Elon Musk escalated his feud with President Trump, announcing that he would be backing one of the commander in chief’s biggest foes in congress, Rep. Thomas Massie — the libertarian-leaning House lawmaker who Trump has vowed to see defeated in the midterm election.
Musk signaled he would donate to the Kentucky Republican’s 2026 reelection campaign on X when he responded “Me” to a post asking who would be backing Massie’s congressional bid.
Trump, meanwhile, had pledged to support whichever candidate runs in the primary against Massie, who the president lambasted as a “loser” and “Third Rate Congressman” in an online tirade last week.
Massie, 54, has been vocally opposed to the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill, and has slammed the US strikes on Iran as unconstitutional.
The Kentucky Republican additionally teamed up with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on a bipartisan war powers resolution to stop the US from getting involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.
The war of words between Trump and Musk erupted after the world’s richest man renewed his sharp criticisms of the One Big Beautiful Bill, calling it “utterly insane” and “political suicide.”
The Tesla boss had raged against the massive spending bill — on which Trump’s major policy agenda hangs — on social media ahead of the Senate vote.
Trump on Monday night responded with fury, threatening to unleash DOGE against Musk, the department’s founder and former head, to investigate his companies’ government subsidies.
He also warned his former ally that he may have “to close up shop and head back home to South Africa.”
“Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” Trump wrote.
