Washington: In what is being seen by many as a reconciliatory effort, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has offered his ‘regrets’ for certain posts against US president Donald Trump.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk posted on X on Wednesday. He hasn’t clarified exactly which posts he regrets.
Musk posted a series of tweets on X last week in a fiery exchange between the pair, who were considered extremely close. It all started after the Tesla and SpaceX CEO described Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill as a ‘disgusting abomination’.
The billionaire also posted on X that Trump’s name may have appeared in files related to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. This post was deleted by Sunday, along with some others accusing the president of wrongdoing.
The White House dismissed Musk’s Epstein claims at the time, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying: “This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill (a Republican tax and spending bill) because it does not include the policies he wanted. The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.”
In another post on Thursday, Musk attacked Trump’s tariffs, saying they “will cause a recession in the second half of this year”.
In response, Trump said that Musk had “lost his mind” in an interview with ABC News. The US president had also threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk’s companies and said he had asked the billionaire to leave the White House.
Musk’s father Errol Musk downplayed the tension between the two. Speaking to Sky News, he had said: “It’s like any argument. Everybody at some point says I’ll never make up, but then they do later.”
He also said the argument likely happened because of “emotions welling out of hand”.
“They’ve had five months of intense day and night, hardly any sleep, and anybody who went through that would know your nerves are pretty much shredded after that time,” Errol had said.
The senior Musk also told the interviewer that his son had texted him saying: “Don’t worry, we’re sorting it out.”
Meanwhile, the spat between Trump and Musk had its impact on Tesla shares. Share prices dropped by 14.3% last Thursday, losing nearly US$ 150bn in value. They are now recovering.