Tech billionaire Elon Musk has expressed regret over his broadsides against United States President Donald Trump following their spectacular public falling-out.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” Musk said in a post on his social media platform X early on Wednesday.
“They went too far.”
Musk, who departed from his role as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency last month, did not specify which criticisms in particular he regretted.
Musk’s expression of regret comes after he made a series of extraordinary attacks on Trump, including an unsubstantiated claim that his administration has refused to release files on Jeffrey Epstein to conceal the president’s involvement with the late financier and convicted sex offender.
After serving as one of Trump’s most powerful backers during his reelection campaign and the initial phase of his presidency, Musk publicly broke with the president last week over his “One Big, Beautiful Bill”, branding the package of sweeping tax cuts and spending increases a “disgusting abomination”.
Musk went on to post a flurry of criticisms of Trump and the Republican Party’s spending plans, sparking a public war of words between two of the world’s most powerful men.
Musk, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Trump’s run for the White House, also claimed that the president would not have been elected without him and expressed support for his impeachment.
In his sharpest attack, Musk claimed that Trump was “in” the so-called Epstein files and that was the “real reason” they had not been made public.
The White House described the claim as an “unfortunate episode”.
Amid the back and forth between the two men, Trump said the “easiest way” to cut spending would be to cancel the contracts and subsidies awarded to Musk’s companies, which include electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.
In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump said he assumed his relationship with Musk was over and that he had no interest in mending ties.
“I have no intention of speaking to him,” Trump said.
Trump also warned that Musk would “pay very serious consequences” if he followed calls to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for his signature bill, which is pending in the US Congress.
On Monday, Trump appeared to have softened on his former ally, telling reporters they had had a “great relationship” and he wished him well.
Before his expression of regret, Musk had made moves apparently aimed at dialing down tensions between the two men.
The South African-born entrepreneur deleted a number of X posts attacking Trump – including his claim about links to Epstein – and shared several of the president’s social media posts defending his immigration crackdown and condemning unrest in Los Angeles.
Source: Aljazeera
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