President Trump on Thursday denied wanting to harm tech billionaire Elon Musk’s businesses, amid questions over whether he supports federal agencies working with the Tesla CEO’s companies.
“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the U.S. Government. This is not so!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He continued, “I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before! The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us. We are setting records every day, and I want to keep it that way!”
The president’s comments come a day after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she does not think Trump supports federal agencies contracting with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.
When asked if Trump would then want the government to cancel a recently announced contract with the venture, Leavitt said she would talk to the president about it.
xAI scored a contract for up to $200 million with the Department of Defense, alongside Anthropic, Google and OpenAI, last week. This week, xAI unveiled a suite of products for U.S. government customers, which it refers to as Grok for Government.
Trump has previously threatened to cancel federal contracts with Musk’s businesses, such as SpaceX, saying in June, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
Trump and Musk have been in a bitter feud since their falling out at the end of May, around when the tech guru’s role as a special government employee ended and while the Tesla chief was publicly critical of the spending and tax megabill.
