The online confrontation escalated. Trump threatened to terminate the contract, while Musk announced the retirement of the Dragon spacecraft

The war of words between US President Donald Trump and his biggest financial backer, billionaire Elon Musk, has escalated further, rapidly evolving from mutual attacks on social media to a public split. Trump threatened to terminate government contracts and subsidies with companies owned by Musk. Musk promptly announced the retirement of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft and hinted that Trump should be impeached.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is the main tool for NASA to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The contract between the US government and SpaceX is worth approximately 4.9 billion US dollars. The Dragon spacecraft is the only American spacecraft that can reliably send humans into space orbit and return to Earth.

According to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg, Trump expressed "disappointment" and "surprise" at Musk's criticism of his "big and beautiful" tax and spending bill when he met with German Chancellor Metz at the White House on Thursday (June 5).

Trump said, "I used to have a very good relationship with Musk. It's hard to say now." He has said many words of praise to me and has never said anything bad about me, but I believe he will start to do so. I'm very disappointed with Elon (Musk's name). I have helped Elon a lot.

Musk then posted several consecutive messages on the social media platform X, claiming that the "Thin and Beautiful" bill would win and stating that he understood the internal workings of the congressional bill, "This bill was never shown to me even once, and it was passed so quickly in the dead of night that almost no one in Congress had the chance to see it!"

Musk launched a poll on X at 1:57 p.m. on Thursday with the question: "Is it time to create a new political party in the United States that truly represents 80% of the centrists?"

At 2:37 p.m. on the same day, Trump hit back on the Social media platform Truth Social, saying: "Elon was' pushed to the limit '. It was I who told him to leave. I lifted his electric vehicle mandate, which forced everyone to buy electric cars that no one wanted (he knew I would do this months ago!) Now he's out of control!

One of the simplest ways to save billions of dollars for our budget is to end Elon's government subsidies and contracts. I've always been surprised that (former president) Biden didn't do this!

Trump's threats were directly directed at Musk's main source of wealth. Both Musk's electric vehicle companies, Tesla and SpaceX, have benefited from federal contracts and subsidies. However, considering that these two companies are closely related to the US aerospace and defense businesses, terminating the contracts is highly challenging both legally and in practical operation.

Musk responded on X at 4:09 p.m., saying, "In light of the president's statement about cancelling my contract with the government, @SpaceX will immediately retire the Dragon spacecraft."

At 4:11 p.m., Musk was still replying to a user's post on X, saying: "President vs. Elon." Who wins? I bet Elon wins. Trump should be impeached and replaced by (Vice President) Vance.

The split between Trump and Musk dealt a heavy blow to Tesla. Tesla dragged down the broader market index, and the U.S. stock market recorded its first closing decline since the beginning of this week. The S&P 500 index closed down 0.5%, with the discretionary consumer goods sector leading the decline. The Nasdaq 100 index dropped by 0.8%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by 0.3%. In terms of individual stocks, Tesla's share price dropped by 14%.

The Republican Party to which Trump belongs holds a majority of seats in both houses of Congress, and the possibility of his impeachment is extremely small.