The alliance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk took off like one of SpaceX's rockets: with great momentum and reaching impressive heights... And then exploded.

The spectacular breakup reached its peak on Thursday when Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts and the businessman responded by stating — without presenting evidence — that the White House has not released all records related to the sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein because Trump appears in them.

The chaotic breakup between the President of the United States and the world’s richest man played out on their respective social media platforms after, during a meeting at the White House with the new German chancellor, a journalist asked Trump about Musk’s criticism of his spending bill.

The distancing occurred less than a week after they both appeared together in the Oval Office during a discreet farewell in which Trump thanked Musk for his brief tenure as a federal government employee, presenting him with a symbolic golden key.

Trump had largely remained silent in recent days while Musk complained on his social media platform X, condemning the so-called “Big and Beautiful Bill” of the president. However, Trump responded on Thursday saying he was “very disappointed with Musk.”

Musk responded in real-time through X. Trump, who was supposed to spend Thursday discussing the war between Ukraine and Russia with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, raised the stakes when he turned to his own social media, Truth Social, and threatened to use the federal government to harm Musk’s finances, attacking contracts from his Starlink internet company and his SpaceX rocket company.

“The easiest way to save money in our budget, tens of billions of dollars, is to cancel Elon’s government subsidies and contracts,” Trump wrote on his social media.

“This is getting better and better,” Musk quickly replied on X. “Go ahead, make my day.”

Musk later stated, without providing evidence of how he might have that information, that Trump appeared “in the Epstein files. That’s the real reason they haven’t been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

The insinuation touched on old suspicions of conspiracy theorists and internet sleuths, who believe the government still hasn’t released sensitive and incriminating documents in its possession.

The growing rift arose just as their relationship began: quickly, intensely, and publicly.

And it didn’t take long to affect Musk’s finances, even before Trump’s threats.

After Trump began speaking about Musk, the shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla fell more than 10%, its latest fluctuation since election day. The stock price doubled a few weeks after Trump was elected, but it more than relinquished those gains during the period Musk was at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), only to recover later after he promised in April to focus much more on Tesla and his other companies.

Politicians and their donors rarely agree on everything. But the magnitude of Musk’s support for Trump, who spent at least $250 million on his campaign, and the extent of the freedom the president granted him to cut and investigate the government while he was at the helm of DOGE has only been overshadowed by the speed of their breakup.

Musk launched a particularly stinging insult at a president who has shown sensitivity about his standing among voters: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk replied. “What ingratitude,” Musk said in another post.

Musk announced his support for Trump shortly after the then-candidate survived an assassination attempt at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July. A few days later, Musk announced the creation of a political action committee to support Trump’s election.

Musk soon became a close advisor and frequent companion, and he is remembered for enthusiastically jumping during a Trump rally in October. Once Trump was elected, the tech billionaire stood behind the president as he was sworn into office, accompanied him aboard Air Force One for weekend stays at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, slept in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House at the president's invitation, and attended his cabinet meetings wearing a Trump “Make America Great Again” hat.

Three months ago, Trump bought Musk a red Tesla that was parked at the entrance of the White House as a public show of support for his company while facing adverse reactions.

Musk bid farewell to Trump last week at a discreet press conference in the Oval Office, where he sported a black eye that he said was caused by his young son, but which seemed to be a metaphor for his chaotic tenure in government.

Trump, who rarely misses an opportunity to mock people’s appearances, mentioned him on Thursday.

“I told him, ‘Do you want some makeup? We’ll get you some makeup.’ Which is interesting,” Trump recounted.

The president’s comments came as Musk complained for several days on social media about Trump’s “Big and Beautiful Bill,” warning that it would increase the federal deficit. Musk called the initiative a “disgusting abomination.”

“He hasn’t said anything bad about me personally, but I’m sure that will be next,” Trump said on Thursday in the Oval Office. “But I’m very disappointed with Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

Later on social media, Trump noted that “Elon was ‘worn out,’ I asked him to leave.” However, Musk’s government employment status limited him from continuing to work.

“He just went crazy!” Trump emphasized.

Analysts had long wondered whether the friendship between the two billionaires, known for launching insults online, would end spectacularly. And so it was, in less than a year.

Trump stated on Thursday that he had a great relationship with Musk, but clarified: “I don’t know if we will have it anymore.”

The president asserted that some people who leave his administration “miss it so much” and “actually become hostile.”

“It’s a kind of, I guess they call it, Trump disorder syndrome,” he pointed out.

He dismissed the billionaire's efforts to get him elected last year, including a lottery among voters for $1 million a day in Pennsylvania. The enormous amount of money Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to position him as a highly sought-after ally for Republicans in the future, but his breakup with Trump, the party leader, raises questions about whether they or anyone else will see such a bonanza in future campaigns.

Trump said Musk “just developed a problem” with the bill because it reverses the tax credits for electric vehicles.

“False,” Musk replied on his social media platform while the president continued speaking. “This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed behind the scenes so quickly that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”

In another post, he indicated that Trump could maintain the spending cuts but “get rid of this disgusting waste in the initiative.”

In addition to Musk being “disturbed” by the tax credits for electric vehicles, Trump said another point of contention was Musk’s promotion of Jared Isaacman to head NASA.

Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination over the weekend, days after Musk stepped down from government.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate,” Trump said, calling Isaacman “an absolute Democrat.”

Musk continued with his responses through social media. He shared some posts that Trump made more than a decade ago in which he criticized Republicans for their spending, reflections he made when he was also just a billionaire expressing his ideas on social media.

“Where is the man who wrote these words?” Musk asked. “Was he replaced by a double?”