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Musk Blowup's Fallout: Trump Allies Keep Turning On Each Other

President Donald Trump's public falling out with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is now prompting additional infighting in MAGA circles between some of Trump's most high-profile supporters.

Semafor reported Monday that "War Room" podcast host Steve Bannon – who was White House chief strategist in the first Trump administration – is now setting his sights on venture capitalist and second Trump administration AI czar David Sacks (who is close to Musk and co-hosts the popular "All In" podcast). The MAGA pundit mentioned Sacks on a recent episode of his podcast, and accused him of exploiting his relationship to Trump to further his own goals.

"You’re dangerous," Bannon said of Sacks and his co-hosts. "It’s all about you, not the country."

However, Trump administration spokesperson Harrison Fields said that Sacks was "deeply committed to advancing the president's vision" on cryptocurrency and AI issues, and credited the billionaire Trump donor with being "a trusted ally and early supporter of President Trump."

While the White House defended Sacks himself, an unnamed source told Semafor that the administration was indeed having ongoing conversations "regarding the future of some of these big names that came to the federal government in that wave of Elon [Musk] coming here." The source also teased the possibility of some of Musk's hires being let go, calling it a "mutual separation" between the tech billionaire's team and the administration.

Whether Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which has spent the first several months of 2025 slashing the federal workforce across multiple agencies – remains in place is also an open question. Some DOGE staffers reportedly have been texting each other wondering if their own jobs will be next on the chopping block. Semafor's source also said that while the work itself of reducing the federal workforce may continue, Trump may rebrand it.

“Maybe we don’t call it DOGE,” the source said. “The mission is what we want to stay focused on.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

GOP Senator: 'It Will Take A Miracle' To Pass Trump's Big Ugly Bill

While Senate Republicans were meeting during a closed-door lunch at the U.S. Capitol, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted several tweets slamming President Donald Trump's so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill." This appeared to cause further fractures among the Senate Republican Conference.

That's according to a Tuesday article in NOTUS, which reported that Musk's tweets appeared to result in the rapid undoing of any progress achieved during the meeting, with GOP senators reportedly now "even further from consensus." The outlet reported that "the more likely a senator was to agree with Musk on the reconciliation bill, the more likely they were to have seen his online broadsides."

Musk's posts — in which he called the first major Republican legislative domestic policy push of Trump's second term a "disgusting abomination" — were primarily focused on the bill's ballooning of the federal deficit by trillions of dollars over 10 years. But other Senate Republicans have expressed worry about how the legislation's cuts to Medicaid will affect their constituents. A chorus of Republicans are now reportedly chiming in with proposed changes to the megabill, which would still need to be approved by the House of Representatives should it pass the Senate.

"It's called negotiating," Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said. "Everyone wants their fingerprints on it."

Other more moderate Republicans, like Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), are coming out against other elements of the bill. Collins has said she would oppose the legislation's cuts to PEPFAR — which funds AIDS relief efforts in underdeveloped nations — while Murkowski has railed against Medicaid cuts. Pro-Trump Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has also repeatedly warned that any bill that cuts Medicaid would not get his support, citing the high number of his constituents who rely on the program.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — a more moderate member of the Republican conference — has not openly said whether he would support or oppose the bill in its current form, and has stayed mostly quiet on Musk's outburst, telling NOTUS that the tech titan is "entitled to his opinion." However, he notably said that it would likely take "a miracle" for the Senate to get on the same page on the bill anytime soon.

Even though Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and even though the GOP is taking the "reconciliation" route to pass the bill which only requires 51 votes, Republicans can only afford three defections if they hope to send any legislation back to the House. And even staunch conservatives like Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have gone on the record opposing the bill over its impact on the deficit.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Musk: Trump's Tax And Spending Bill 'Undermines Work DOGE Is Doing'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appears to be publicly breaking with President Donald Trump, according to a clip of an upcoming interview that was released Tuesday evening.

CBS Sunday Morningteased the clip of correspondent David Pogue's interview with Musk, which will air on Sunday, June 1. In the video, Musk gave a blunt assessment of Trump's so-called "big, beautiful bill" that narrowly passed the House of Representatives on a 215-214 vote, and faces an uphill battle in the U.S. Senate. The South African centibillionaire opined that the bill essentially negates efforts by his Department of Government Efficiency's attempts to reduce the federal budget.

"So, you know, I was like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit and not decrease[s] it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk told Pogue.

"I actually though that when this 'big, beautiful bill' came along, and I mean, like 'everything [Musk]'s done on DOGE gets wiped out in the first year," Pogue said.

"I think a bill can be big, it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it could be both," Musk quipped.

According to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would increase the federal deficit by approximately $3.,8 trillion over a 10-year period. Much of that increase in the deficit comes from extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans by another decade. Republicans have proposed paying for the tax cuts by cutting Medicaid and Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars, though because the tax cuts are so costly, any deficit reduction made by those cuts is minimal.

One of the most outspoken opponents of the bill among the Senate Republican Conference is Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), who has repeatedly harped on the legislation's sky-high price tag. In addition to Johnson, Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have also indicated their plans to oppose it.

— (@)

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Musk Rages Over Report That Tesla Board May Oust Him

Multibillionaire Elon Musk might be voluntarily stepping away from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, but his grip on the troubled automaker Tesla is a different story—or so he’d like you to believe.

In yet another late-night social media meltdown, Musk lashed out at The Wall Street Journalover a report claiming that Tesla’s board is actively searching for his replacement as CEO.

The Journal, owned by the Murdoch family, reported that the eight-member board had reached out to multiple executive search firms and even narrowed its efforts to one top firm—all while Musk was off playing bureaucratic demolition man at DOGE.

Musk, predictably, denied the story with his usual mix of bluster and all-caps fury.

“It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the [Journal] would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial,” from the board, he wrote in one post.

Then, around 2 AM Eastern Time on Thursday, he added, “WSJ is a discredit to journalism.”

A spokesperson for Tesla also issued a denial, but the Journal hasn’t pulled the story, suggesting that its reporters are confident they’ve seen or heard something the board doesn’t want public.

And frankly, it’s not hard to see why Tesla might be quietly looking for a way out.

The company is coming off a brutal quarter, with slumping sales, sliding revenue, and rising anxiety over President Donald Trump’s tariffs. And Musk’s semi-sabbatical from Tesla to run DOGE hasn’t helped. While he’s been busy slashing federal jobs and gutting public programs, Tesla has been losing market share, investor confidence, and—based on recent protests—public goodwill.

But Musk isn’t just unpopular in the United States; Tesla’s global sales are tanking, too.

In France, sales fell 59.4% last month compared to the year before, and in Denmark, they plummeted 67.2%. And Reuters reported that, while competition from cheaper electric vehicles is cutting into Tesla’s market share in Europe, Musk’s open embrace of far-right politics has also fueled protests around the world.

Not even Trump’s attempt to turn the White House into a glorified Tesla showroom has reversed the damage. Musk’s side gig at DOGE isn’t just a distraction anymore—it’s a liability.

Musk has said that he plans to spend more time at Tesla and scale back his work at DOGE, but that might be too little, too late. Demonstrators have targeted Tesla over Musk’s role in the Trump administration, while the company scrambles to keep buyers interested. It’s now sending desperate texts, conducting surveys, and even offering cash incentives to sell more cars.

Desperation isn’t a great look for a company once billed as the future of transportation.

If the Journal’s reporting proves wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time that Musk or someone in Trump’s orbit has butted heads with the outlet. The paper’s editorial board has recently criticized Trump’s Ukraine policy and his petty decision to strip security clearances from former officials.

Musk turning the full force of his rage on the Journal only adds to the chaos.

Still, the bigger picture remains: Musk is a liability to Tesla. The White House figured this out and has pushed him aside. The question now is whether Tesla’s board has the nerve to do the same.

At this rate, it’s not just DOGE that’s collapsing on Musk’s watch—it’s Tesla, too.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Musk Blowup's Fallout: Trump Allies Keep Turning On Each Other

GOP Senator: 'It Will Take A Miracle' To Pass Trump's Big Ugly Bill

Musk: Trump's Tax And Spending Bill 'Undermines Work DOGE Is Doing'

Musk Rages Over Report That Tesla Board May Oust Him

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