Just a few weeks ago, Elon Musk was Donald Trump’s “First Buddy.” Together, the wealthy and powerful pair was constantly focusing on reshaping the federal government. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk has made numerous controversial moves that have created major risks for his other endeavors. However, since his special government contract expired, Tesla’s owner has surprisingly changed sides.
He is now strongly criticizing the Trump administration’s tax legislation, dubbed the “big beautiful bill.” The President claimed that Musk is “upset and disturbed” by the slashing of the electric vehicle tax mandate. During a press conference attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Donald Trump spent a good 10 minutes talking about his former advisor.
He claimed that Musk might be suffering from the “Trump derangement syndrome” after he left the administration. He also added that he was “disappointed” by how Elon was going about things given he “knew the inner working of the bill.”
“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here — better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed a problem when he found out we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars.”
Trump further added, “Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate — which was a lot of money for electric vehicles — and they’re having a hard time with electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy. Elon knew this from the beginning. He knew it from a long time ago.”
“I know that disturbed him,” he concluded. Further justifying his moves, the Republican leader continued, “It really is unfair. We want to have cars of all types — electric. We want to have electricity, but we want to have gasoline combustion. We want to have different. We want to have hybrids. We want to have all. We want to be able to sell everything.”
Trump: “I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody. He had no problem with it. All of the sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re gonna have to the cut EV mandate … he hasn’t said… pic.twitter.com/mJvEAGXaly
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 5, 2025
Donald Trump claimed that Elon Musk didn’t have a issue with the bill before he left DOGE. He added that his disappointment in the Tesla owner comes from a deeper place as he “helped him out a lot.” The President was perhaps referring to promoting his cars at the White House lawn.
“I’ll tell you — he’s not the first. People leave my administration, and they love us. And then, at some point, they miss it so badly. And some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile,” he said. “I don’t know what it is. It’s like Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it.”
However, Musk was still visibly upset, counter-attacking the “big, beautiful bill.” On X (formerly Twitter), he wrote, “Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”
False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it! https://t.co/V4ztekqd4g
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025
He continued, “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that is both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.”
Musk also claimed, “This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
Scroll down for some images of Donald Trump and Elon Musk together:
