Musk suggests ‘making peace’ with Trump would benefit US
Elon Musk appears to have hinted that a reconciliation with president Donald Trump would be in the best interests of the country, after their public spat escalated last night.
In response to the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman – a known Trump donor – calling for the pair to “make peace for the benefit of our great country” on X, Musk replied:
You’re not wrong.
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Key events
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No plans for Trump call with Musk on Friday, White House source says
There are no plans for US president Donald Trump to hold a call with Elon Musk on Friday, a White House source with knowledge of the matter said.
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Amy Hawkins
Chinese students in the United States are questioning their future in the country after the state department announced last week that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong.
Chinese students hoping to study at Harvard, the US’s oldest and wealthiest university, are under particular pressure after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it was banning the school from enrolling new foreign students. The presidential proclamation cited Harvard’s links with China as a particular cause for concern.
For Jerry*, a 22-year-old applied mathematics student at the University of California, Los Angeles, the uncertainty started last month, when the Trump administration suddenly halted Harvard University’s ability to enrol any international students.
Jerry has a place on a health data science masters programme at Harvard, which is due to start in the autumn. The US government’s attempt to ban Harvard from accepting international students appears to have been blocked, at least temporarily, by the courts. But Trump’s announcement on Wednesday invokes a different legal authority.
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Phillip Inman
Donald Trump said he had accepted an invitation to meet Xi Jinping in China after a phone conversation on trade was held between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the “very good” call lasted about 90 minutes and the conversation was “almost entirely focused on trade”.
He wrote: “The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries. There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products. Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined … During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated.”
Trump added that teams from the US and China would meet soon at a location to be determined.
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University of Michigan using undercover investigators to surveil student Gaza protesters
Tom Perkins
The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.
Students say they have frequently identified undercover investigators and confronted them. In two bizarre interactions captured by one student on video, a man who had been trailing the student faked disabilities, and noisily – and falsely – accused a student of attempting to rob him.
The undercover investigators appear to work for Detroit-based City Shield, a private security group, and some of their evidence was used by Michigan prosecutors to charge and jail students, according to a Guardian review of police records, university spending records and video collected in legal discovery. Most charges were later dropped. Public spending records from the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, show the university paid at least $800,000 between June 2023 and September 2024 to City Shield’s parent company, Ameri-Shield.
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The Kremlin said on Friday it would not get involved in US president Donald Trump’s row with Elon Musk, but was confident that Trump would deal with the situation.
The quarrel between the two was an internal US matter, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
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Dan Milmo
Elon Musk has suggested he may de-escalate his public row with Donald Trump after their spectacular falling out.
The Tesla chief executive signalled he might back down on a pledge to decommission the Dragon spacecraft – made by his SpaceX business – in an exchange on his X social media platform. He also responded positively to a call from fellow multibillionaire Bill Ackman to “make peace” with the US president.
Politico also reported overnight that the White House has scheduled a call with Musk on Friday to broker a peace deal after both men traded verbal blows on Thursday.
The rolling spat – which played out over social media and in a Trump White House appearance – included the president saying he was “very disappointed in Elon” over Musk’s criticism of his tax and spending bill. Musk also said the president’s trade policies would cause a recession and raised Trump’s connections to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk had responded to a Trump threat to cancel his US government contracts on Thursday with a post on X stating he would retire his Dragon spacecraft, which is used by Nasa. However, responding to an X user’s post urging both sides to “cool off”, Musk wrote: “Good advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon.”
Musk also appeared to proffer an olive branch in a reply to a post from the hedge fund owner Ackman, who called on Trump and Musk to “make peace for the benefit of our great country”. Musk replied: “You’re not wrong.”
Politico also reported a potential peace call between Musk and the White House, claiming Trump’s aides had worked to persuade the president to tone down his public criticism of the Tesla owner before arranging the phone conversation for Friday.
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Musk suggests ‘making peace’ with Trump would benefit US
Elon Musk appears to have hinted that a reconciliation with president Donald Trump would be in the best interests of the country, after their public spat escalated last night.
In response to the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman – a known Trump donor – calling for the pair to “make peace for the benefit of our great country” on X, Musk replied:
You’re not wrong.
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German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday that he had “absolutely no doubt” that US president Donald Trump would keep the United States within the Nato military alliance.
“I have absolutely no doubt that the American government is sticking with Nato,” Merz said in a speech at an entrepreneurs’ event just hours after returning from his inaugural trip to Washington.
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Tesla shares rose on Friday as investors took some comfort from White House aides scheduling a call with CEO Elon Musk to broker peace after a public feud with President Donald Trump, reports Reuters.
The electric carmaker’s shares were up about 5% in Frankfurt on Friday, having closed down 14.3% on Thursday in New York, losing about $150bn in market value.
“It’s unlikely that Trump will end subsidies and contracts with Tesla. Those are obviously threats that are unlikely to come into fruition,” Fiona Cincotta, senior market analyst at City Index told Reuters. “I don’t expect this to blow out into anything more serious than a war of words for a couple of days.”
Analysts said some of Thursday’s sell-off was down to factors beyond Musk’s personal relationship with the president.
“We think the stock’s sell-off reflects a number of other factors: an unjustified run-up following its Q1 earnings release, ongoing market share losses in China and Europe, and a realization that next week’s Robotaxi launch in Austin could disappoint,” Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, said in a note to Reuters. “We remain at Hold, expecting more volatility in the near term. Buckle up!” he said.
Tesla shares, which hit record highs when Trump won the election in November, have since been punished harshly, as Musk’s cost-cutting role in the US administration hurt Tesla’s image with shareholders and consumers alike.
“Elon Musk has already signalled that he is open to a cooling off period with Trump, and stock market futures are higher on Friday morning. Thus, the risk could be more localised with Tesla shares in the short term,” Kathleen Brooks, XTB research director, said.
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Germany will remain dependent on the United States “for a long time to come,” chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday just hours after returning from his inaugural visit to Washington DC, where he held talks with President Donald Trump.
“Whether we like it or not, we will remain dependent on the United States, on America, for a long time to come,” Merz said in a speech during a family entrepreneurs’ event, reports Reuters.
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Rubio imposes sanctions on four ICC judges for ‘targeting’ US and Israel
Andrew Roth
The United States is placing sanctions on four judges from the international criminal court (ICC) for what it has called its “illegitimate actions” targeting the United States and Israel.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the sanctions in a statement on Thursday. They target Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.
Donald Trump ordered cabinet officials to draw up sanctions against the ICC after the court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defense minister Yoav Gallant. They were accused of overseeing an Israeli offensive during the Gaza conflict that caused famine and included the commission of war crimes.
Two of the sanctioned judges authorised the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, and two authorised an ICC investigation into abuses by US personnel in Afghanistan.
“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel,” Rubio said. “The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies. This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”
The decision to move forward with the sanctions will escalate Trump’s feud with the court and other international organisations, which he has broadly dismissed as politicised.
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Chris Stein
As the simmering tensions between Donald Trump and his once top adviser, the billionaire Elon Musk, erupted into public view on Thursday, eyes turned to the Republican lawmakers still weighing whether to pass the president’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill”.
It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month, and nonpartisan analysts have found the sweeping legislation could add a whopping $2.4tn-$5tn to the $36.2tn US national debt and make deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs. Seen as an outline of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the bill would also extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.
In a barrage of tweets over its cost, which Musk warned would undo Doge’s efforts to save the government money by cancelling programs and pushing federal workers out of their jobs, the billionaire called on conservatives to withdraw their support for the bill.
Along with personal barbs aimed at Trump – including trumpeting support for his impeachment and signaling the president’s ties to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – Musk spent Thursday afternoon re-posting years-old quotes from the House speaker Mike Johnson and the Senate leader John Thune, when the Republican lawmakers spoke critically of federal debt.
Musk’s intense withdrawal of support for the administration has magnified a rift in the Republican party that was already threatening the bill’s passage in the Senate.
While the Senate’s Republican leaders have shown no indication that they share Musk’s concerns, they are eyeing changes to some aspects of the measure that were the result of hard-fought negotiations in the House, and could throw its prospects into jeopardy.
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Nick Robins-Early
Tesla’s shares dropped by about 14.2% on Thursday at market close, wiping roughly $152bn off the value of the company as a feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump erupted into public view. The former political allies traded threats and insults through posts on their respective social media platforms throughout the afternoon as the company’s price fell.
Trump suggested on Truth Social that he could cut Musk’s government subsidies and contracts, of which both Tesla and SpaceX have been immense beneficiaries. Musk meanwhile threatened to decommission the SpaceX spacecraft that Nasa relies on for transport missions, called for Trump’s impeachment, derided the president’s signature tariffs and accused him of being affiliated with the notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Musk said late Thursday evening his company will not decommission its spacecraft.
The decline in Tesla’s share price on Thursday knocked about $8.73bn off Musk’s total net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The reported $152bn drop also decreased the value of the company to roughly $900bn.
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Hugo Lowell
Elon Musk called for Donald Trump’s impeachment and mocked his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the US president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies, in an extraordinary social media feud that erupted between the former allies on Thursday.
The deterioration of their once close relationship into bitter acrimony came over the course of several remarkable hours during which the president and the world’s richest person hurled deeply personal insults over matters significant and insignificant.
The direct shots at Trump were the latest twist in the public showdown over a Republican spending bill that Musk had criticized. Trump and Musk had been careful not to hit each other directly, but on Thursday the pair discarded restraint as the feud escalated on their respective social media platforms.
In the most churlish moment of the astonishing saga, Musk said on X the reason the Trump administration had not released the files into Epstein was because they implicated the president. He later quote-tweeted a post calling for Trump to be removed and said Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk wrote, after Trump threatened to cut subsidies for Musk’s companies as it would save “billions”.
It was a bizarre drama that served to underscore the degree to which Trump and Musk’s relationship has been one of mutual convenience, despite the White House claiming for months that they were simply ideologically aligned.
It also caused the rightwing writer Ashley St Clair, who gave birth to Musk’s 14th known child and sued Musk for child support, to weigh in. “Let me know if u need any breakup advice,” she posted on X, tagging Trump.
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Updated at 05.06 EDT
Judge blocks Trump’s ban on Harvard’s foreign students from entering the US
A district judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration’s ban on Harvard’s international students from entering the United States after the Ivy League university argued the move was illegal.
Harvard had asked the judge, Allison Burrough, to block the ban, pending further litigation, arguing Trump had violated federal law by failing to back up his claims that the students posed a threat to national security.
“The Proclamation denies thousands of Harvard’s students the right to come to this country to pursue their education and follow their dreams, and it denies Harvard the right to teach them. Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the school said in a filing to the judge.
The filing also argued that the national security argument was flawed as the ban did not stop the same people from entering the country, it only barred them from entering to attend Harvard.
Harvard amended its earlier lawsuit, which it had filed amid a broader dispute with the Republican president, to challenge the ban, which Trump issued on Wednesday in a proclamation.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson earlier called Harvard “a hotbed of anti-American, antisemitic, pro-terrorist agitators”, claims that the school has previously denied.
“Harvard’s behavior has jeopardized the integrity of the entire US student and exchange visitor visa system and risks compromising national security. Now it must face the consequences of its actions,” Jackson said in a statement.
The suspension was intended to be initially for six months but can be extended. Trump’s proclamation also directs the state department to consider revoking academic or exchange visas of any current Harvard students who meet his proclamation’s criteria.
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Maanvi Singh, an immigration reporter for Guardian US, has written about how Trump’s travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions.
You can read Singh’s analysis here:
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What we know so far on Trump and Musk’s fallout
President Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful Bill” has precipitated an epic fallout between the US president and one of his closest allies, billionaire Elon Musk.
The blowup played out publicly on social media, with both men using their respective platforms, X and Truth Social, to exchange criticisms.
Here is a summary of how the rift unfolded, and what we know so far:
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Opening summary
US president Donald Trump told Politico, “Oh it’s OK,” and, “It’s going very well, never done better,” when asked about his public breakup with billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the news outlet reported on Thursday.
White House aides have scheduled a call on Friday with Musk to broker a peace, Politico reported.
On Thursday, Trump and Musk escalated their disagreement about the US budget bill into a big public argument on social media. When asked about Musk’s criticism of his “Big, Beautiful Bill”, the US president told reporters:
Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.
Trump also said he was “very disappointed in Elon”.
In return, Musk published a flurry of posts that stepped up his feud with the president and went on to claim that without him Trump would have “lost the election” before bemoaning what he called “such ingratitude”.
Meanwhile, a district judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration’s ban on Harvard’s international students from entering the United States after the Ivy League university argued the move was illegal.
Harvard had asked the judge, Allison Burrough, to block the ban, pending further litigation, arguing Trump had violated federal law by failing to back up his claims that the students posed a threat to national security.
More on both of these stories in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments:
Musk also suggested Trump should be impeached and that JD Vance should replace Trump, warning that Trump’s global tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year” and claimed Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The White House described the Epstein assertions as an “unfortunate episode”, in a statement to CNN.
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and Elon Musk critic, suggested there were grounds to deport the tech billionaire, who has US citizenship. Bannon told the New York Times: “They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately.”
Poland’s foreign minister poked fun at Musk late on Thursday, returning to a social media spat from March after the Tesla and SpaceX boss spectacularly fell out with Trump. Warsaw’s top diplomat Radoslaw Sikorski found himself embroiled in an extraordinarily public clash with Musk and US secretary of state Marco Rubio in March after he said Ukraine may need an alternative to the Starlink satellite service.
Trump’s pick to be the next US surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health. Yet as Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products – including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service – in ways that put money in her own pocket. A review by The Associated Press found Means, who has carved out a niche in the wellness industry, set up deals with an array of businesses.
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Updated at 05.06 EDT
