point by doing what he does best, not politics. He can regain a stronger position by doing what he does best again. But if the analyses of rival companies, and especially China, are correct, he may also be defeated in what he does best. Such a failure, combined with the dissonancy he had with the Democrats and many of Trump’s people, could increase his current loss even more. And perhaps after these incidents, he will understand that dishonorable submission to the Zionists is harmful even in this world.
