In the early morning of June 6, Musk and Trump completely fell out. Less than a week after Musk stepped down as head of the 'Department of Government Efficiency' (DOGE), the two frequently bombarded each other with inside information on the X platform. This also caused Tesla's stock price to drop over 15% in a single day, and the stock price of Trump's media company (TMTG) also plummeted 7.82%. As this 'political reality show' reached its climax, fissures also appeared within Trump's crypto empire.
Presidential live-streamed spat, global netizens watching the drama unfold
In the early morning of June 6, Musk suddenly posted on social platform X, 'It's time to drop a real bomb: Trump appears in Epstein's documents. This is the real reason these documents have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!'
This perplexing tweet was dropped by Musk during a heated exchange with Trump, calling it a 'latest bombshell.' A few hours earlier, Trump had just posted on his personal social platform claiming Musk had made him 'annoyed.' 'I let him go, I canceled the mandate for everyone to buy electric cars nobody wants (he knew I was going to do this months ago!), and then he went crazy!' He continued to add, 'The easiest way to save billions in our budget is to terminate government subsidies and contracts with companies like Musk's (Tesla, SpaceX, etc.). I have always been surprised Biden hasn't done this!'
Trump then continued to assert that he could win Pennsylvania even without Musk's help. This statement further enraged Musk, who posted on the X platform, 'Trump is so ungrateful; without me, Trump would lose the election, the Democrats would control the House, and the Republicans' Senate seats would drop from 51 to 49.'
After leaving the 'Department of Government Efficiency' last Friday, Musk and Trump, once 'allies,' quickly moved towards open confrontation.
The starting point seems to originate from Trump's withdrawal of the nomination of Musk's close ally Jared Isaacman as NASA Administrator, while Musk directly blasted Trump's promoted (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) on the X platform, calling it 'disgusting': 'This Congress spending bill filled with private interests and absurdities is a disgusting disaster,' which sparked a stir in American politics and public opinion.
(One Beautiful Bill Act) is, in fact, a comprehensive legislative plan covering government budgets, tax systems, debt management, and environmental policies. The bill promises to extend the expiring tax cuts passed by Trump's first administration in 2017, inject funding for defense spending, and provide funding for the government's mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. It is a key tool for Trump to advance his core policy agenda after re-election.
Musk warned that this bill would push America's already massive fiscal deficit up to $2.5 trillion, placing an unsustainable heavy debt burden on the American people. The plan faced strong opposition from within the party during its review in the House, and Musk's comments further reflected broader tensions within the Republican Party regarding the plan.
Some Republican lawmakers also sided with Musk. U.S. House Representative Thomas Massie tweeted on June 6 that lawmakers only learned the content of the bill on the night it was passed, 'The House has a 72-hour rule that requires bills to be made public 72 hours before they are passed. But the Speaker bypassed this rule through a 'manager's amendment,' which rewrote most of the bill's content and added crucial parts on the night the bill passed the rules committee.'
The rift between Musk and the Trump administration had been frequently reported in the media months before. In April, Musk and Bassant were seen arguing outside the White House, igniting discussions in American politics. Trump's eventual choice to support Bassant's nomination proposal raised doubts about whether the relationship between Trump and Musk had soured.
According to media reports, several White House officials privately stated that Musk's sharp remarks caught them off guard; they did not expect his public stance to be so firm. In response to Musk's bombardment, White House Press Secretary Levitt stated at a press conference on June 3: 'The President has long been aware of Musk's position on this bill, and it will not change the President's view. This is a great and beautiful bill. He will stick to it.'
Family feud over the launch of 'Trump Wallet'
On the same early morning of June 6, another wave of Trump's 'friends and family' also got into a dispute. The Trump family's DeFi project WORLD LIBERTY FINANCIAL (hereinafter referred to as WLFI) issued a cease and desist order to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC (the company behind the TRUMP token). According to market news, this cease and desist order is related to the recently controversial Trump wallet app in the crypto market.
On June 4, the NFT trading platform MagicEden announced a partnership with $TRUMP to launch Trump Wallet. Once the news was released, the market cap of MagicEden's token $ME surged nearly 30% from $850 million to $1.1 billion within two hours. However, Trump's eldest son, second son Eric, and youngest son Barron all posted to deny any connection to the announcement.
Although many 'WLFI members' resisted, the Trump Meme official account and MagicEden team members confirmed this, with both sides holding onto something that is hard to grasp. Meanwhile, the original X account of Trump Wallet has been repeatedly banned by Twitter. Before this, the account belonged to the MagicEden gold standard account, and from the official website's information, the privacy policy and terms and conditions or 'promotional activities' are managed by the Slingshot Finance project team, which was acquired by MagicEden two months ago.
The 'mountain' within the Trump crypto group
This is not the first time the Trump team has shown instability. During his last presidential term, the internal teams of Trump’s administration had significant factional struggles and changes, with resignations being commonplace. Trump's crypto empire has also long sown the seeds of division, just like his government team.
Interestingly, from MagicEden CEO Jack's Twitter, it can be seen that he recently attended a dinner with the founder of the aforementioned acquired Slingshot, and this tweet was also retweeted by the official account of $TRUMP meme. On June 3, the TRUMP Meme official stated that users participating in the 'dinner with Trump' event were airdropped three different Solana NFTs to their wallets, which now seems to be a form of preheating for the 'Trump Wallet App.'
From left to right, Slingshot founder Clinton Bembry Jr., MagicEden founder Jack, MagicEden Chief Business Officer Chris Akhavan
The person planning the $TRUMP dinner to be held in Washington in May 2025 is none other than Trump's longtime friend—Bill Zanker. Bill Zanker is the authorized person behind the company Fight Fight Fight LLC, which promotes the $TRUMP token and jointly owns 80% of Trump's $TRUMP meme coin (memecoin) with CIC Digital LLC, worth billions of dollars.
Bill and Trump co-authored (Think Big and Kick ASS in Business and Life) in 2007. Additionally, the two previously collaborated in 2013 to launch the ill-fated crowdfunding site FundAnything, which Zanker founded with his own $1 million. However, a year later, Trump distanced himself from the project, only posting a few tweets and stating, 'Raising this money took too much of my time and energy,' and then the project 'faded away.' Until 2022, Bill Zanker proposed the business concept of 'Trump NFT,' and the two have collaborated in the cryptocurrency field ever since.
Bill Zanker and Trump's photo
CIC Digital LLC was founded in 2021 by one of Trump's lawyers, John Marion, and former advisor Nick Luna. CIC Digital LLC operates the website for the $TRUMP token in collaboration with Fight Fight Fight LLC, as an affiliate of the Trump Organization, generating revenue from transactions.
CIC Digital LLC is responsible for licensing Trump's name and likeness for NFT projects such as Trump Digital Trading Cards. Bill Zanker is considered a key driver of the Trump NFT project. CIC Digital LLC licenses Trump's brand to NFT INT LLC (a company registered in Delaware), with Zanker playing an organizational and promotional role in the process, even though he does not directly own NFT INT LLC.
Magic Eden, as a well-known NFT platform, once collaborated with the Trump Digital Trading Cards project. In March 2024, the Trump card NFT project announced it would migrate to Magic Eden, stating that Magic Eden 'has established a dedicated team to assist users in managing their Trump digital card collections.'
In addition to Bill Zanker, the community believes that the leader of $TRUMP also includes the participation of David Sacks, the chairman of the Crypto Council, who is known for being one of the founders of PayPal and later gained fame by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto space, David Sacks is most notably an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a prominent supporter of Solana.
During the few days of $TRUMP, Trump's wife Melania also launched a similarly named $MELANIA. Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted to Trump, suggesting he fire those involved in initiating the $MELANIA project. 'The project team lacks professional competence, potentially causing significant financial losses and damage to reputation, and the project decisions did not fully consider Trump's interests,' Selkis pointed out the issues with $MELANIA.
Compared to the issuance of $TRUMP coin, $MELANIA appeared more reckless, with incomplete front-end code, uncompressed images, and the website only established a day before the project launch. The legal texts were also not rigorous, leading many netizens to speculate that there are many differences in the tactics of $MELANIA and $TRUMP, suggesting they may not be operated by the same team.
Similar to the previous situation where $TRUMP and $MELANIA 'collided,' after MagicEden announced a partnership with $TRUMP for a crypto wallet, Trump's eldest son stated that WLFI would also launch its own official wallet. However, applications like 'Trump Wallet' are not like Memecoins; there can only be one wallet app associated with the Trump concept, which led to today's 'true and false Monkey King' incident.
Eric Trump sent a series of texts to the (New York Times), further escalating the dispute, stating that the Trump family would challenge the ' $TRUMP Wallet' legally, even though the wallet was being promoted on social media by an account associated with Bill Zanker, who is also part of the 'Trump interest group.' 'This product has not reached any agreement,' Eric Trump wrote. 'This product has not reached any agreement. It has not been approved.'
WLFI was established on September 16, 2024, when the then-elected President Donald Trump announced his entry into X. The company was founded by real estate mogul Steve Witkoff and his son Zach Witkoff, with Trump's sons Eric Trump and Donald J. Trump Jr. also participating as team members in the project.
Justin Sun (left), Zach Witkoff (middle), and Trump's second son Eric Trump (right) attended the cryptocurrency conference Token2049 in Dubai.
Witkoff's son, Zach Witkoff, co-founder of the crypto company World Liberty Financial, announced at a conference in Dubai that the company has reached an agreement with Tahnoon to purchase $2 billion worth of stablecoins USD1 issued by World Liberty. The Witkoff father and son and the Trump family are expected to share tens of millions of dollars in annual profits, 'The Trump family holds 60% of World Liberty Financial.'
Since last fall, the Trump family has started multiple different cryptocurrency projects, including American Bitcoin, $TRUMP, $MELANIA, World Liberty Financial, and Trump Media & Technology Group. Recently, the Trump family's related crypto activities have not slowed down. Besides today's farce of true and false 'wallets,' Trump's social platform Truth Social submitted a Bitcoin ETF application, and Trump's official Meme coin $MELANIA also reached a liquidity provision agreement with Wintermute. WLFI also airdropped 47 USD1 stablecoins to its token subscribers, seemingly entering the right track in the stablecoin race.
At this point, it seems that the team behind $TRUMP and Trump NFT, who can no longer draw liquidity from the market, is gradually distancing itself from the core circle of the 'Trump Group.'