Author: Jinshi Data
Tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Wednesday he regretted some of his social media posts last week targeting U.S. President Donald Trump following a public spat that tore apart the formerly close allies.
The conflict ended the close cooperation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which had driven Musk to lead a lean budget in Trump's second term, and triggered market concerns about the prospects of Tesla and SpaceX, owned by the tech tycoon. After the conflict broke out, Tesla's market value suffered its largest single-day drop in history, but its stock price has gradually recovered.
"I regret some of my posts last week about President Trump (@realDonaldTrump), they went a bit too far," Musk wrote on the social media platform X.
The conflict was triggered by Musk's opposition to the "Beautiful Bill" tax and spending plan supported by Trump. In an interview, he said that the plan "destroyed" DOGE's work and further criticized it on social media for significantly increasing the US budget deficit. The Trump administration refuted this.
As of Saturday, Musk appeared to have deleted some of the posts that exacerbated the conflict with White House leaders, including one that accused Trump of having "documents" related to the late sex offender Epstein. The White House previously denied this claim. Another post in which Musk replied "agree" to a user's comment calling for "impeachment of Trump and replacement by Vice President Vance" has also disappeared.
In the dispute, which has been played out simultaneously through Musk's X platform and Trump's Truth Social, Trump has also hinted at ending government contracts and subsidies for Musk's companies. But on Monday, Trump said he planned to keep Starlink technology, the satellite internet service owned by Musk's SpaceX, in the White House.
Analysts believe that Musk's apology is unlikely to heal the rift between the two parties. Trump, who has always held grudges, said he "wished him all the best" but explicitly refused to mend fences. The golden period of their relationship was a few months before Trump's second term, when DOGE, led by Musk, tried to cut $1 trillion in federal spending, but ultimately only achieved the $180 billion target.
Dan Ives, a Wedbush technology analyst, believes that Musk's relationship with Trump "is difficult to fully repair, but it may improve in the coming months." After all, "Trump needs Musk to maintain his relationship with the Republican Party, and Musk needs Trump even more" - especially key policies such as the federal framework for autonomous driving.
The conflict reveals the fragility of the relationship between Silicon Valley and the White House. Five months into his presidency, Trump has pressured all the CEOs of tech giants who attended his inauguration through lawsuits or speeches, including Meta's Zuckerberg, Apple's Cook, Amazon's Bezos and Google's Pichai. Although Microsoft has become a minority winner (approved to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is still investigating its relationship with OpenAI.
Anat Alon-Beck, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, pointed out: "Tech giants have to accept the conditions of the current administration." Although Trump continued many antitrust investigations during the Biden era, his moves to repeal the AI safety executive order and relax the regulatory environment still provide the industry with breathing room.
