News Brief
Trump Threatens Musk With 'Serious Consequences' After Fallout Over Controversial Spending Bill
US President Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump on Saturday (7 June0 warned his former advisor Elon Musk of “serious consequences” if the billionaire targets Republicans backing a controversial spending bill currently before Congress.
Trump made the remarks to NBC News after the relationship between the world's most powerful person and the world's richest turned sour publicly last week.
The very public split, which unfolded on social media Thursday (5 June), was triggered by Musk’s scathing rebuke of Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill, which is currently before US Congress.
Lawmakers opposing the bill urged Musk—one of the Republican party’s largest funders during the last election—to bankroll primary challenges against Republicans supporting it.
"He'll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that," Trump, who also branded Musk "disrespectful," told NBC News on Saturday, AFP reported.
However, he did not specify what those consequences would be.
Just a week earlier, Trump had praised Musk warmly as he exited his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency focused on budget trimming.
That goodwill unraveled quickly after Musk blasted Trump’s signature spending bill as an “abomination,” a measure central to the US President’s second-term agenda.
Trump retaliated in a fiery Oval Office tirade, and the feud exploded from there, stunning Washington’s political class.
With real political and economic risks to their falling out, both had appeared to inch back from the brink on Friday, with Trump telling reporters "I just wish him well," to which Musk replied on X: “Likewise.”
