Key events
Musk threatens to decommission Dragon spacecraft, the vessel that returned ISS astronauts
In a new tweet on Thursday, Elon Musk said:
In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.
Musk’s decision to decommission the spacecraft comes after Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday:
The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!
If Musk follows through, this could have a big impact on the US’s space programme. It was a SpaceX Dragon capsule that brought back four astronauts stuck onboard the International Space Station (ISS) for several months.
The rift between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is continuing to deepen, with close Trump confidante Laura Loomer saying:
It’s heating up. Will be interesting to see what Republican lawmakers do now. I know law makers who are asking if they should side with President Trump or Elon. I’ve been on the hill all day and it’s all anyone is talking about. The most powerful man in the world vs the richest man in the world.
In response, Musk wrote:
Oh and some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years…
Elon Musk: ‘Donald Trump is in the Epstein files’
Elon Musk just claimed that Donald Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying:
Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!
He went on to say:
Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.
Trump threatens to ‘terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts’
Donald Trump is going on a tirade on Truth Social against Elon Musk, saying:
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!
In a separate post, Trump added:
The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Lauren Gambino
Kamala Harris did not address the graduating ceremony in Compton, where nearly 300 high school seniors earned their diplomas. But she did join them, accepting an honorary diploma as the daughter of what the school district board president called “Compton north” – a reference to her native Oakland.
Harris smiled and posed for selfies with the graduates as they crossed the stage.
It was Harris’s first public appearance since skipping the state party convention in Anaheim last weekend. The former vice-president has given herself a deadline of late summer to make a decision about whether to run for governor.
At the ceremony on Thursday, where Harris was surrounded by a crush of students, parents and educators jockeying for a photo as she made her way toward the exit, some made their view of the matter clear.
“Run again!” a man shouted from the bleachers as Harris was ushered into a waiting SUV. She did not appear to have heard the plea, but smiled and waved before the door closed.
Elon Musk has been given six more weeks by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to respond to its civil lawsuit accusing the former Doge head of waiting too long in 2022 to reveal his large stake in Twitter (the platform Musk later bought and renamed X), Reuters reports.
In a filing in federal court in Washington DC, the SEC and Musk agreed to push back the deadline for Musk’s response to 18 July from 6 June, calling it “reasonable and in the interest of conserving judicial resources”.
The SEC has said Musk’s 11-day delay in disclosing his initial 5% Twitter stake allowed him to buy more than $500m of the company’s shares at artificially low prices, at the expense of unsuspecting investors. The SEC’s lawsuit seeks to force Musk to pay a civil fine and give up profits it claims he didn’t deserve.
Musk calls Trump’s tax legislation the ‘Big Ugly Bill’
Elon Musk is continuing his criticism of president Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” on X by calling it the “Big Ugly Bill”, perhaps in reference to Trump’s dislike of taunting nicknames.
“The Big Ugly Bill will INCREASE the deficit to $2.5 trillion!” Musk wrote in a post.
“Keep the EV/solar incentives cuts in the bill, also cut all the crazy spending increases in the Big Ugly Bill so that America doesn’t go bankrupt!” he wrote in another post.
World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization, released a statement condemning Trump’s travel ban on 12 countries and imposing restrictions on seven others.
“This is the latest assault on legal immigration processes,” Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, said. “It’s always been difficult for most individuals in many of these countries to obtain visas, but this blunt order restricts the entry even of those who meet strict qualifications and undergo thorough vetting. We urge the administration to reconsider these restrictions and to pursue policies that scrutinize individuals in the interest of ensuring security without banning entire nationalities from lawfully visiting or emigrating to the United States.”
The statement added that the travel ban will “separate families, hinder international missions and development and tarnish our country’s reputation for justice and fairness”.
Trump says it may be better to allow Russia and Ukraine to ‘fight for a while’ before intervening.
“You see it in hockey, you see it in sports,” Trump said during today’s meeting with Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz. “Let them go for a couple of seconds.”
Calling the war a “bloodbath”, Trump made this suggestion while comparing the conflict to trying to pull apart fighting children.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” the president said. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
Musk: ‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election’
In a series of replies on X, Elon Musk is ramping up his attacks against Donald Trump, saying:
Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
He went on to say:
Such ingratitude.
Musk’s comments come after Trump told reporters that he is “very disappointed” in the billionaire tech executive and that he had “helped Elon out a lot”.
The growing divide between the two men come after Musk’s public disapproval of Trump’s tax and spending bill, which Musk called a “disgusting abomination”.
On Thursday, Trump said that Musk knew the bill better than anyone else in his administration, a claim which Musk pushed back on, saying, “False,” and adding that he was never shown the bill.
