Last Friday's smiles and pleasantries are this week's scathing rebukes over social media.
With President Donald Trump being asked Thursday in the Oval Office about Elon Musk's "disgusting abomination" rebuke of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and outlining the reasons, a defiant Musk lashed out in a series of X posts.
Most notably, Musk went to the proverbial "there," claiming Trump and Republicans owe the entire election to him.
"Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk posted on X, responding to a video where Trump said "I would have won Pennsylvania regardless of Elon."
In an ensuing post, Musk sighed: "Such ingratitude."
A commenter deadpanned in a reply: "President Trump received 77 million votes. How many did Elon receive?"
Musk also took pointed exception to Trump claiming the rebuke of the OBBB came because of the bill's ending of the electric vehicle mandate, saying: "I'm very disappointed with Elon. I've helped him a lot. He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem & he only developed the problem when he found out we're going to cut EV mandate."
Musk fired back in real time.
"False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!" Musk wrote on X.
Musk also fired off a series of X rebukes, sharing Trump's past words on spending and lifting of the debt ceiling, saying he has been "consistent," but longing for the Trump of yesteryear.
"Where is this guy today??" Musk wrote in the post he pinned to the top of his X account, showing a collage of past Trump posts.
Notably, Musk has been also "consistent" that he will hold Republicans accountable in future elections and might use his considerable wealth — depending on where the stock prices are with his business empires, Musk is often referred to as the richest man in the world — to defeat them at the ballot box.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.