The feud between Elon Musk and President Trump went nuclear on X after Elon claimed Trump was in the Epstein Files. “Why would he do this?” asks Glenn Beck. Glenn and Stu review the biggest rumors that came out after the fight.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So in chronological order, this is what happened.
Because Elon had been calling to kill the big, beautiful bill. So first thing yesterday, Trump is responding to Elon's criticism. Here it is, listen.
VOICE: Thank you, president. The criticism I've seen and I'm sure you've seen regarding Elon Musk and your big, beautiful bill. What's your reaction to that?
Do you think it any way hurts passage in the Senate, which, of course, is what you're seeking?
DONALD: Well, look, I've always liked Elon. And it's always very surprised. You saw the words he had for me. The words. And, yes. Said that thing about me that's bad. I would rather have him criticize me than the bill because the bill is incredible.
It's the biggest cut in the history of our country. We have never cut -- it's about 1.6 trillion in cuts.
It's the biggest tax cut, tax, you would say, people -- people's taxes will go way down. But it's the biggest tax cut in history.
We are doing things in that bill that are unbelievable.
GLENN: So Russ Voit is going to be on with us, by the way, in 30 minutes. So I think that's really mild. I mean, he's just responding to Elon's criticism. Look, I would rather have him criticism me than the bill. Because we disagree it.
Blah, blah. Then Elon responds. Whatever. Keep the EV solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched.
Very unfair. But ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation, that was both big and beautiful, and everyone knows this.
Either you get a big and ugly bill, or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.
Then Elon reupped a bunch of old Trump tweets, where he announced raising the debt limit.
And then he made a poll.
Is it time to create a new political party in America, that actually represents 80 percent in the middle? Yes or no?
By this point, now Trump who was showing tremendous restraint has to respond. He writes, Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave.
I took away his EV mandate. That forced to everybody to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted. He knew that for months, that I was going to do this.
And he just went crazy. Then he writes, the easiest way to save money in our budget. Billions and billions of dollars is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always advised that Biden didn't do it.
Me too.
Well, Elon responded by threatening decommission his SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. He says, in light of the president's statement about cancellation of my government contract, SpaceX, SpaceX will be decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft, immediately.
Now, this is -- this is crazy. This is crazy.
Then Elon, after he lost a lot of people on this. He writes, time to drop the really big bomb. Real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That's the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.
Why would he do this? Why would he do this?
Elon says, mark this post for the future, because the truth will come out.
Now, Trump, again, who I think was pretty restrained all day, compared to Elon Musk. I don't mind Elon turning against me. But he should have done so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress. It's a record cut in expenses. $1.6 trillion, and the biggest tax cut ever given. If this bill doesn't pass, there will be a 68 percent tax increase. Things get far worse than that. I didn't create this mess. I am just trying to fix it. This puts our country on a path of greatness. Make America great again.
After that, everybody starts to calm down a little bit. Do you happen to have the -- Linda and David Sacks tweet?
Because they both kind of stand up for the big, beautiful bill. In saying, it needs to pass!
Now, she's a CEO, isn't she?
Or is she the president of X?
CEO of X. And David Sacks is a good friend of Elon Musk. And they're both saying, no, no, no.
We've got to pass the big beautiful bill. So then you have Bill Ackman stepping up.
Now, the White House said, they were trying to schedule a call with Elon sometime today, to work this out.
Which, if you look at the actual facts, Donald Trump was more restrained than I think I've ever seen him.
Would you agree with that, Stu?
STU: Yeah. He did not -- certainly, didn't go nuclear like Elon Musk did.
GLENN: No. No.
STU: I mean, he did address it. He started getting a little more critical about Elon.
GLENN: Right.
STU: But it seemed to be ramping up slowly. And all of a sudden, someone dropped nine nuclear bombs on to the -- the battlefield.
GLENN: Right. Right.
Bill Ackman writes, a support real Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And they should make peace for the benefit of our great country. We're much stronger together than apart.
Elon writes, last night at 9:27, you're not wrong.
So hopefully, this is over. But look at the damage that this has done.
This has given the -- the left all kinds of ammunition.
You know, nothing, but talking points.
Elon Musk is never going to be reembraced by the left.
I don't think he really cares about that.
But he should care about -- you know, we need the guy to survive. He's one of the greatest minds of -- of our day. Of our lifetime!
He's probably the greatest scientific mind, as far as putting things into practical use, since Tesla!
The first Tesla, you know. The real Tesla.
And we have to have that, guys.
But we have to have Donald Trump. And we have to have a country!
Now, I -- I want at home cut more out of this budget. But let's not blow this damn thing up. Let's not blow everything up, out of the water. This is not good. Who does this chaos serve?
Certainly, not the country. Not the republic. And not anybody who is trying to navigate these crazy waters.
STU: Glenn, can we talk for a second about the specific allegation of -- of him being in the Epstein files.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: We've already known that, by the way.
STU: Number one, of course, technically, it's accurate that he was in there. They were friends. If you're looked at everything that -- that -- like every flight on Jeffrey Epstein's plane.
You know, Donald Trump flew on the plane.
I don't think there's any evidence he went to the island.
Certainly no evidence that he did anything illegal with Jeffrey Epstein.
They were friends before these accusations came out.
Technically speaking, Elon Musk has been saying something that has been well-covered in the media already.
And might protect him from legal consequences, because of that tweet.
I mean, if they really had a falling out, I mean, Trump -- Trump sued CBS of their editing of the Kamala Harris interview.
Being called a pedophile basically on the internet. Would I'm sure merit a lawsuit. If they really had a falling out.
Technically speaking, Musk would probably survive that.
Likely because, of course, Trump is in there.
It's something we've known for a long time. By the way, we should know. Probably dozens of other completely innocent people, that would be in those files.
It doesn't mean that everybody they ever interacted with this guy, slept with children.
GLENN: Yeah. So Musk was releasing these videos of him. And, you know, Epstein.
And nobody denies that he was around Epstein. Nobody denies that. But what nobody cares to recognize is that as soon as Donald Trump, you know, had an inkling of who this guy was really, and some -- one of the women, you know, at his club, abused by Epstein, he cut the friendship. Kicked him out!
And said, we're done. Get out.
I mean, he was the one guy that I know of, the one guy, with moral spine, around Epstein.
STU: Right. Yeah.
GLENN: And let's not forget, there's Elon Musk pictures with Maxwell. So, I mean --
STU: Is that even true?
GLENN: It's a very small circle.
STU: It's hard to know what's being Photoshopped. I don't even know.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Are you kidding me? Really?
STU: I don't know. I've seen photos of them. I honestly don't know. I always assume they're fake, until I know.
But who knows? Again, everybody has pictures. Especially famous people. Famous people hang out at the same parties.
That doesn't prove anything.
Honestly, if there is something here.
And you mentioned this earlier, Glenn.
If there was something Donald Trump, that he did something wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.
I can assure you the Biden administration would have found a way to release that.
And it even speaks poorly of Musk in a way. If there was terrible evidence here. I mean, was he going to just go along and not -- just, you know, be quiet about Trump's sexual abuse of children, if the cuts came through, the spending bill, the way he wanted them.
All of them is absurd. All of them is not real. It's a couple guys throwing insults at each other. In this particular case. Trump much more restrained than Elon Musk, I would argue.
Even though, again, lots of positives with Elon Musk.
He's the one that really went nuclear here. And I do hope cooler heads would prevail. Because it's good for the country, Glenn.
GLENN: Because I know you've -- you've really done your homework on Elon Musk.
And he has -- he has moments where he is not -- where he's manic. Is it possible that this is a manic episode with -- with Elon?
STU: I have -- you know, no evidence. Not --
GLENN: Yeah, I know.
STU: To be clear, I'm not accusing anybody of anything.
But, you know, to look at, if you read the biography. The Isaacson biography about him, there are periods during that time, times where he's sleeping on the floor of the factory. You know, that type of period, if you remember that period, Glenn. Where it does appear that he goes into what you might call, you know, a manic state. And makes a lot of poor decisions. Decisions that wind up really hurting the stock price. You know, tweeting out things, that he winds up getting sued for.
There are a lot of periods in Elon's life where that type of stuff seems to happen. Add on to that. The New York Times. Again, take it for what it's worth.
Elon has a lot of enemies inside the White House. That's something that you should know. We don't know where this came from. But, you know, lots of accusations of drug use and things of that nature as well.
GLENN: When you say drug use, it's really ketamine, isn't it?
STU: Ketamine was one of them. It was more than just that. I can pull the article up. But one of the interesting notes in the article is one of the ways the New York Times claims that they made this available to actually be reported and it wasn't just a rumor that somebody told them. Was they had photographic evidence of these pills.
Now, Glenn, how many times has someone, that you know, taken pictures of your pillbox, or your pill bottles?
GLENN: Oh, my gosh, that happens all the time. All the time.
STU: This is not something that occurs to normal people that doesn't have enemies around them. Right?
My speculation, is somebody around him, saw him taking pills. Took pictures of them. And sent them to the New York Times.
Supposedly. Now, the Times are like, his friends are concerned about him. That's their excuse. I don't buy that at all.
GLENN: I don't either. Nobody has friends at that level in Washington, DC. Nobody.
STU: Especially it would be like, you know what, I'm concerned about Elon, I will leak these photos to the New York Times.
Like, there's no friend of his, who would do that. It's absurd.
It's somebody who hated his guts, or wanted to destroy him. And wanted these bad things to come out about him, in my estimation.
So, you know, could that be true. There could be some truth to it. I don't know.
Could it be that he's in a manic period? Could it be that he's really frustrated? And this is how he operates with everybody else, and it's not that big a deal.
Most people shrug it off because it's just normal internet drama. When you're doing it to the president of the United States, it takes on a totally different shape.
GLENN: Not good.
Yeah. Here's the thing. Just pray for both men. And pray for our republic. This is not good for any of us. We need them both to get along.