The bromance between tech billionaire Elon Musk and President Donald Trump appears to be over, imploding in a spectacular public spectacle this week as the country and world looked on.
The intensifying drama took another turn Thursday when Musk made a shocking revelation on his social media platform X.
“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk said. “[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
“Have a nice day, DJT!” he added.
A few minutes later, he tossed another loaded volley. “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
The names of plenty of famous people have been linked to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, to name a few. Their names were mentioned in court documents as part of the case detailing Epstein’s decades of sexual abuse, according to The Hill.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 at a New York City jail.
Trump didn’t waste any time throwing his own hardballs back at Musk, although he seemed to tread a bit more lightly than he would have if attacked like this by any other critic.
“Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Trump posted Thursday on his Truth Social platform.
Before adding an ominous threat of his own, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Then he linked the ongoing feud with Musk to the billionaire’s opposition to the president’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,” Trump wrote.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Musk’s allegation that Trump had ties to Epstein “an unfortunate episode,” according to CNN White House producer Samantha Waldenberg.
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted,” Leavitt said.
“The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again,” she added.
“I don’t see a denial here,” an X user posted. And another user concurred, “Duh! Trump is in those files. Bet on it!”
Still other users criticized Leavitt, contending her response wasn’t strong enough. “Very weak statement by Leavitt. She should’ve came out much stronger in defending The President,” Recover Republic posted.
Another user doesn’t believe Musk at all. “So you think the Democrats withheld the Epstein Files knowing Donald Trump was in there? No way! They would have released that in a New York minute and blasted him. It would have been front page headline news around the world & that would have been the platform the Democrats ran on.”
Last year, Trump denied any relationship with Epstein. “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island,” he wrote on social media
The relationship between Trump and Musk has been unraveling publicly for a week now, starting with Musk’s criticism of Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” in an interview with CBS News.
The measure is now under debate in the Senate. The House passed it just before Memorial Day. The Congressional Budget Office just released an estimate showing the legislation, which extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and makes massive cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs, among many other provisions, would add $2.4 trillion to the national deficit over 10 years.
