Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s once-powerful alliance erupted into a fierce feud, and now it’s headed out of this world over space program.
The bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk went up in flames.
What started as a policy disagreement turned into an all-out war.
And now Elon Musk has just pulled the trigger on one out of this world response in his explosive feud with Trump.
Trump and Musk’s friendship crashes and burns
The political alliance that helped propel Donald Trump back to the White House has completely collapsed.
For months, Elon Musk was one of Trump’s closest advisors after spending nearly $300 million to help get him elected.
But their partnership came to a dramatic end this week when Musk began attacking Trump’s massive tax and spending bill.
The Tesla CEO called the legislation fiscally irresponsible and mounted a public campaign to torpedo the President’s signature domestic policy achievement.
Trump finally had enough of Musk’s criticism and fired back during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore," Trump told reporters.
The President said he was "very disappointed in Musk" and suggested that former advisors sometimes develop "Trump derangement syndrome" after leaving his administration.
But Trump wasn’t finished.
Trump threatens billions in government contracts
Later on Thursday, Trump escalated the feud by taking aim at Musk’s business empire in a scathing Truth Social post.
"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 wrote.
Then Trump delivered the knockout punch that sent shockwaves through the aerospace industry.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump declared.
This wasn’t just political theater.
Musk’s companies receive an estimated $38 billion in government contracts and subsidies, with SpaceX alone benefiting from about $22 billion in federal spending.
NASA relies heavily on SpaceX to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station under contracts worth roughly $4.9 billion.
Trump’s threat to cancel these deals would devastate Musk’s business empire and potentially cripple America’s space program.
Musk’s devastating retaliation
Elon Musk didn’t take Trump’s threats lying down.
In a move that stunned the aerospace community, Musk announced he was taking the nuclear option.
"In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately," Musk posted on X.
This wasn’t an empty threat.
Dragon is the only U.S. option for delivering crew to and from the International Space Station.
If Musk had followed through on decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft, it would have left America completely dependent on Russia’s Soyuz system to access the space station.
Taking Dragon out of service would disrupt the ISS program, which involves dozens of countries under an international agreement signed over two decades ago.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Trump’s space ambitions.
A SpaceX Dragon capsule brought two NASA astronauts back to Earth in March after they were stranded for months at the International Space Station by a Boeing Starliner capsule.
Musk backs down after cooler heads prevail
But the threat to America’s space program was short-lived.
Hours after his initial announcement, Musk reversed course when an X user urged him to reconsider.
"This is a shame this back and forth," the user tweeted at Musk. "You are both better than this. Cool off and take a step back for a couple days."
Musk quickly answered: "Good advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon."
The reversal showed that even in the heat of battle, Musk was willing to listen to reason when America’s space capabilities were at stake.
The fallout spreads across Washington
The explosive feud between Trump and Musk is already having major consequences.
Their sparring hammered shares of Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla, which lost about $150 billion in value, closing down 14.3% for the day.
The bitter public breakup has also raised serious questions about America’s space program and national security.
NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens tried to project calm after Musk’s announcement.
"NASA will continue to execute upon the President’s vision for the future of space," Stevens wrote on social media.
But behind the scenes, White House officials are scrambling to deal with the fallout from losing their most important space contractor.
A political partnership destroyed
The collapse of the Trump-Musk alliance represents one of the most dramatic political breakups in recent memory.
Only six days before Thursday’s blowup, Trump and Musk held a joint appearance in the Oval Office, where Trump praised Musk’s government service and both men promised to continue working together.
Now they’re engaged in an all-out war that could have devastating consequences for America’s space program and the Republican Party’s electoral prospects.
A prolonged feud between Trump and Musk could make it more difficult for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.
The man who helped put Trump back in the White House has now become his biggest enemy.
And Musk’s threat to decommission the Dragon spacecraft shows he’s willing to play hardball with America’s space program to get his revenge.
The question now is whether either man will blink before this feud causes irreparable damage to the country’s space capabilities.
