Donald Trump claims he was able to make rival Elon Musk “drop to his knees and beg” for help during his days in the White House, as the pair’s online feud intensifies.
Trump took aim at the Tesla boss on his own social media platform Truth Social in the wake of Twitter suing his rival for backing out of his £36billion purchase of Twitter.
The former president wrote: “When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidised projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, “drop to your knees and beg”, and he would have done it.
“Now Elon should focus on getting himself out of the Twitter mess because he could owe $44 billion for something that’s perhaps worthless. Also, lots of competition for electric cars!”
“P.S. Why was Elon allowed to break the $15 million stock purchase barrier on Twitter without any reporting? That is a very serious breach!
“Have fun Elon.”
Trump launched Truth Social when he was kicked off Twitter permanently for inciting the protesters at the Capitol Riots in January 2021.
The suspension of Trump's account, which had more than 88 million followers, silenced his primary megaphone days before the end of his term.
His claims came after Elon Musk laid into him, calling for Trump to “sail into the sunset.”
He wrote on Twitter: “I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.
“Dems should also call off the attack – don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.
“Do we really want a bull in a china shop situation every single day!?
“Trump would be 82 at the end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America.”
Trump had earlier called Musk a “bull***t artist” and claimed the SpaceX boss told him he voted for the Republican, which was also denied as a lie.
The public spat came despite Musk saying earlier this year he would reverse Twitter's ban on the former US President.
The Tesla Chief Executive made the announcement while speaking at the Financial Times Future of the Car conference.
Speaking virtually at the Financial Times Future of the Car Summit on Tuesday, Mr Musk said tweets which are illegal or "destructive" should be deleted or made invisible, but accounts must not banned permanently.
He said: "I think there's a general question of should Twitter have permanent bans? I've talked with Jack Dorsey about this and he and I are of the same mind which is that permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam scam accounts.
"I do think that it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.
“I think this could end up being frankly worse than having a single forum where everyone can debate.”
