The Elon Musk-Donald Trump feud appears to have ended — and with an apology from Musk.
Elon Musk has expressed regret for his posts against US President Donald Trump last week. “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk has now posted on X. Musk had already deleted his post where he’d claimed that US President Donald Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files, which he claimed had caused the files to not be publicly released.
Musk’s post appears to be a reconciliatory gesture towards Trump, and a possible end to a feud that had captured the tech, political and business world last week. Musk had been unhappy with a spending bill that had been passed by US Congress, and felt that it didn’t bring with the the spending cuts necessary to help the US move to a more stable fiscal position. He’d first attacked the bill, and then turned to attacking US President Donald Trump, whom he’d backed and supported on the way to the Presidency. Trump too had responded, and Musk had escalated matters further, calling him ungrateful, and then even hinting that Trump was involved with Jeffrey Epstein, the alleged sex-trafficker who’d died in US prison. He’d provided no evidence for his allegations. The feud, though, had caused Tesla’s stock price to crash, and the company had lost $150 billion in market cap that very day. Some experts had also attributed geopolitical implications to the feud, saying that a US fighting amongst themselves would benefit China as it looks to take the pole position among world powers.
But it appears that Musk now realizes that he might’ve been in the wrong. He’d first deleted the Epstein post 2 days ago, and has now followed it up with what seems like a formal apology. It remains to be seen if Trump responds to the apology, but it appears as though Musk has taken the first — and public — step towards a reconciliation.