In a series of tweets, the world's richest man, Elon Musk, backtracked on his scathing criticism of US President Donald Trump.
Elon Musk has backed down. (Image: Getty)
Elon Musk has said he "regrets" some of his earlier tweets criticising US President Donald Trump, adding that he "went too far". Last night, Musk wrote: "I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far."
Musk's conciliatory climbdown comes after the world's richest man and the world's most powerful man clashed in an extraordinary public spat in recent days. A war of words erupted between Musk and Trump on Thursday last week after the former posted a flurry of posts critical of the US President on the X social media platform Musk owns.
As Trump was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House on June 5, Musk began live posting responses to the media briefing in real time. As the president spoke of his surprise at an apparent rift with the SpaceX founder over the Trump administration's "big, beautiful" tax and spending legislation, Musk wrote to his 220 million followers: "Whatever."
The fallout has since continued between the two powerful figures, with Musk losing billions of his own personal wealth as the row hit his world-famous businesses.
Musk has said he went too far with some of his posts (Image: X)
Musk at one stage even went so far as to say President Trump was in the 'Epstein files' relating to unreleased government files linked to the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a bullish response a clearly furious Trump then took to social media himself to retaliate to Musk's criticism, posting on the Truth Social site: "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!.
Trump then added one of the easiest ways to "save money" for his new tax bill would be to "terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts".
Donald Trump and Elon Musk were involved in an extraordinary fallout in recent days (Image: Getty )
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President Trump and Elon Musk's relationship had previously been called a "bromance" because their apparent fond feelings for one another and during Trump's election campaign Musk was a regular enthusiastic fixture on stage delighting howling Republican supporters.
Musk's closeness to the 47th President of the United States earned him incredible access to the workings of government when he was given the lead role of the new cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). He would go on to spend 130 days in the job as a government employee.
But cracks spectacularly emerged on June 5 when Musk made public his feelings on what he called a "disgusting abomination" of a bill from the Trump administration.
His opening salvo on X read: “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” he wrote. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”
It's understood Musk and Trump have not spoken directly since the rift emerged and Trump is said to have indicated he had no interest in the conversation.
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