By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -The dispute between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was triggered by months of intense stress on both sides, and the public battle between the U.S. president and the billionaire donor needs to stop, Musk’s father told Reuters on Monday.
Trump and Musk began exchanging insults last week on social media, with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO describing the president’s sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
Asked whether he thought his son had made a mistake by engaging in a public clash with the president, Errol Musk said people were sometimes unable to think as clearly as they should “in the heat of the moment.”
“They’ve had five months of intense stress,” Musk told Reuters at a conference in Moscow organised by conservative Russian tycoons.
“With all the opposition cleared and two people left in the arena, all they have ever done is get rid of everything and now they are trying to get rid of each other – well that has to stop.”
Asked how it would end, he said: “Oh, it will end on a good note – very soon.”
Neither the White House nor Musk could be reached for comment outside normal U.S. business hours.
Trump said on Saturday his relationship with Musk was over and that there would be “serious consequences” if the world’s richest man decided to fund U.S. Democrats running against Republicans who vote for the tax and spending bill.
Musk bankrolled a large part of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Trump named Musk to head an effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending.
Musk’s father told reporters he was standing by his son.
“Elon is sticking to his principles but you cannot always stick to your principles in the real world,” Musk’s father said. “Sometimes you have to give and take.”
Speaking beside sanctioned Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, Musk’s father praised President Vladimir Putin as a “very stable and pleasant man.” He accused “fake media” in the West of projecting “complete nonsense” about Russia and for casting it as an enemy.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Timothy Heritage)
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