Investors on betting markets are having a field day with the fiery break-up between President Donald Trump and former “first buddy” Elon Musk.
The trending page on the Polymarket, which famously beat pollsters in projecting Trump’s 2024 win, is teeming with bets about the feud.
Will Trump and Musk reconcile in the next week? Will Trump be impeached? Will the president throw the world’s richest man behind bars?
Ultimately, Polymarket investors aren’t buying the most dramatic ends to the quarrel.
The odds of Trump jailing his former adviser are only 4 percent. And the chances that Trump ends up being impeached this year are at 11 percent.
On Kalshi, another similar prediction market, investors think there’s an 18 percent chance that Trump could sue Musk and a 5 percent chance that the U.S. could ban X, Musk’s social media platform.
But investors aren’t bullish on a quick reconciliation, either.
On Polymarket, There’s just a 2 percent chance that Trump will apologize to Musk by Monday, and a 17 percent chance that they settle their differences by next Friday.
Trump said on Friday that he has no intention of speaking to Musk anytime soon—and the markets believe him. The Polymarket odds that the men meet this month are 19 percent.
Kalshi is more optimistic, predicting that there’s a 55 percent chance that Musk and Trump talk on the phone before July.
When the feud erupted Thursday, one of the biggest bombshells was dropped by Musk when he alleged that Trump was in the “Epstein files.” He claimed that Trump’s ties to the sex-offender financier were why government documents about Jeffrey Epstein had not been released.
Several of the Polymarket bets addressed the allegation. And investors don’t believe we will get any new information on Trump’s relationship with the pedophile anytime soon.
There was a 5 percent chance that the files Musk alleged exist would reach the public in June and an equally low chance that evidence of Trump visiting Epstein’s notorious island would emerge.
Kalshi, however, predicted a 42 percent chance that some new Epstein files are released this year—whether they feature Trump or not.
Tensions had simmered between Trump and Musk over the last week, with the world’s richest man offering harsh criticism of the president’s “big, beautiful” spending bill. Musk called it “pork-filled” and urged Congress to vote against it.
The clash exploded on Thursday, however, with the two billionaires exchanging blows on social media.
Trump posted, “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
Musk fired back with the Epstein claim and a call for Trump’s impeachment.
Trump didn’t take the bait, writing: “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.”
Later on Thursday, Musk signaled he might be open to a truce. “You’re not wrong,” the tech entrepreneur wrote in response to a post from investor Bill Ackman calling for Trump and Musk to “make peace.”
