Washington/New York/Los Angeles: President Trump was peeved.
Just minutes before he walked into the Oval Office for a televised send-off for Elon Musk last week, an aide had handed him a file.
The papers showed that Trump’s nominee to run Nasa — a close associate of Musk’s — had donated to prominent Democrats in recent years, including some who Trump was learning about for the first time.
The President set his outrage aside and mustered through a cordial public farewell. But as soon as the cameras left the Oval Office, the President confronted Musk. He started to read some of the donations out loud, shaking his head.
This was not good, the President said.
Musk, who was sporting a black eye that he blamed on a punch from his young son, tried to explain. He said Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur who was set to become the next Nasa administrator, cared about getting things done.
Yes, Isaacman had donated to Democrats, but so had a lot of people.
Maybe it’s a good thing, Musk told the President — it shows that you’re willing to hire people of all stripes.
But Trump was unmoved. He said that people don’t change. These are the types of people who will turn, he said, and it won’t end up being good for us.
The moment of pique was a signal of the simmering tensions between the two men that would explode into the open less than a week later, upending what had been one of the most extraordinary alliances in American politics.
This account of the crumbling ties between the President and Musk is based on interviews with 13 people with direct knowledge of the events, all of whom asked for anonymity to describe private discussions.
While the relationship had been losing steam over the past several months as Musk clashed with Trump officials, people close to both men said the disagreement over Isaacman accelerated the breakup.
Musk had been planning to exit the White House relatively quietly — before Isaacman’s ouster left him feeling humiliated.
Now the two men, who seemed inseparable at one point, are on opposite sides. Musk suggested Trump should be impeached. Trump has threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk’s companies.
Trump, who was briefed on a New York Times article about Musk’s drug use, told associates that Musk’s “crazy” behaviour was linked to his drug use, according to two people with knowledge of the President’s private conversations.
A tanked nomination
For Musk, there were few positions across the thousands in the federal government that mattered more to him than the head of Nasa, because of its critical importance to SpaceX, his rocket business. So it was of great personal benefit to Musk when Trump chose Isaacman, who has flown to space twice with SpaceX, to oversee the agency.
Isaacman’s donations to Democrats had not always been a problem.
While Trump privately told advisers that he was surprised to learn of them, he and his team had been briefed about them during the presidential transition, before Isaacman’s nomination, according to two people with knowledge of the events. But by last Friday, when Trump went through the file containing details of the donations, he clearly had changed his mind.
Musk barely mounted a defence of his friend. He was anxious about doing so with other people around, including Sergio Gor, the director of the presidential personnel office, who had clashed with Musk over other staffing matters. Musk believed that he would be able to talk to the President at some point after the gathering, privately.
But Musk never got a chance to make his case.
In the hours after the Oval Office farewell, Trump decided he would withdraw Isaacman from consideration. Musk was stunned by how fast it all happened.
Musk’s allies have argued privately that Isaacman’s recent donations to Democrats were non-ideological and made at the encouragement of Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona and a former astronaut. A spokesman for Kelly declined to comment.
As Musk dealt with the fallout from the tanked nomination, he spent part of the weekend outside of Missoula, Montana, as a guest at “Symposium”, an event for tech executives, investors and startup founders thrown by Founders Fund, the venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel.
He mingled with guests at Paws Up, a high-end resort with glamping tents and luxury cabins set on 37,000 acres of a historic cattle ranch. There, he had a wide-ranging conversation with Thiel, who could sense no coming feud with the President, according to a person familiar with the talks.
Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI who has been openly feuding with Musk, was also in attendance, though the two men did not speak.
For Musk, the goings-on in Washington were still top of mind.
After spending a day in Montana, he turned his attention in earnest to assailing the top domestic priority of Trump: the Republican bill making its way through Congress that would slash taxes and steer more money to the military and immigration enforcement.
Privately and publicly, Musk stewed over the bill, believing that its spending would erase the supposed savings of his department of government efficiency (DOGE) and add to the federal deficit.
Some Republican lawmakers had tried to assuage Musk’s fears. On Monday, Speaker Mike Johnson walked the billionaire through the bill and said that Congress would try to codify the work done by DOGE. After the call, Johnson told associates that he felt Musk was uninformed about the legislation and the Congressional process, but that he had been able to reason with the world’s richest man, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
On Monday evening, Musk still had concerns. He hinted at them on X, reposting a chart apparently showing the yearly increase in the national debt.
“Scary,” Musk wrote as a caption.
Trump did not respond to Musk’s criticisms of the bill and maintained a light public schedule.
New York Times News Service