---
title: "Donald Trump Issues Warning to Elon Musk"
description: "Elon Musk and president-elect Donald Trump are apparently closer than ever, but the famously mercurial Trump is getting tired of it."
date: "2024-11-14"
modified: "2024-11-14"
authors:
  - name: "Ashley Bardhan"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/abardhan"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-warning-elon-musk"
categories:
  - "Elon Musk"
  - "Future Society"
  - "The Industrialists"
tags:
  - "donald trump"
  - "elon musk"
  - "government"
  - "the digest"
---

# Donald Trump Issues Warning to Elon Musk

![Elon Musk and president-elect Donald Trump are apparently closer than ever, but the famously mercurial Trump is getting tired of it.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/donald-trump-warning-elon-musk.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Samuel Corum via Getty\</em\>*

## Naughty List

While Elon Musk and president-elect Donald Trump have [appeared to become](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/musk-trump-election-night-together>) closer than ever since the tail end of the election, the famously mercurial Trump may now be growing weary of Musk's clinginess.

"Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him," Trump teased at a Capitol Hill meeting on Wednesday, as [reported](<https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4989117-musks-bold-plans-for-department-of-government-efficiency-face-roadblocks/>) by *The Hill*. "Until I don’t like him."

Though Trump framed his remark as a joke — a [common rhetorical trick](<https://www.al.com/election/2024/11/trump-jokes-about-reporters-being-shot-at-rally-i-dont-mind-that-so-much.html>) in his repertoire — it had an unmistakable undercurrent of truth. Both Musk and Trump have a long history of tempestuous professional relationships; neither likes being inconvenienced with criticism.

Earlier this year, Musk [fired](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-woman-fired-her-entire-department>) Tesla's head of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci and her entire team after one disagreement. [In 2023](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/free-speech-elon-musk-fired-staff-mean>), he culled X-formerly-Twitter's staff after some workers disparaged him on Slack. Trump, meanwhile, publicly burned through an astonishing number of [government officials](<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46132348>) and [White House staff](<https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/08/politics/trump-admin-departures-trnd/>) — including his former right-hand man Steve Bannon [in 2017](<https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/politics/steve-bannon-white-house/index.html>), who held an influential position not unlike Musk during the 2016 race.

Given that Trump's catchphrase is the nasally declaration that "you're fired," it seems likely that it's only a matter of time before his volatile bromance with Musk blows up.

## Trump Card

On Wednesday night, Musk ominously [posted on X-formerly-Twitter](<https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1856809119115522499>) that "the Hammer of Justice is coming," and he's been repeatedly declaring his goals for the incoming Trump administration.

"The obstacles are overcoming the Kafkaesque nature of the rules governing this vast bureaucracy and ensuring that maniacally dedicated small-government revolutionaries join this administration!" Musk posted [on November 10](<https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1855837662952968304>).

But president of the conservative think tank American Action Forum Douglas Holtz-Eakin told *The Hill* that Trump has given Musk a lot less power than he thinks he has.

Musk's new Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to axe government spending, won't "have any authority to do anything other than say, 'We think this will be good,'" Holtz-Eakin said. "Evidently, Mr. Musk has a lot of free time, and if he wants to waste it, that’s fine."

**More on Elon Musk:** [*Trump Team Reportedly Getting Fed Up With Elon Musk's Weird Behavior*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-donald-trump-weird>)