Trump declines White House call with Elon Musk to resolve online war

US President Donald Trump's White House meeting with Friedrich Merz on Thursday took a turn for the worse after the former took a dig at entrepeneur and DOGE chief Elon Musk over the Tesla head's criticism of his “big beautiful bill”.

Trump's barb quickly evolved into an online feud between the two, ending with Musk even calling for the US president's impeachment. On Friday, White House aides scheduled a phone conversation between them, to have them bury the hatchet, according to a Politico report. However, Trump has expressed no interest in contacting former ally Musk after their feud, a White House official said on Friday, as a result of which no calls are planned for the day.  

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The brief online war of words marked a sudden ending to Musk's relationship with Trump, days after completing his tenure as the head of America's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with a stated objective to modernise government proceedings, improve public services and cut costs.

At the end, however, Musk had only managed to cut $19 billion—or 0.5% of the federal budget—against a proposed amount of $2 trillion. These cuts also extended to 26,000 federal grants and contracts, as well as more than 260,000 government workers who were bought out, retired early, or fired.

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The fallout had silently begun brewing just after Musk began a concerted attack of Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill that he said would add to the country's debt of $36.2 trillion (about which Trump stayed silent)—right after Musk's exit as the DOGE head.

However, it was Trump's remarks about being disappointed in Elon's comments about his 'big beautiful bill' that elevated the feud.

"Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump had said at the meeting with Friedrich Merz at the Oval Office of the White House—a topic completely unrelated to Merz's agenda for the visit.

As Trump spoke, Musk responded on X, saying that without him, “Trump would have lost the election", referring to nearly $300 million that he had spent in backing Trump at last year's presidential election.

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The online feud escalated until the two—with Musk even exposing Trump's scandalous involvement with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—until he replied “Yes” to a post urging Trump's impeachment.

He later stopped his criticism of Trump, responding positively to an X post by hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who stated that the two ought to “make peace for the benefit of our great country”.

Trump has not posted anything else relating to the feud, whereas Musk continues to post minor criticisms of the US president, at one point even calling for a new political party “that actually represents the 80% in the middle”.