Elon Musk says Donald Trump appears in files relating to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s the latest in a string of barbs between the men as they appear to have dramatically fallen out in a public spat.
In a post on X, the tech billionaire said: “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
He gave no evidence for the claim. Sky News has approached the White House for comment.
Epstein killed himself in his jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.
It comes after the president said he was “disappointed” with Musk after the entrepreneur publicly criticised Mr Trump‘s signature tax bill.
The president suggested that his former backer and adviser missed being in government – and has “Trump derangement syndrome”.
He added: “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”
In a truth social post the president said: “Elon was “wearing thin,” I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”.
Jeffrey Epstein. File pic: New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
On Tuesday, the world’s richest man called the president’s tax and spending bill “outrageous” and a “disgusting abomination” – days after abruptly leaving his position spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, known as ‘DOGE’.
The bill, which includes multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks, was passed by the House Republicans in May and has been described by the president as a “big, beautiful bill”. By contrast, Musk has called it the “big, ugly bill”.
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Why doesn’t Musk like Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’?
The tech billionaire attacked the tax cuts on his platform X on Tuesday, writing, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
In American politics, “pork” is a political metaphor used when government spending is allocated to local projects, usually to benefit politicians’ constituencies.
Musk claimed responsibility for Mr Trump’s election success. Pic: Reuters.
Shortly after the president expressed his disappointment in Musk, the SpaceX boss responded.
“False”, he wrote on X on Thursday.
“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!”
In another scathing post on X, Musk claimed responsibility for Donald Trump’s re-election success.
He wrote: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
Mr Trump told reporters on Thursday that Musk, CEO of electric automaker Tesla, was unimpressed that electric vehicle incentives were being debated in the Senate, and could face being cut.
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An additional point of contention was Musk’s public promotion of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire commercial astronaut, to run NASA.
Mr Trump said he “didn’t think it was appropriate”, as Isaacman was “totally a Democrat”.
Last Thursday, Musk revealed on X that his scheduled time as a “special government employee” was coming to an end.
Before the news broke, Musk’s father told Sky News his son was “not a very good politician”.
But speaking to Gillian Joseph on The World, Errol Musk insisted there was “no rift between Elon and Donald Trump”.
