Timeline: Trump and Musk’s bromance amid accusations of a fraying relationship
Have the tariffs brought an end to Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s bromance? Here’s a look at their relationship, from beginning to now.
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Ever since Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk ingratiated himself with Donald Trump,
experts have claimed the relationship with the President is heading for a break-up – but events over the past week suggest it could be imminent.
Since Mr Trump was inaugurated in January, he has enlisted Mr Musk to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is tasked with cutting federal spending.
When it was reported last week that Mr Musk’s time in the White House and DOGE was coming to an end, it prompted questions about the relationship fraying between the two men,
Dr Charles Miller, a senior lecturer in the Australian National University’s School of Politics and International Relations, said the pair are “two guys with enormous egos and they [will] eventually fall out somehow”.
He said there is even more speculation that Mr Trump dropped Mr Musk now because he saw him as a “political liability”.
Looking to the future, what do you predict will happen with the two?
“I would have to say the likeliest outcome is that they break away from each other in some way. They’re both very mercurial and very changeable people. So it could be that they actually end up remaining friends all the way through this administration. I have to say it’s unlikely.”
Why would they break apart?
“Elon Musk is a right winger, no question. But he’s a right winger who is much more in favour of free trade, globalisation and high skilled immigration than Donald Trump and the Donald Trump base. So I think there is going to be an ideological rupture between them, especially because Elon Musk is not as popular. To be honest, Elon Musk’s ideology is not as popular as Donald Trump’s ideology. So I think there will be a rupture between them.”
How does Mr Musk’s unpopularity affect Mr Trump?
“Mr Musk is much more unpopular than Mr Trump is, so he’s a liability, and Mr Trump has no particular reason for him to have Elon Musk on board. Elon Musk is not elected to anything. He’s not a member of the cabinet. He’s not eligible for the presidency himself, so he couldn’t be a political rival to Mr Trump anyway.”
How has the relationship between the two evolved over time?
“It has caused a sharp drop in popularity for the Republican agenda, certainly if not for Donald Trump as well, and Mr Musk himself is significantly more unpopular in polls than Donald Trump, so that has basically led to a lot of speculation.”
DONALD TRUMP AND ELON MUSK: TIMELINE OF A BROMANCE
November 2016 – Mr Musk publicly stated that Mr Trump was not fit to be president.
“I feel a bit stronger that he is not the right guy. He doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States”, Mr Musk told CNBC at the time.
However, following Mr Trump’s win later that month, Mr Musk was appointed to the Trump administration’s economic advisory council.
July 2017 – Mr Musk resigned from Mr Trump’s business advisory panel after the President pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” Musk wrote on X, then called Twitter.
July 2022 – Mr Trump and Mr Musk got into a public disagreement over the acquisition of
Twitter. After acquiring the social media platform, Mr Musk reinstated Mr Trump’s account.
July 2024 – Mr Musk announced his endorsement for Mr Trump and committed $US45 million ($A75.13m) a month to a pro-Trump super political action committee called American PAC.
The move was a surprise, given four months earlier, Mr Musk had told his social media followers he would never donate money to a candidate in the presidential election.
October 5, 2024 – Mr Musk made his first appearance at a Trump rally, in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the President had survived an assignation attempt in July. Mr Musk was waving his arms up and down and called Mr Trump, “the only candidate to preserve democracy in America”.
November 6, 2024 – Mr Trump won the presidential election. Mr Musk attended Mr Trump’s party in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
December 2024 – With concerns growing about the H-1B visa program supporting skilled foreign workers, Mr Musk vowed to defend it.
“I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” Mr Musk wrote on X.
Many supporters of Mr Trump wanted to remove the program over immigration concerns. During Mr Trump’s first term, he moved to limit the use of the visas.
December 17, 2024 – Support for a bill that was expected to have bipartisan support collapsed after Mr Musk criticised the bill on X.
The House Speaker Mike Johnson had been expecting to get the bill passed after he got many Democrats on board.
But after Mr Musk called the bill “Outrageous!” on X, Republicans who had planned to support the bill abandoned it, and Mr Trump and Vice President JD Vance also came out against it.
After this, many Democrats began to refer to Mr Musk as ‘President Musk’. Many saw him as the one in charge and making decisions, not Mr Trump.
February 24, 2025 – Mr Musk sent out an email for all federal employees to submit five things they had accomplished in the last week or they would face dismissal. Mr Trump defended his Cabinet’s decision to order their agencies to ignore Mr Musk’s order.
March 7, 2025 – The New York Times reported during a meeting with Mr Trump, Mr Musk lashed out at Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
According to the report, Mr Rubio had been privately furious with Mr Musk for some weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. The New York Times also stated Mr Trump tried to rein Mr Musk in during the fiery meeting.
March 22, 2025 – Mr Musk was briefed on secret war plans for China, without Mr Trump’s prior knowledge he was attending the meeting, the New York Times reported. Tesla is deeply invested in China which is why Mr Trump was concerned Mr Musk attended the meeting, the report stated.
On the same day, judges blocked many of Mr Musk’s DOGE cuts, prompting the Tesla CEO to ask Mr Trump to ignore the courts.
April 2, 2025 – A Democrat backed judge Susan Crawford won a state supreme court spot in Wisconsin, despite the $US25 millions of dollars ($A41.74m) Mr Musk spent to support her opponent’s campaign. Her victory kept a 4-3 Democratic majority on the court.
April 3, 2025 – American politics website Politico published a feature piece about the end of Mr Musk’s involvement in the White House. Because Mr Musk is employed by the White House as a “special government employee” he cannot work longer than 130 days, although many in the White House were expecting Mr Trump to bypass this rule, the article stated.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rubbished the story, describing it as “garbage”.
“Elon Musk and President Trump have both ‘publicly’ stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete,” she wrote on X.
April 7, 2025 – Mr Musk publicly disagreed with Mr Trump’s tariff policy, taking aim at Mr Trump’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, writing that “a PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing” referring to his degree. Mr Musk then posted a video touting free trade.
April 9, 2025 — Mr Musk took a jab at Mr Navarro, calling him a “moron” on X. This comment was in response to an interview Mr Navarro did with CNBC where he dismissed Mr Musk as “car assembler.
Ms Leavitt brushed off the name-calling, saying, “boys will be boys”.
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