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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media. I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump were once political partners, sharing praise, power and ice-cream parties.

Now the pair have been trading insults on their own social media networks.

In what started with Musk’s opposition to the president’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”, that proposes extensive tax cuts – the feud has spilled over into threats that could ground NASA missions… and blow holes in the US federal budget.

Today, tech and power reporter for The Guardian, Nick Robins-Early, on the break-up, and the dangers of handing critical services to a single billionaire.

It’s Thursday, June 12.

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Audio excerpt – Donald Trump:

“It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it, but we have it with others, too. They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour's gone. The whole world is different, and then they become hostile. I don't know what it is.”

RUBY:

So Nick, I thought we should begin at the moment that you think that tensions in the relationship between Elon Musk and President Trump first became evident.

NICK:

Yeah, it's a bit tough to pinpoint an exact moment, but they have been on good terms for a long time. Even as he had a lot of conflict with other members of the administration, it seemed like Trump would defend him and that they would actually kind of keep going with their happy friendship. But when things began to fray it seemed as if it was right around the time that Musk was on his way out of the administration, and there was a few things as he left that seemed to start a rift between them.

Audio excerpt – Reporter 1:

“President Trump, meanwhile, has withdrawn the nomination of Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator. A White House spokesperson said a replacement will be announced soon and says the next leader of NASA must, quote, be in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda.”

NICK:

One of those things was that his preferred choice for the new head of NASA was repealed, and behind the scenes, that was something that Musk cared quite a bit about. And then when things really got a little bit more openly contentious was the beginning of the spat over Trump's big, beautiful tax bill, as he calls it.

Audio excerpt – Reporter 2:

“Tension is mounting over President Trump's big, beautiful bill.”

Audio excerpt – Reporter 3:

“The bill, which would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, would balloon the deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade.”

Audio excerpt – Reporter 4:

“Elon Musk continues slamming President Trump's budget bill. Yesterday, he posted on X calling on members of Congress to quote, kill the bill.”

NICK:

The initial bust-up came after Musk was giving an interview with CBS News and he disparaged the tax bill, essentially.

Audio excerpt – Elon Musk:

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

NICK:

And he followed that up with some harsher words later, calling it, I think, an abomination. And that was the big first salvo in this fight. Right after that, Trump was having a meeting with the new German chancellor and he was asked about Musk's statements. And he hit back saying that he was disappointed in Musk.

Audio excerpt – Donald Trump:

“I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.”

NICK:

He claimed that Musk knew everything that was in the bill.

Audio excerpt – Donald Trump:

“He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that's billions and billions of dollars.”

NICK:

And that he is essentially committing an act of betrayal by criticising what was in the bill and the bill's effect on the national deficit.

RUBY:

Hmm. And as things escalated, we heard insults, but then we heard actual threats as well. Trump suggesting that he could cancel all of Musk's government contracts and subsidies. Can you talk to me about that and Musk's response?

NICK:

Yeah, initially everybody began paying attention because they were really going after each other with extremely barbed insults. There was Musk insinuating that Trump was affiliated with Jeffrey Epstein to the point that he was in the Epstein files. But it went from that sort of name calling into those genuine threats of tangible reprisals. And then Trump fired back by saying that. He could cancel all of Musk's government contracts.

Audio excerpt – Donald Trump:

“Well, we'll take a look at everything, and everything is going to add up. He gets a lot of subsidy. So we'll take a look at that.”

NICK:

Which would be a huge deal for Musk. Musk has extensive contracts through SpaceX and his various other companies and to cancel those would be just devastating for Musk's tech empire. Musk then shot back by saying that he would decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Which is an incredibly integral spacecraft for NASA and for reaching the International Space Station, it would essentially disable the US's immediate ability to get anything to and from the space station.

RUBY:

He ended up walking that back, though. What does that tell you?

NICK:

Well, he did walk it back, and he actually walked it back after not that long of a period of time. It seems like that that is emblematic of the fact that Musk has a lot to lose in this fight. It seems that they are in a period of sort of mutually assured destruction in some ways, but in other ways, Trump is still the president. He still has enormous executive power and Musk is very, very intertwined with the government and his businesses are very intertwined with the government.

After this dustup began, you saw things like Tesla's stock begin to plunge because investors thought, well, he's benefited from this relationship. And if this goes south, then we don't know what will happen. Maybe regulators will begin targeting Tesla more, maybe. Tesla will no longer have sort of favourable pride of place in the White House the way that Donald Trump was previously acting essentially as a car salesman on the White house lawn for them. And so I think that his walk back showed that perhaps there was hesitation over following through threats that would be damaging to his empire.

RUBY:

Trump may be the president, but Elon Musk could derail the country’s space program - that’s after the break.

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RUBY:

Nick, can we talk a bit more about just how interconnected Musk and his business empire is with the US government? Tell me about, I suppose, where the relationship starts and, and how large it's become.

NICK:

I think it's important to go back a little bit before even all of his interconnected work with Doge and him becoming a senior advisor to Trump. He obviously donated $300 million to Trump's reelection campaign efforts. But if you walk back further than that, he's been intertwined with the government for a really long time. And going back to around 2006, 2008... He was already integrating SpaceX into NASA through contracts over the increased privatisation of the U.S. Space programme. Especially with SpaceX, he's become intertwined to the point where there are now almost two decades later, $15 billion plus in contracts later, immense interconnectedness between NASA and SpaceX. SpaceX is responsible for so much of NASA's operations and transport missions. They're integral to future plans of moon landings and Musk's favourite topic of reaching Mars. It's really a sort of symbiotic relationship that has evolved and the U.S. Has really come to rely on Musk for a tonne of different satellite communications, space travel, et cetera, et cetera.

RUBY:

So as these two men feud then is there a risk that the entire US space programme could collapse?

NICK:

I mean, if Musk was to follow through on threats or if this really deteriorates, certainly significant portions of it and definitely plans for the future would really become at risk. Had Musk, for instance, decommissioned that Dragon spacecraft, the US just wouldn't have had any other immediate means of getting to the International Space Station apart from essentially begging Russia to help. It just wouldn't have been a viable situation for how NASA could still operate and if Musk was to hold hostage and threaten various other elements of the space programme, then it would derail major, major plans for the future of space travel in the U.S.

RUBY:

It's interesting because as you say, one way of looking at this is to see Trump as the one who holds the most power here as the president of the United States. But has he in fact handed a lot of that power over now to Musk?

NICK:

Yeah, I think that some people that I have talked to have described Musk through DOGE and through his company's work with the government as just collecting an enormous amount of state capture. And since he is running these businesses with a certain kind of autocratic flair over what he decides to do with them, it means that whenever there is some major government programme or major government. Desire to get something done, that they are really reliant on his cooperation and that the contracts and the programmes that he is working on are extremely integral to the US view of national defence, of space travel, of all sorts of services that they have essentially privatised over the years to the point where now there isn't an internal mechanism or there isn't a national programme that can meet the demand and meet the ability of Musk's companies.

RUBY:

And it's not just US government contracts. You've written about how Musk also has had influence on things, including the Russia-Ukraine war as a result of the infrastructure that he owns. So how are governments globally grappling with how to deal with the level of power that he holds?

NICK:

Yeah, I think that there's been a tendency over the past few years, and this is not just Musk, but happens with a lot of different tech companies. They have developed an infrastructure that the whole world now relies on. And you've seen that with Musk with His starlink satellite communications Starlink is now by far the biggest satellite communications private company in the world. They have expanded and expanded and extended and they're being used all over the place but they're most notably being used in Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine war and in 2003, Musk essentially refused to let Ukraine use Starlink in Crimea to launch a surprise attack against Russian forces. And since then, governments have increasingly become aware of and concerned with the way that Musk could influence geopolitics. And so we're seeing Europe kind of struggle to find other ways of supplanting or providing alternatives to Starlink. There's a bit of this scramble right now of governments thinking that if Musk is going to be this irrational, erratic international actor, that they need to have this sort of plan b in place, otherwise they are at his whims and they are liable to kind of face reprisals if they don't play by his rules.

RUBY:

What do you think the future is then of the Trump-Musk relationship? Do you think that there is any sort of genuine friendship there? Or have we just seen the end of what was a temporarily mutually beneficial relationship?

NICK:

You know, it's tough to get in anyone's head, but especially these two. I think that they're two people who are not really known for having a lot of close friends or long-term relationships that don't blow up in dramatic ways.

But for over a year now, they've spoken very effusively about how much they like each other. Musk has talked about having ice cream parties with Trump in the White House and like enjoying showing him rockets and Trump has called Musk a genius and a patriot and it did seem like that for a while, in addition to being a very politically mutually beneficial relationship and financially mutually beneficial relationship, it was actually one with some genuine affection. They're pretty unpredictable people. It's not out of the question that six months from now they might be sort of chummy again, but obviously there's just so many other layers to this that it becomes difficult to predict what's gonna happen.

RUBY:

Well, Nick, thank you so much for your time today.

NICK:

Yeah, thank you for having me.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

Australia has joined the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in announcing sanctions on two ministers in the Israeli government.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has confirmed the sanctions apply to Israel's National Security Minister and Finance Minister, saying they both have encouraged extremist actions that have led to grave human rights violations against Palestinians.

And

QANTAS has announced its closing down Jetstar Asia by the end of July, following years of financial losses.

An estimated 500 jobs will be lost in the closure – however QANTAS says that 13 planes used by Jetstar Asia will be redeployed across Australia and New Zealand, creating an additional 100 jobs.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, thanks for listening.

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