The gloves <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-shreds-musk">have officially come off</a> as a feud between billionaire Elon Musk and president Donald Trump has exploded into public view in spectacular fashion.
In the latest escalation, Trump threatened to cut Musk's government contracts.
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," the president <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114632206992330264">threatened</a> in a Truth Social post. "I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!"
It's an especially noteworthy broadside, considering Musk's empire has been built on tens of billions of dollars' worth of government contracts. Both Tesla and SpaceX have <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/musk-works-slash-federal-spending-firms-received-billions/story?id=118589121">massively relied on federal funds</a>, saving them from certain doom on several occasions.
Case in point, in 2021, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1422771338880733189">admitted</a> that NASA once saved his space company with a $1.5 billion contract.
But whether the money will continue to pour into Musk's pockets is as uncertain as ever, given the rapidly deteriorating relationship. The dam appeared to break on Thursday, with Musk and Trump openly taking potshots at each other, both online and off.
"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump <a href="https://youtu.be/f39oHo6vFLg">told reporters</a>. "I don't know if we will anymore."
Musk retorted on his social media platform X-formerly-Twitter, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930667528696828120">seething</a> that "without me, Trump would have lost the election."
"Such ingratitude," the fuming Musk added.
Trump's threats appear to have panicked investors of Musk's EV maker Tesla. The company's shares, which have already been on a rollercoaster ride this year, plunged around 14 percent as the spat intensified, showing that investors were horrified by the implications of an escalating brawl between Musk and Trump.
What exactly Trump meant by "subsidies and contracts" remains uncertain. One possibility is that the president was referring to EV tax incentives, which are expected to be torpedoed in his "big, beautiful bill."
Without tax incentives — for now, <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g43675128/cars-eligible-for-ev-tax-credit/">many</a> of Tesla's vehicles still qualify for a clean vehicle tax credit of up to $7,500 — Tesla's existing crisis could deepen even further. Musk's well-documented embrace of far-right extremism has proven incredibly damaging to the carmaker's brand, <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-falling-worldwide-norway">scaring away buyers worldwide</a>.
"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 <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114632205177163456">wrote on Truth Social</a>.
"Such an obvious lie," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930698237650026675">replied</a>. "So sad."
The billionaire reiterated that he <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/12/05/musk-calls-for-ending-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-which-could-help-tesla/">allegedly doesn't care</a> about the EV tax credits, but <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930681697525489913">called</a> to "also cut all the crazy spending increases in the Big Ugly Bill so that America doesn’t go bankrupt!"
With his latest threat, Trump may also be referring to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/elon-musk-business-government-contracts-funding/">billions of dollars worth of government contracts</a> that Musk's SpaceX has relied on to keep afloat. His administration abruptly <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">pulled the nomination</a> of Musk's personal pick for NASA administrator, indicating a major parting of ways between the space agency and the billionaire's space company.
Meanwhile, Musk suggested <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930685402631053403">through a poll on X</a> to create a "new political party in America" to represent the "80 percent in the middle."
Unsurprisingly, his largely sycophantic supporters on the platform relished in the idea, with 83 percent voting "yes."
But the billionaire appeared to relish in the unfolding chaos, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930689782533009563">arguing</a> that "one thing's for sure, it ain't boring!"
Whether Trump will make good on his threat remains to be seen. His tax bill will certainly become an even tougher pill to swallow now as it heads to the Senate, with several Republican lawmakers siding with Musk on the issue.
One thing's for sure: the fallout of the bill dying in Congress could be significant.
"If [Musk] actually successfully gets any votes switched to tank this bill and kills it," a senior Trump strategist <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-donald-trump-breakup/">told Wired</a>, "then I think at that point he’s f*cking dead to Donald Trump."
More on the feud: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/republicans-zero-respect-musk-money-and-clout">Republicans Admit They Have Zero Respect for Musk, Were Just Using Him for Money and Clout</a>

It's On

Elon may have just dug his own grave.

"He Just Went CRAZY": Trump Threatens to Terminate Elon Musk's Government Contracts

<h2>Soup D'oor</h2>
Though some <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/196114/elon-musk-budget-bill-threat-republicans-scrambling">want him back</a>, many Republicans are breathing a massive sigh of relief now that billionaire Elon Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-donations-trump-control-nasa">broken up</a> with president Donald Trump in dramatic fashion.
As <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/06/04/elon-musk-house-republicans-donald-trump">Axios reports</a>, lawmakers are releasing plenty of steam and pent-up frustration.
"He's a complete joke," one House Republican vented to Axios. "He had no idea what the f*ck he was doing, whatsoever."
"Nobody really wanted him here," the lawmaker added. "We couldn't wait to get rid of him."
The comments highlight an immense buildup of tension behind the scenes as Musk led the gutting of federal agencies with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, chaotic moves that have proven immensely unpopular.
Now that he's on the outs with Trump, politicians and political operatives are finally coming out of the woodwork to bid him adieu — though cleaning up the mess Musk is leaving behind won't be an easy feat.
<h2>Bye Felicia</h2>
Musk has been accused of overstepping boundaries and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-uses-x-push-his-preferred-political-picks-trump-isnt-always-swayed-2024-11-26/">pushing Trump</a> to pick his preferred <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-black-eye-drug-claims">cabinet members</a>.
In other words, Musk's mere presence in the White House ruffled plenty of feathers. He was given the nickname "Crazy Uncle Elon" by State Department officials, as <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/elon-musk-trump-doge-destruction-1235314218/">Rolling Stone reported</a> earlier this year, with staffers rolling their eyes at his cringey jokes and bristling at his "irritating" personality.
But now that Musk has claimed that his time in politics has come to an end — a proclamation <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk-really-not-leaving/">that's hard to believe</a> — Trump officials are seemingly elated.
"He can say whatever he wants to," another House Republican told Axios. "I don't care. I don't really pay attention. He's not elected. He served at the pleasure of the president. He no longer does."
The beef between Musk and Trump escalated after the White House announced over the weekend that it had <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">pulled its nominee</a> for the NASA administrator role, Jared Isaacman, who was personally hand-picked by Musk.
Not long after, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-donald-trump-war">excoriated Trump's tax bill</a> as a "disgusting abomination," calling on people to "fire all politicians, who betrayed the American people" during next year's midterm elections.
"I knew it was a matter of time before the two alpha males would explode, fight each other," one House Republican told Axios.
More on the feud: <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-donations-trump-control-nasa">Musk Privately Complaining That His Immense Donations to Trump Didn't Even Buy Him Control of NASA</a>

Good Riddance

"He's a complete joke... We couldn't wait to get rid of him."

Republicans Admit They Have Zero Respect for Musk, Were Just Using Him for Money and Clout

Billionaire Elon Musk's bromance with president Donald Trump has <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-bromance-exploded">officially exploded</a> into an ugly, spite-fuelled, mud-slinging grudge match of epic proportions.
The feud, which has been simmering for months now, boiled over publicly this month after Musk excoriated Trump's so-called "big, beautiful bill" as a "<a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-donald-trump-war">disgusting abomination</a>," and openly <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-declares-war-republicans">declared war</a> on any Republican willing to support it.
In <a href="https://youtu.be/f39oHo6vFLg">characteristically rambling remarks</a> from the Oval Office on Thursday, the president tore into his former number one ally, cementing the bitter end of their relationship.
"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump said. "I don't know if we will anymore."
Meanwhile, Musk took to his social media platform to air even more of his own grievances.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk claimed.
"Such ingratitude," he added resentfully.
The president had some ideas as to why "Elon did a 180," as House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1930275964438614151">put it</a> in remarks to reporters on Wednesday.
"Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles," Trump said, referring to tax incentives that have greatly lowered the vehicle prices for consumers in the past. His bill is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/06/03/nx-s1-5414604/ev-tax-credits-republican-bill">expected to roll back</a> a suite of Biden-era policies that were designed to cut emissions and boost EV sales.
Now that Musk has dragged the brand of his EV maker Tesla through the mud, with <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-falling-worldwide-norway">sales plummeting</a>, the bill could exacerbate the company's <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-musk-returns">ongoing crisis</a>.
"You know, they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidies, and Elon knew this from the beginning," Trump said.
Trump also pointed to his administration throwing Musk's personal pick, SpaceX space tourist and billionaire Jared Isaacman, under the bus, officially <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">rescinding his nomination</a> as NASA's next administrator.
Musk "recommended somebody that I guess he knew very well to run NASA, and I didn't think it was appropriate," Trump said.
Isaacman "happened to be a total Democrat," Trump added, seemingly trying to reframe the narrative to justify a move that has largely been seen as retribution against Musk.
"I can understand why [Musk] is upset," the president offered.
The rocky, on-and-off-again relationship flourished into a full-blown bromance throughout Trump's election campaign and first semester in office.
But the two enormous egos eventually proved far too big to fit into the same political sphere, with reports of <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/23/musk-bessent-trump-white-house-irs">shouting matches</a> in the halls of the White House showing Musk's welcome in DC was wearing thin.
During his goodbye party in the White House last week, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-black-eye-drug-claims">showed up with a black eye</a> and a weird explanation, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/politics/elon-musk-black-eye.html">triggering a flurry of speculation</a> as to who could've thrown the punch.
"You saw a man who was very happy when he was behind the Oval Desk, and even with a black eye," Trump told reporters today. The president allegedly offered Musk some makeup to cover it up, to which the billionaire responded, "'I don't think so,' which is interesting."
That's despite Musk saying "wonderful things about me" at his goodbye party last week.
"I'l be honest, I think he misses the place," Trump claimed. "He's not the first. People leave my administration, and they love us, and then, at some point, they miss it so badly."
"And some of them actually become hostile," he added. "It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome."
More on the bromance: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-musk-bromance-exploded">The Trump-Musk Bromance Has Exploded Into a Million Spite-Fueled Pieces</a>

Oligarchic Fisticuffs

"Such ingratitude."

Trump Takes the Gloves Off and Shreds Elon Musk

It's been eleven excruciating months since billionaire Elon Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1812256998588662068">vociferously announced</a> that he "fully" endorsed then-candidate Donald Trump following the failed assassination attempt against him during a rally in Pennsylvania.
At first, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-denies-donald-trump-donation">appeared to dislike the optics</a> of donating tens of millions of dollars a month to the president's election campaign. But the burgeoning relationship quickly flourished into a full-on bromance, with Elon Musk even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCd3xu7OiHc">awkwardly jumping with joy</a> on stage at an October campaign event.
Things between the two got so serious, that Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-warning-elon-musk">started riffing</a> on the degree to which Musk had become glued to his side at Mar-a-Lago, like a rescue dog unwilling to part from his new master's side.
"Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him," Trump <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4989117-musks-bold-plans-for-department-of-government-efficiency-face-roadblocks/">teased</a> at a Capitol Hill meeting days after winning the election in November.
"Until I don’t like him," he added — either knowingly or unknowingly prophesying the not-so-distant future.
By all accounts, it's taken just over half a year for the intense relationship to turn sour <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-trump-superpac-feud">yet again</a>. Trump's enormous tax and spending bill, which passed the House and will go to the Senate in the coming weeks, has become the epicenter of a metastasizing feud between the two.
An incensed Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-donald-trump-war">torched the bill</a> as a "disgusting abomination" that allegedly undermines his gutting of the government with the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency.
And it didn't take long for the president to push back. Over the weekend, the Trump administration <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">pulled its nominee</a> for the NASA administrator role, Jared Isaacman, who happened to be a hand-picked ally and close associate of Musk's.
The move reportedly landed right on target, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elon-musk-trump-tax-spending-republicans-5b779d6b">greatly angering</a> the mercurial CEO, and causing him to lash out against Trump's so-called "big, beautiful bill." He reportedly whined that he had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars getting the president elected, indicating major regret over siding with the president.
On Wednesday, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) <a href="https://x.com/BulwarkOnline/status/1930275964438614151">told reporters</a> that Trump is "obviously not delighted that Elon did a 180," saying he was shocked himself by the entrepreneur's about-face.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time Musk has thrown his considerable influence to oppose a bill in Congress. In December, Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-orders-elon-musk">made repeated calls</a> to torpedo a bipartisan spending bill, efforts that ultimately succeeded.
But this time around, the tone feels dramatically different. Musk has made plenty of enemies in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, throughout his chaotic tenure as a "special government employee." Trump officials have balked at his attempts to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/elon-musk-uses-his-x-ownership-to-be-a-mouthpiece-for-trump-narratives-and-his-white-house-position-to-push-his-priorities">control the narrative</a>, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/09/rick-scott-elon-musk-doge-00220010">overstep boundaries</a>, and even <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-black-eye-drug-claims">hand-pick cabinet members</a>.
Now that Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-declares-war-republicans">declared war on the Republican party</a>, calling on all Americans to "fire all politicians who betrayed the American people" during next year's midterm elections, it's clear that his bromance with Trump has exploded spectacularly.
"I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore," Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-declares-war-republicans#:~:text=bill%20in%20a-,separate%20message,-on%20Tuesday%2C%20excoriating">tweeted</a>. "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it."
Whether Musk was exclusively talking about the spending bill or unconsciously voicing his regrets about having sided with Trump — who's become known for his boundless levels of pettiness, unpredictability, and arrogance — will likely remain a mystery.
Meanwhile, Johnson finds himself in the middle of an all-out brawl, desperately trying to put the pieces back together again and rescue a political party in crisis.
"I called Elon last night, and he didn’t answer, but, uh, hope to talk to him today," Johnson <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/us/politics/musk-house-republicans-trump.html">told reporters</a> on Wednesday.
More on the bromance: <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-donations-trump-control-nasa">Musk Privately Complaining That His Immense Donations to Trump Didn't Even Buy Him Control of NASA</a>

I Hate You

The messiest breakup of the year.

The Trump-Musk Bromance Has Exploded Into a Million Spite-Fueled Pieces

Last week, both stages of SpaceX's Starship <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-starship-improvements-failure">exploded after returning from space</a>. The Super Heavy booster flew apart as it attempted a landing burn over ground, and forty minutes later, the Starship vehicle itself disintegrated somewhere over the Indian Ocean. 
It was the Elon Musk-owned space company's ninth test of its megarocket, the development of which has been plagued by spectacular failures. Failure is part of the company's formula for success, but the prolonged series of comeupances may be very bad news, according to engineer-turned-journalist Will Lockett.
"Dig a little deeper, and it's evident that SpaceX has hit an impasse," Lockett wrote <a href="https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-dead-end">in his newsletter</a>.
Reusability is the Starship's raison d'être. If the booster and spacecraft can safely perform multiple launches, the idea is that it'll save SpaceX — and its customers — invaluable time and money that it'd otherwise waste building new ones from scratch. Its other selling point is hauling a massive amount of cargo in one go, facilitating ambitious missions like <a style="font-weight: 400;" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-starship-landing-mars-2026">sending humans to Mars</a>.
Yet two years on since Starship embarked on its maiden test flight, SpaceX is still a long way from achieving reusability or a hefty payload capacity. Regarding the former, last week's flight test was the first time SpaceX reused a Super Heavy booster, replacing four of its 33 engines. Regarding the latter, the test had Starship carry a dummy payload of a measly 16 metric tons. Musk has previously promised that Starship will carry 150 tons.
In previous tests, the booster <a href="https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/spacex-loses-starship-upper-stage-again-but-catches-giant-super-heavy-booster-during-flight-8-launch-video">guided itself back to its launch tower</a>, where it was <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-caught-starship-booster-chopsticks-tower">caught midair</a> by the structure's "Chopstick" arms — an unquestionably stunning achievement. For its most recent flight, SpaceX ditched making a catch and aimed for a controlled splash landing in the Pacific. That's because it was testing sending the booster into a "belly-flop" to increase drag as it re-enters the atmosphere, thereby slowing its descent and reducing the fuel that needs to be burned by its retrorockets, the engines that kick in to assist the landing. Less fuel means less weight, which means more payload capacity, and so forth.
Inauspiciously, the booster exploded right after its retrorockets ignited, suggesting that it was the engines that had failed. The stresses of the belly-flop, it would also appear, proved too much for the craft's structure.
In Lockett's analysis, the booster is both too heavy and yet too fragile. If true, then engineers are in a bind: "Super Heavy Booster and its engines need to be heavily reinforced to survive such a landing (especially if it is to be reused, as planned), but doing so would add enough weight to render the entire exercise moot," Lockett wrote.
The upper stage, meanwhile, made some progress by reaching space and flying at orbital speeds. But in a repeat of the last two tests, it experienced a fuel leak — though instead of <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-fires-starship">instantly exploding</a>, it spiraled out of control and broke up in the atmosphere.
"The fact that it was yet another fuel leak that caused the rocket to fail heavily suggests they have a cascading stress issue," wrote Lockett. "They strengthened the fuel lines and the structure that supported the rocket engines after flights 7 and 8, but now a component further down the line has failed, suggesting that the stress is being transferred to other, weaker components."
Lockett's prognosis is sobering. "The lesson here is that SpaceX somehow needs to make Starship significantly more robust and lighter by well over a hundred tonnes if it is to conduct even one successful mission, let alone achieve constant reuse  —  which, let's be clear, is basically impossible," he added.
Wendy Whitman Cobb, a space policy expert with the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, summed up SpaceX's folly. "They are trying to do everything at once with Starship," Whitman Cobb <a href="https://www.theverge.com/spacex/677355/spacex-rockets-exploding-normal">told the Verge</a> — building a new rocket, making both the booster and spaceship reusable, on top of boasting an unprecedented payload capacity. "It really is a very difficult engineering challenge."
All the drama with the exploding Starship also stands in contrast to the incremental approach SpaceX took when developing its very reliable Falcon 9 rocket. Attempts to recover a booster weren't made until years into its development, and even then, it was eventually settled that only the booster — not the entire spacecraft — would be reusable.
Whitman Cobb remains slightly optimistic about the vehicle's fortunes. "I believe SpaceX will engineer their way out of it," she added. "I believe their engineering is good enough that they will make Starship work,"
Not Lockett. It's taken SpaceX "nine failed attempts and almost $10 billion for Starship to not reach orbit with a fraction of its promised payload and to never land an upper stage or successfully reuse a first stage," he wrote. "All flight 9 has proven is just how much of a dead end Starship is,"
More on SpaceX: <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-spacex-rockets">If NASA Had Blown Up This Many Rockets, The Government Would Have Cancelled the Space Program</a>

Failure Begets Failure

"All flight 9 has proven is just how much of a dead end Starship is."

SpaceX May Be Failing to Get Starship Working at All

Billionaire Elon Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-mistake-tesla-tax-credits">breakup</a> with president Donald Trump, a feud that's been many months in the making, has become almost indescribably messy.
In public, the pair have mainly butted heads over Trump's tax bill, which is expected to add trillions of dollars to an already colossal mountain of debt.
Musk has excoriated the bill as a "<a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-donald-trump-war">disgusting abomination</a>," ominously <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-declares-war-republicans">calling</a> for any Republican lawmakers willing to support it to be "fired" during next year's midterm elections.
As a move that's widely been seen as retribution, the White House <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">unexpectedly announced</a> over the weekend that it's pulling Jared Isaacman's nomination — Musk's personal pick — for the role of NASA administrator. In a baffling statement at the time, the White House said Isaacman wasn't in "full alignment with" the Trump agenda.
If the move was intended as an attack on Musk, it succeeded. As the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/elon-musk-trump-tax-spending-republicans-5b779d6b">Wall Street Journal reports</a>, the move has "infuriated" the richest man in the world, who's been seething privately to his inner circle that the <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-owes-donald-trump-money">hundreds of millions</a> of dollars he paid to get Trump elected didn't even buy him the privilege of picking the next NASA head.
Looking past the astonishingly oligarchical thesis that a billionaire opening his checkbook should automatically allow him to pick key members of government, the episode also illustrates Musk's increasingly shaky sense of strategy.
Trump has long been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/01/trumps-style-of-petty-domination-was-in-full-display-with-zelenskyy">known for his pettiness</a>, arrogance, and shifty sense of allegiance; absolutely nobody should be surprised, at this point, when an attempted alliance with the longtime reality TV star doesn't work out the way it was intended.
Nobody knew this better than Trump's own staff at the White House. According to the WSJ, they were attempting to bury the hatchet before Musk made his departure, and part ways on good terms.
But given Musk's latest comments, those efforts appear to have been in vain.
Besides fuming over losing hand-pick to control NASA, Musk has plenty of other reasons to hop off the Trump train to refocus his efforts on his businesses. For one, he has done incredible damage to his carmaker Tesla, which is still reeling from <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-falling-worldwide-norway">plummeting sales worldwide</a>. SpaceX is also<a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-spacex-rockets"> seriously struggling</a> to make progress on its enormous, Mars-bound Starship rocket.
Meanwhile, the real motivation behind Isaacman's dismissal hasn't flown over the billionaire space tourist's head.
"I had a pretty good idea, I don’t think the timing was much of a coincidence," Isaacman told Ars Technica. "Obviously, there was more than one departure that was covered on that day," he added, likely referring to Musk.
"There were some people who had some axes to grind, and I was a good, visible target," he added.
More on Isaacman: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">Trump Just Kicked Elon Musk's Hand-Picked NASA Head to the Curb</a>

Losing Control

Sore losers everywhere.

Musk Privately Complaining That His Immense Donations to Trump Didn't Even Buy Him Control of NASA

Is Elon Musk <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-traveling-box-drugs">on ketamine</a>? And if he is, is he taking so much of it that it's wreaked havoc <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-ketamine-bladder">on his bladder</a>?
According to Musk: no.
"I'm not on ketamine ffs," he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1928892166211838419">fumed</a> on his website X, using the shorthand for "for f*ck's sake."
But Grok, his "<a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-building-truth-seeking-ai">maximum truth-seeking</a>" AI chatbot, once again betrayed its creator.
"The claims about Elon Musk's drug use, including ketamine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, appear likely true," Grok <a href="https://x.com/grok/status/1928491013238305115">wrote</a>, when asked to weigh in on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html">New York Times' reporting</a> that he's been abusing the substances daily.
Musk was responding to a resurfaced video which shows him fiddling with his silverware at a dinner with Donald Trump. We should clarify: it was actually a response to another guy's response, which was defending Musk by arguing his behavior was within sober norms.
Musk seemingly mistook this for an attack and angrily pleaded his innocence anyway. About eight minutes later, he made a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1928894163975631307">similar post</a>: "I am NOT taking drugs!" he proclaimed. (The billionaire, we'd say, doth protest too much.) 
In the 13-second clip, the world's richest man did appear strangely spellbound by the utensils he was balancing in his hand, slowly waving them through the air. His gaze, transfixed, has a look of puerile fascination, while his partner and <a href="https://futurism.com/experts-elon-musk-secret-children-employee">once-secret mother</a> of two of his at least <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-secret-children">14 total children</a>, Shivon Zillis, watches on.
Was Musk just zoning out? Or were we witnessing Musk plunged deep in a k-hole, as the video's caption purports him to be?
It's best not to get too hooked up on the video itself, and instead look at the broader body of evidence surrounding it. For that, we'll defer to Grok, because that's what Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930338195327287545">does</a> along with his fans, even though it's a large language model prone to hallucinating. In this case, it appears to get the facts more or less right — and points to a pretty glaring flaw in Musk's version of events.
In one of his <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1928894163975631307">tweet</a> denials, Musk stated he tried prescription ketamine a "few years ago," insisting he hasn't "taken it since then."
Except, as Grok <a href="https://x.com/grok/status/1929597603312009486">noted</a>: "Musk said in 2024 he used it every other week for depression, per a doctor's prescription," the chatbot wrote, referring to an <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-ketamine-don-lemon">interview with Don Lemon</a>. "This suggests a possible discrepancy." (The bot then erroneously posits that if he "ceased use after 2024, his statements align.")
In other words, how can Musk claim to have been clean for multiple years when in the year prior he freely admitted to taking ketamine on a regular basis?
According to the recent NYT reporting, Musk takes a 20-capsule pillbox with him everywhere, stuffed with drugs including Adderall. His ketamine usage has spiraled out of control, the newspaper reported, and he sometimes takes it with other drugs; he's also reportedly taken ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms while campaigning for Trump. Around the time he endorsed Trump in July, according to the story, he told others that his ketamine habit was causing bladder issues. 
This is just the latest in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html">years</a> of <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-explanation">reports</a>, some citing his <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-ketamine">friends and associates</a>, which detail a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html">pattern</a> of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAj2s0xdNOWmQOoiKz8FP17I-h6hZ0No0wQYy80q11Qws_jpiPH-_-cG_WX-HWg%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6840c7c0&amp;gaa_sig=iwk_Z-U8NPRIsUWFW6t-vzf05a1XOf4Fe2tEW8iIq3RglcrJpD-VEXH44bFzZ0riHasp6FlXgdpEa86C9_xxgA%3D%3D">drug use by Musk</a>. There are also <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-before-inauguration-salute">countless</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-oval-office-appearance">videos</a> of him acting strangely in public, exhibiting classic stoned behavior.
This is all alleged, of course. But Grok had some nice things to say about the most recent Time's reporting. (It even sincerely cited the NYT's Pulitzer Prize as evidence of the publication's credibility when, ironically, Musk had just <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5326267-musk-drug-use-new-york-times/">used the award as a cudgel</a> to beat it over the head with that same day.)
"The journalists' reporting is credible, as it aligns with other reputable sources," Grok <a href="https://x.com/grok/status/1928491013238305115">wrote</a>. "Overall, the evidence supports the claims, but skepticism is warranted due to the sensitive topic."
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/government-cleaners-brickweed-doge">Government Cleaners Find Nasty-Looking Brickweed After DOGE Leaves Building</a>

G Hole

"The claims about Elon Musk's drug use," Grok said, "appear likely true."

Elon Rages That He's Not on Ketamine, But His Chatbot Grok Points Out Serious Discrepancy in His Story

The drama between US president Donald Trump and his former buddy-in-chief Elon Musk is far from over.
As <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/elon-musk-privately-expresses-frustration-range-recent-moves/story?id=122485920">ABC reported</a> today, now that he's been <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-giving-up-politics">summarily retired</a> from the White House, the billionaire SpaceX boss has been privately venting his frustrations at Trump. One particularly stinging betrayal, per the network's reporting: Trump's sudden withdrawal of Musk's buddy and financial benefactor, <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-jared-isaacman-nomination-nasa">Jared Isaacman</a>, from consideration to be the next NASA administrator.
As the day progressed, Musk's tension with Trump exploded into public view as history's richest man tweeted or amplified no less than 25 posts blasting Trump's "<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/50-wins-in-the-one-big-beautiful-bill/">big, beautiful</a>" tax and spending bill, which takes the form of yet another piece of legislation meant to <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5326511-trump-tax-cuts-for-rich-big-beautiful-bill/">gut assistance</a> for the poorest Americans while siphoning money to the ultra-wealthy.
However, that isn't Musk's issue with the package. Instead, his commentary is centered on the bill's impact on the US national deficit — something he tried and <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/04/musk-doge-savings-austerity-spending">failed to curb</a> in any meaningful way during his time as a pay-to-play government operative.
On X-formerly-Twitter, Musk's frenzied posts range from <a href="https://x.com/RandPaul/status/1930317731397586976">Rand Paul interview clips</a> to hysterical conspiracy peddling. ("America is in the fast lane to debt slavery," he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930321352873128232">fomented at one point</a>.)
"Call your Senator, call your Congressman, bankrupting America is NOT ok!" <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930336497208832059">Musk urged</a> his 220 million followers on X-formerly-Twitter. "KILL the BILL."
The tech titan also went out of his way to amplify some <a href="https://x.com/TheRabbitHole84/status/1927401333985808541">low-res footage</a> of Warren Buffett explaining his theoretical plan to reduce the deficit. "Anytime there's a deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection," the investor suggested, to which <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930298268661232083">Musk replied</a> that "this is the way."
Needless to say, a month ago — or even a week — this type of assault on Trump by Musk would have been unthinkable. The bill is also a baffling hill for the tech mogul to die on, especially considering that government spending is what <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/elon-musk-business-government-contracts-funding/">made his tech dynasty possible</a> in the first place.  
It's more plausible, as <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/06/03/elon-musk-trump-white-house-relationship">Axios notes</a>, that national debt is a smokescreen for other issues nearer to Musk's heart. Most notably, the big beautiful bill is set to cut the electric vehicle tax credits that made Tesla the automotive giant it is today. (Confusingly, as recently as last year, Musk was <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/12/05/musk-calls-for-ending-electric-vehicle-tax-credit-which-could-help-tesla/">publicly calling</a> for an end to the tax credit — but that was before his activities in the White House eviscerated Tesla's brand image and sent it <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-mistake-tesla-tax-credits">deeply into the red</a>.)
Of course, that raises another intriguing possibility: that at least some portion of Musk's rage at Trump is essentially <a href="https://prowrestling.fandom.com/wiki/Kayfabe">kayfabe</a>, with Musk betting that a break from the president could resuscitate at least some enthusiasm for the Tesla brand among the left-leaning customers that he's successfully turned off over the past year.
If so, it's not hard to imagine Musk instead accidentally alienating more or less everybody — failing to get the environmental left back on board, but also creating a powerful enemy with Trump, who holds immense power over the government contracts and policy that keep Musk's business empire afloat.
More on politics: <a href="https://futurism.com/errol-musk-elon-politics">Elon Musk’s Dad Slams His Son's Whimpering Failure at Politics</a>

True Colors

"America is in the fast lane to debt slavery."

Behind the Scenes, Elon Musk Is Reportedly Seething About Donald Trump

Few companies in the history of capitalism have amassed as much wealth and influence as Meta.
A global superpower in the information space, Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — has a market cap of $1.68 trillion at the time of writing, which for a rough sense of scale is more than the <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/">gross domestic product of Spain</a>. 
In spite of its immense influence, none of its internal algorithms can be scrutinized by public watchdogs. Its host country, the United States, has largely <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26317877221129290">turned a blind eye</a> to its dealings in exchange for free use of Meta's vast <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5113445">surveillance capabilities</a>.
That lack of oversight coupled with Meta's near-omnipresence as a social utility has had devastating consequences throughout the world, manifesting in crises like the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2375122">genocide of Muslims</a> in Myanmar, or the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and">systemic suppression</a> of Palestinian rights organizations.
How do you uncover the harms caused by one of the most powerful companies on earth? In the case of public violence, the evidence <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/">isn't hard to trace</a>. However, Meta's unprecedented corporate dynasty also creates less obvious harms, which scores of scholars, researchers, and journalists are devoting entire careers to uncovering.
One prominent group of said investigators is GLAAD, the Gay &amp; Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which recently released its <a href="https://glaad.org/smsi/social-media-safety-index-2025/">annual report</a> on social media safety, privacy, and expression for LGBTQ people.
The report notes that Meta has undergone a "particularly extreme" <a href="https://futurism.com/meta-lgbtq-hate-speech">ideological shift</a> over the past year, adding harmful exceptions to its content moderation policies while disproportionately suppressing LGBTQ users and their content. The tech giant has also failed to give LGBTQ users sovereignty over their own <a href="https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/06/03/importance-of-privacy-for-the-queer-community/#public-photos-during-events">personal data</a>, which it collects, analyzes, and wields to generate huge profits.
While Meta collects all of our data — from which it draws over <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/10/25/meta-earnings-record-profits-sales-as-ads-stay-robust-during-zuckerbergs-year-of-efficiency/">95 percent</a> of its revenue — the practice is particularly harmful to LGBTQ users, who then have to contend with <a href="https://kdd.org/exploration_files/4_specialsectionBIAS_5.pdf">algorithmic biases</a>, <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/irl/facebook-ads-lgbtq/">non-consensual outing</a>, <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/s1521-613620220000027012/full/html">harassment</a>, and in some countries <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tunisia-police-facebook/">state oppression</a>.
"It's a dangerous time, certainly for trans people, who as a minority have been so ridiculously maligned, but also a dangerous time for gay people, openly bi[sexual] people, people who are different in any way," says Sarah Roberts, a UCLA professor and Director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.
To address these shortcomings and the dangers they introduce, GLAAD made a number of recommendations. One key suggestion was to improve moderation "by providing training for all content moderators focused on LGBTQ safety, privacy and expression." The media advocacy group doesn't mince words, adding that "AI systems should be used to flag for human review, not for automated removals."
However, it doesn't look like Meta got the message.
Weeks after GLAAD issued its findings, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/31/nx-s1-5407870/meta-ai-facebook-instagram-risks">internal Meta documents leaked to NPR</a> revealed the company's plan to hand 90 percent of its privacy and integrity reviews over to "artificial intelligence."
This will impact nearly every new feature introduced to its platforms, where human moderators would typically evaluate new features for risks to privacy and safety, and the wellbeing of user groups like minors, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.
Meta's internal risk assessment is an already opaque process, and Roberts notes that government attempts at risk oversight, like the EU's Digital Services Act, are likewise a labyrinth of filings which are largely dictated by the social media companies themselves. AI, chock full of biases and prone to errors — as admitted by <a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/meta-yann-lecun-ai-behind-human-intelligence">Meta's own AI chief</a> — is certain to make the situation even worse.
Earlier this week, meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-aims-to-fully-automate-ad-creation-using-ai-7d82e249">Wall Street Journal revealed</a> Meta's plans to fully automate advertising via the company's generative AI software, which will allow advertisers to "fully create and target ads" directly, with no human in the loop.
This includes hyper-personalized ads, writes the WSJ, "so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation."
Data hoarders like Meta — which <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/mad-meta-dont-let-them-collect-and-monetize-your-personal-data">track you</a> even when you're not using its platforms — have long been able to profile LGBTQ users based on gender identify and sexual orientation, including those who aren't publicly out.
Removing any human from these already sinister practices serves to streamline operations and <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/musk-ai-and-the-weaponization-of-administrative-error/">distance Meta</a> from its own actions — "we didn't out gay users living under an oppressive government," the company can say, "even if our AI did." It's no coincidence that Meta had already disbanded its "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/18/23966980/meta-disbanded-responsible-ai-team-artificial-intelligence">Responsible AI</a>" team as early as 2023.
At the root of these decisions — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/01/mark-zuckerberg-meta-trump-tech">right wing turn</a> notwithstanding — is the calculated drive to maximize revenue.
"If there's no reason to rigorously moderate harmful content, then why pay so many content moderators? Why engage researchers to look into the circulation of this kind of content?" observes Roberts. "There ends up being a real cost savings there."
"One of the things I've always said is that content moderation of social media is not primarily about protecting people, it's about brand management," she told Futurism. "It's about the platform managing its brand in order to make the most hospitable environment for advertisers."
Sometimes these <a href="https://www.techpolicy.press/free-speech-was-never-the-goal-of-tech-billionaires-power-was/">corporate priorities</a> line up with progressive causes, like LGBTQ user safety or voter registration. But when they don't, Roberts notes, "dollars are dollars."
"We are looking at multibillion-dollar companies, the most capitalized companies in the world, who have operated with impunity for many, many years," she said. "How do you convince them that they should care, when other powerful sectors are telling them the opposite?"
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/meta-lgbtq-hate-speech">Meta's Platforms Have Become a Cesspool of Hatred Against Queer People</a>

Suspicious Compliance

"Dollars are dollars."

If You Thought Facebook Was Toxic Already, Now It's Replacing Its Human Moderators with AI

Tesla sales are continuing their decline worldwide.
The carmaker is still <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-mistake-tesla-tax-credits">grappling with the severe damage</a> CEO Elon Musk has dealt to its brand following an <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-associated-press-poll-popularity">incredibly unpopular</a> embrace of far-right ideologies and a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-dismal-failure">chaotic pay-for-play attempt</a> to gut the federal government's budget.
Sales figures, particularly in Europe and China, are looking grim. The carmaker sold 15 percent fewer cars in China last month than a year earlier, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-china-made-ev-sales-fall-15-yy-may-2025-06-04/">Reuters reports</a>.
Across Europe, sales are still in freefall, dropping 36 percent in Germany and 45 percent in the UK — despite a significant rise in EV registrations in May.
But one European nation, interestingly, is bucking the trend. Tesla sales in Norway have surged a massive 213 percent year over year — <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/02/elon-musk-tesla-new-car-sales-rebound-in-ev-friendly-norway.html">primarily the result</a> of the brisk sales of the company's latest version of its Model Y SUV, which was released earlier this year.
"The Tesla Model Y has sold well and is popular in Norway, likely because it is good value for money and because it meets Norwegians’ needs for large luggage space, high ground clearance, all-wheel drive, and a tow hitch," Norwegian EV Association secretary general Christina Bu told CNBC.
EV incentives are also still widely available, making electric car ownership in the Scandinavian nation highly lucrative. (Norway, though progressive in many regards, also has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xed6vJaKyqQ">long history of white nationalism</a> that could be driving sympathy for some of Musk's most extreme beliefs.)
Despite the spike in sales, though, it's likely Tesla's sales in Norway would actually be better without Musk's provocations.
"As many as 43 percent stated that they would not buy a Tesla for political reasons," Bu said. "We can therefore only speculate how much Tesla would have sold without Musk’s support for the MAGA movement and the Trump administration."
And Norway is still an extreme outlier as Tesla's crisis continues to deepen. The carmaker's first-quarter earnings were <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-earnings-brutal-elon-musk">even worse than analysts feared</a>, revealing back in April that its net income had slid an astonishing 71 percent since the first quarter of last year.
The company is also still reeling from Donald Trump's tariffs, which have driven up costs of imported auto parts, a reality that seemingly only <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-musk-returns">dawned on Musk after he came by the company for a visit</a> in late April.
Meanwhile, Musk has bet the future of the company on the establishment of a fully autonomous robotaxi ride-hailing service and a humanoid robot, dubbed Optimus.
But given the <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-executive-fsd">largely unfinished</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-mistake-full-self-driving-cameras">potentially fatally flawed</a> driver assistance software the company's still working on, it's unlikely service will expand any time soon <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-robotaxis-remote-controlled-human-employees">beyond a handful of human driver-supervised vehicles</a> in a suburb of Austin, Texas.
The competition, particularly in China, is also really starting to heat up. Chinese EV maker BYD eclipsed Tesla by passing the $100 billion mark in revenue last year, showing that Musk has his work cut out for him to keep his carmaker alive.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-musk-returns">Tesla Employees Startled by Elon Musk's Confusion When He Returned to Tesla</a>