Trump warns Musk of ‘serious consequences’ if he backs Democrats

The US President’s warning comes after Elon Musk deleted social-media posts that sought to connect Donald Trump to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, right, speak in the Oval Office before departing the White House in March. Picture: AFP

US President Donald Trump has warned former right-hand-man Elon Musk to stay out of the midterm elections, threatening “very serious consequences” if he backed Democrats in the campaign.

Musk, who crossed Trump by staunchly opposing his “big, beautiful” tax-and-spending bill over deficit concerns, said last week that anyone who votes for this bill should be fired. Some Democrats have suggested that they try to win Musk over to their side, despite his being villainized by the party for his sweeping cuts to government staff. The billionaire spent about $US300 million backing Trump and Republican candidates in the 2024 elections.

Asked by NBC News on Saturday if Trump was concerned that Musk could start funding Democratic candidates, Trump said “he’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” but declined to provide specifics.

In the NBC interview Trump said he had “no reason to” repair his relationship with Musk, after their break-up played out in real time on Thursday. Asked whether his relationship with the billionaire businessman was over, Trump said, “I would assume so.” Musk deleted social-media posts in which he attempted to connect the president with convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein. As the men’s relationship imploded on Thursday, Musk wrote on X that Trump’s name appeared in documents stemming from a federal investigation of Epstein, insinuating that he was in some way linked to the late disgraced financier’s criminal behaviour.

On Friday, Musk wrote, “I will apologize profusely as soon as there is a full dump of the Epstein files.” Both posts have been removed from Musk’s X feed.

The president and his senior aides said Trump has no connection to Epstein’s crimes. Trump called the allegations “old news” in the NBC interview. ” Donald Trump didn’t do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein, ” Vice President JD Vance said in a recent podcast interview.

Behind the scenes, some people close to Trump and Musk have sought to organise a phone call between the two men in an attempt to hash out their differences, according to people familiar with the matter.

David Sacks, a venture capitalist who acts as Trump’s AI and crypto tsar, has been privately encouraging Musk to call the president to try to mend the relationship, according to people familiar with the matter. James Fishback, a businessman and supporter of both Trump and Musk, encouraged Musk on social media to apologize to the president. A spokeswoman for Sacks declined to comment.

But Trump has said repeatedly in interviews he has no interest in talking to Musk, and the president’s advisers played down the possibility of a call.

A senior White House official reiterated that Trump has no immediate plans to speak with Musk, adding that the president is in the process of moving on after the high-profile clash with the billionaire. The official said Musk’s decision to delete his social-media posts about Epstein isn’t enough to repair the relationship.

After Fishback wrote in a social-media post that Musk should apologize to Trump, Fishback heard from White House officials, who thanked him for his support, but said — at least for now — that the relationship between the president and the Tesla CEO is over, a person with knowledge of the conversation said.

Long before Trump and Musk had their public falling out, some White House staff privately clashed with the billionaire, including Sergio Gor, the head of the White House Personnel Office.

Issues between Musk and Gor intensified during a mid-March cabinet meeting, where Musk complained extensively about what he said was the slow pace of hiring aides to fill agencies. Musk’s complaints were seen as an effort by Musk to embarrass Gor in front of the cabinet, according to several people familiar with the episode. But Gor was prepared to push back on Musk’s broadsides, and had statistics about the pace of hiring at his fingertips, some of the people said.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement that Gor is a vital member of Trump’s team. “As a long-time adviser, there is nobody more capable of ensuring the government is staffed with people who are aligned with the mission to make America great again and work towards implementing the president’s agenda,” Cheung said.

Though Musk has toned down some of his harsh rhetoric over the past 48 hours, he has continued to raise concerns on his X account about what he argues is out-of-control spending by the federal government.

And he has continued publicly discussing the possibility of starting a new political party that he argues would better represent the majority of voters. He wrote on X that he plans to call it The America Party.

Trump and his senior advisers have tried to refocus their attention on passing Trump’s tax-and-spending bill, which cleared the House last month and is now being debated in the Senate.

“I’m too busy doing other things. You know, I won an election in a landslide. I gave him a lot of breaks, long before this happened,” Trump told NBC when asked if he has any desire to repair his relationship with Musk. “I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the president.”

WSJ