- Vice President JD Vance acknowledged the deepening feud between Elon Musk and President Trump but emphasized his hope that Musk could eventually reconcile with the Trump administration, praising Musk’s past efforts with DOGE and calling him a “transformational entrepreneur.” While defending Trump and dismissing Musk’s Epstein-related claims as baseless, Vance warned that Musk’s aggressive political stance could backfire, both for his companies and the broader national interest.
It’s been pointed out by many spectators that the feud between the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and arguably the world’s most powerful man, Donald Trump, is not going to end well for any involved.
And JD Vance, Trump’s political right hand, agrees.
The Tesla CEO and the president have fallen out to a major extent, at first over the White House’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk says will undo all the work of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
But since Musk’s departure from Washington, D.C., several weeks ago, his attacks on President Trump have continued to ramp up. He has encouraged voters to outright rebel against the bill by contacting their political representatives, with Trump saying he was “disappointed” in Musk for such statements.
The man worth $342 billion hit back that Trump would have lost the election without his backing, with the president then threatening to terminate a host of government contracts to Musk’s private entities.
In response, Musk claimed that the president’s name was in the Epstein files—a gibe he provided no evidence to support. Speaking in an interview this week, Vice President Vance said any notion that Trump did “anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein” is “BS.”
Yet while the relationship between Musk and Trump seems to have gone past the point of no return, Vance says he still wants to see the SpaceX founder come back to the fold of the Trump 2.0 team.
“My basic read on it, first of all I’m the vice president to President Trump, my loyalties are always going to be with the president. Elon [is] an incredible entrepreneur. I think DOGE was really good. The effort to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in our country was really good,” Vance told the This Past Weekend podcast with Theo Von.
“I hope that eventually Elon kind of comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear—I hope it is,” Vance added.
Musk’s decision to go “nuclear,” as Vance describes it, may not prove to be in the best interest of his companies, such as Tesla and Space X, which may now draw the attention of the Oval Office for the wrong reasons. As a result of this concern, in the past five days alone the share price of Tesla has sunk more than 14%, with Musk’s net worth taking an eye-watering hit as a result.
Vance suggested that Musk may be shooting from the hip instead of assessing the ramifications of going head-to-head with the White House, adding, “Elon’s new to politics…I think part of it is this guy got into politics and has suffered a lot for it.”
Indeed, even prior to a spat with the White House, Musk was suffering for his political interests. While he headed up DOGE, people protesting his work and the Trump administration began targeting Tesla by damaging cars, showrooms, and charging points—not only in the U.S. but also across Europe.
“The process in D.C., if you’re a business leader you probably get frustrated with that process because it’s more bureaucratic [and] slow moving. So I think there’s some frustrations there,” Vance added. “But I think it’s huge mistake for [Musk] to go after the president like that. I think that if he and the president are in some blood feud, most importantly it’s going to be bad for the country but I…don’t think it’s going to be good for Elon either.”
A good but not perfect bill
Concerns have been raised about the bill on account of the fiscal ramifications of the largest tax breaks “in history,” with previous projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finding the legislation would add $3.8 trillion to the deficit while proposed cuts to Medicaid would shave only $1 trillion in spending.
However, the Trump administration said statements such as “the One Big Beautiful Bill increases spending” and “the One Big Beautiful Bill adds to the deficit” are false. For example, the White House points to the CBO’s predictions that while tariffs will shrink the economy it will also reduce federal deficits by $2.8 trillion (the inclusion of the Big Beautiful Bill in its modeling is not mentioned).
“I think that it’s a good bill and it does a lot of good for the American people,” Vance continued. “Look, Elon’s entitled to his opinion. I’m not saying he has to agree with the bill or agree with everything that I’m saying, I just think it’s a huge mistake for the world’s wealthiest man—I think one of the most transformational entrepreneurs ever—to be at war with the world’s most powerful man who I think is doing more to save the country than…anybody in my lifetime.”
He added, “I don’t want to reveal too many confidences but [Trump] was getting a little frustrated, feeling like some of the criticisms were unfair coming from Elon…the president doesn’t think that he needs to be in a blood feud with Elon Musk, and I actually think if Elon chilled out a little bit, everything would be fine.”
