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Trump vs Musk: Who can do more damage to the other? | LBC
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Jun 7, 2025
Donald Trump brands Elon Musk as 'the man who lost his mind' and wants to ditch Tesla amid bitter public feud, but who did more damage to the other? Watch back as Rachel Johnson and Simon Marks discuss the latest on the Trump and Musk's feud. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #racheljohnson #simonmarks #donaltrump #trump #elonmusk #musk #uspolitics #politics #tesla #spacex #usa #usnews #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
This is the question, I think. Who's your money on in this battle? We've got the world's richest man versus the world's most powerful man. Is this battle over or has it just begun? And who's your money on
0:15
Well, it certainly isn't over. I mean, there were reports overnight that these two men were looking for an off ramp
0:20
And we woke up this morning anticipating that President Trump and Elon Musk were going to hold a phone call
0:27
White House officials let it be known that they were going to add a phone call onto the president's diary for the day
0:32
The president then disabused everybody of that notion, engaged in a handful of telephone conversations with prominent journalists here in town
0:43
and told them that he thinks that Elon Musk has gone crazy
0:47
that he knows that Elon Musk wants to talk to him, but that he has no desire at the moment to talk to Elon Musk
0:54
We've also learned in the last couple of hours that Donald Trump now plans to give away that Tesla
1:00
that he bought from Elon Musk. You remember when they turned the White House grounds into a Tesla showroom
1:06
So I think what's happened overnight is that Donald Trump has grown more confident
1:11
in the power of the presidency and in his ability, certainly all the way through until 2028 here
1:20
to be in the driving seat. And he is essentially saying, as he said in some of these interviews today
1:27
Elon Musk has a problem. And he hasn't described what he means by that problem
1:32
But anyone who watched Mr. Musk's very erratic behaviour in the Oval Office
1:37
exactly one week ago and then saw just that tsunami of messages on social media over the last 48 hours
1:47
will be wondering what is the nature of the problem that may be engulfing Elon Musk
1:53
But, you know, the flip side of the coin, of course, Rachel, is that Elon Musk is the richest man in the world
1:58
And if he chooses to spend his cash on politics here in the United States
2:04
You know money is the mother milk of American politics and it can make a huge difference Which one of them can do more damage to the other Well Donald Trump in the short term can do massive amounts of damage to Elon Musk if he wants
2:20
because he can terminate Elon Musk's federal government contracts and he threatened to do
2:26
that yesterday, as you know. At least three billion dollars worth of business is conducted
2:32
by Elon Musk with the government through his SpaceX rocket launching company and also through
2:38
his Starlink internet providing company. The decision to terminate the SpaceX contracts would
2:45
not be without downside risk, because remember, it was Elon Musk and SpaceX that rescued those
2:51
two stranded astronauts on the International Space Station not long ago. SpaceX is central to
2:58
NASA's plans to try and return to the moon. So it would certainly leave the space agency in a degree
3:06
of difficulty. But at a stroke of a pen, the signing of a presidential proclamation
3:13
Donald Trump could cause Elon Musk substantial financial dislocation. And remember that only
3:20
yesterday we saw Tesla's market capitalisation sink by $152 billion. It's now recovered
3:27
as these two men, you know, we thought were beginning to bury the hatchet or engage in
3:32
some détente. So short term, Donald Trump can really do damage to Elon Musk. Long term
3:41
Elon Musk can do damage to Donald Trump if he preserves his fortune in some fashion
3:45
and then decides to use it to finance political candidates that oppose Donald Trump's
3:51
make America great again agenda. Elon Musk, you know, came out with this series of tweets
3:59
which started with the one that said the bill was an abomination. And, you know, it wasn't big and
4:04
beautiful, because it would raise the debt ceiling so much and even via the tax cuts and the tougher
4:12
rules for who can get federal benefits. But you know, in the round, he hates it. And he hates the
4:17
tariffs How much credence do you set by his threat to launch a party his own political party to scoop up people who believe in his economic principles not Trump
4:32
Well, it's worth underscoring that he's not wrong in his critique of the Big Beautiful Bill
4:36
because the Congressional Budget Office, which is a non-partisan scorer of legislation
4:43
came out this week and absolutely agreed with Elon Musk's claim that it will swell the deficit
4:48
by another two and a half trillion dollars. Now, the White House counterpoint to that is it will be offset by tariff revenues
4:55
that the CBO does not include in its scoring. So the White House argues that the country will end up somehow in surplus because of all the tariff revenues that Donald Trump is intent on collecting
5:07
That threat to launch a new political party here, I mean, that's a very steep climb
5:13
But he's undoubtedly got the financial wherewithal to do it. And there is no question that there are a large number of disaffected Democrats out there and a large number of disaffected Republicans
5:24
but whether they are affected enough to embrace Elon Musk is another question entirely
5:32
And does it remain within Elon Musk's gift whether the Senate passes the bill or sinks the bill
5:39
And if the bill does sink, how bad is that for Donald Trump
5:45
Well, there's three options. One is that there's a that Republicans on the Hill now rally around Donald Trump
5:52
And we're certainly seeing a bit more of that today than we were earlier in the week and that the bill somehow gets through
5:59
In that case, Donald Trump's basically home free. The second possibility is that Elon Musk manages to pick off enough Republicans to oppose it
6:07
And he's pushing at a door that is ajar there because you've got Republicans who say, look, I believe in balancing the budget
6:14
I don't believe in building deficits. I believe in controlling public spending
6:19
And I think that even the spending in this bill is profligate They could either derail the bill entirely which would be catastrophic for Trump or they could insist that the bill gets rewritten And if the bill has to go through a rewrite that will take time It will delay the economic stimulus that the president wants to deliver through these tax and spending measures
6:45
But then, of course, the bill will also have to go back to the House of Representatives. So it will become a huge, messy negotiation. And Donald Trump hates huge, messy negotiations. He
6:56
wants simply to say we're doing this and Republicans need to fall in line. And it's hard
7:03
I think, at the end of this absolutely mad week here to determine just where the balance of power
7:10
currently lies on Capitol Hill. And you may have heard what I said about how in a way it doesn't
7:16
matter to Donald Trump that he fails at all the things he has promised to deliver within
7:21
And one day in the case of the Ukraine war or bringing peace to the Middle East or raining hell on Hamas, all the things he talks up and then never he talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk
7:33
In your view, Simon Marks, will it matter hugely if this bill doesn't pass or will he just flood the zone with another distraction and then the caravan will move on
7:47
Well, it'll definitely flood the zone with another distraction. You can be guaranteed of that
7:51
We're always moments away from another distraction here. I mean, if the bill fails, he'll rewrite it
7:58
He'll split it up into smaller pieces of legislation, which arguably he should have done anyway and try and pass it that way
8:04
But it will, you know, he's stuck in a rut politically at the moment on all of those issues that you mentioned
8:10
And he needs some forward movement. There's no question about it. Yeah, he needs a win
8:14
When are his base going to start saying very quickly? And as I know you've been on nonstop for days
8:19
when will the base start realising that he he doesn't actually get anything done
8:26
apart from the tariffs which are actually an imposition on the US consumer
8:31
Yeah I mean there are indications that there are some Trump voters out there that are getting
8:37
disillusioned and that are beginning to walk away from him but whether they are in sufficient
8:42
numbers at the moment truly to trouble the White House is very unclear I think
8:45
Okay Simon thank you so much
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