The bromance between the US President and the erratic tech billionaire spectacularly imploded this week – with both sides making wild and unsubstantiated claims about each other on social media
Elon Musk has deleted a post from his social media which made a wild and unsubstantiated allegation about Donald Trump.
The post to his account on X, formerly Twitter, which Musk owns, claimed Trump’s name was included in FBI files about dead paedophile Jefrey Epstein – something Trump has since denied on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
Musk had written: “Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
In a follow-up post, Musk said: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Earlier today, both posts were removed from the platform.
Responding to the allegation, Mr Trump reposted a message from lawyer David Schoen, who wrote: “I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defence as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died. He sought my advice for months before that.
“I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!”
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While Musk did delete that allegation, there’s no indication of a cooling of the furious row between the two MAGA figureheads.
Musk’s X account still contains posts from recent days attacking Trump’s budget bill as an “abomination”, suggesting Trump’s tariffs would drive the United States into recession later this year, and calling for President Trump to be impeached and replaced with Vice President JD Vance.
It’s been reported the row bubbled over after Trump told Musk he was withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacson – a Musk ally – to run NASA.
According to the New York Times, Trump had learned Isaacson had donated to some Democrats and didn’t think he could be counted on to be loyal to him.
In another deleted post, Musk said he would offer Trump a “full throated apology” only if there was a “full dump of the Epstein files.”
Donald Trump repeatedly promised to release the full files related to Epstein when he took office – but has failed to do so.
But both FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino have both publicly stated they no longer believe in many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein and his death – and which have taken hold in much of Trump’s MAGA base in the years since the disgraced financier’s suicide.
A group of influencers were given what was claimed to be “the Epstein Files” in a White House arranged media stunt – only to later complain bitterly that the binders they’d been given contained information that was already in the public domain.