President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday that he may be ready to ease tensions with Elon Musk, despite the dramatic unraveling of their once-close partnership earlier this year.
According to Fox News, at the conclusion of the administration’s monthly Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump whether Musk had returned to his “circle of friends.”
Trump paused, then offered a measured but friendly nod toward the billionaire.
“Well, I really don’t know. I mean, I like Elon a lot,” Trump said. He added praise for Musk’s vocal support during the 2024 presidential campaign but acknowledged the two had sharply diverged over electric-vehicle policy and the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Musk’s influence inside the White House had once been unmistakable.
In the early months of Trump’s second administration, he essentially acted as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), serving as a special government employee.
He was a fixture at Cabinet meetings, a frequent adviser to Trump, and a public face of the administration’s cost-cutting and anti-waste initiatives.
Trump repeatedly lauded Musk’s work rooting out what he described as bloated federal spending and entrenched bureaucratic waste — efforts that drew heavy protests from government unions and Democrats.
And Musk, in turn, had spent 2024 traveling across battleground states in support of Trump’s campaign, often drawing large crowds in states that ultimately helped secure Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The relationship unraveled in June. Musk launched a blistering public attack on Trump’s prized One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump had pushed Congress to pass for months. Musk declared on X that it would be the “BIGGEST DEBT ceiling increase in HISTORY” and escalated the dispute with a personal strike, writing that “@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.”
Trump later said their rift began when he moved to undo federal and state electric-vehicle mandates — a direct blow to Tesla. In June, Trump signed congressional resolutions ending California’s diesel engine restrictions and its EV sales requirements, celebrating that the move would “kill the California mandates forever.”
After the split, Musk offered occasional, limited praise for some of Trump’s actions, including support for a ceasefire deal between Israel and Gaza in July. By September, the two were seen publicly interacting again at a memorial service for Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier that month.
Musk also attended a White House dinner on Nov. 18 with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and a roster of top business leaders — another sign he remained within Trump’s broader orbit, even if not back in his inner circle.
Trump’s new comments came at his ninth full Cabinet meeting, matching the total number of such meetings held during the entire Biden administration.
Whether the two men fully reconcile remains to be seen. But Trump’s tone Tuesday suggested that, at least for now, the door is open.
