Elon Musk changed his phone number after his relationship with Trump and the president’s administration blew up, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson is the latest Trump ally to open up on the ugly divorce on the New York Post’s Pod Force One, after White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told host Miranda Devine last week that the president and the tech mogul suffered a “very troublesome” end to their bromance.
Johnson revealed on Wednesday’s episode that Musk felt so jilted by the Trump administration that he even changed his phone number, leaving Johnson high and dry.
“I sent him a long text message, and then his phone number changed, because after the blow-up, something happened with his,” Johnson told Devine.
“[Later I] realized I was sending it out into the ether somewhere and he never read it, so I look forward to meeting with him in person,” the speaker added. “We got to make that right.”
Johnson said that he and GOP officials were able to communicate with Musk via a third party when necessary, but he wants the Trump-Musk relationship to get back to where it was. But that might take a while, he suggested.
“Frankly, I think the president was of that mind as well, but there’s some tension there,” Johnson explained.
The divorce was precipitated by “a multitude of factors,” he added, saying that he would “let everybody else judge the motivations behind it.”
One of the most public factors in the relationship breakdown was Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk publicly raged against. He felt that it contradicted the work he did to slash government spending while leading the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump, meanwhile, claimed Musk was merely upset about the legislation’s cuts to electric vehicle credits, which have benefited Musk’s companies for years.
Musk’s public comments about the bill started off relatively innocuous, considering the meltdown that followed. The billionaire soon entered into a gruesome war of words with the president, even accusing him of being in the Epstein files. Trump said Musk was “off the rails” and called him a “train wreck.”
Johnson said that the Tesla CEO was kept informed about Trump’s tax bill. “Clearly, [Musk] got unhappy in a very short period of time,” he said on the podcast.
“I mean, he generally knew what we were doing, and we talked about it. I mean, he knew for months, many months we worked on this, and I was keeping him apprised of it.”
“The final product maybe didn’t meet all of his expectations in terms of what we’re doing, for example, with electric vehicles and the Biden mandates and all of that,” he added. “But there are other things as well.”
The House leader said he is “trying to be a peacemaker in all of it.”
Johnson complimented Musk as a “genius,” but said that “crafting legislation” was over his head. “He does things that I can’t even fathom, but one of his fields of expertise was not necessarily crafting legislation, right?” Johnson said.
“I have great respect for what he’s done, and I just want him to fully understand what we’re doing and remind him of the strategy. This is a long-term play.”
He said he shares concerns about the ballooning deficit, but suggested that Musk’s reaction was out of proportion.
“We can’t fix this stuff overnight, but we have a plan to do it, and I think that’s going to be pleasing to everybody who’s worried about our deficit and our debt,” he said.
Concerning his current relationship with the Tesla CEO, Johnson confirmed, “I’ve got nothing against Elon, obviously.”
