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Trump and Musk Escalate Public Feud; Key Witness "Jane" Details Open Relationship with Combs. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 05, 2025 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: The breaking news, a very public breakup between the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and arguably the most powerful man, President Donald Trump, just breaking out in public view on social media. Trump, among other things, now threatening to cancel all of Elon Musk's government contracts. Keep in mind, we're talking about things like SpaceX, which launches a large portion of American military intelligence satellites.

He claims now that Musk was wearing thin. Musk claiming a whole host of things, including that he is responsible for Trump's election victory in November, which is, I imagine, a charge President Trump does not take too kindly to.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Yes, it was after that that things really started to escalate, because we heard from President Trump in the Oval Office talking about how he and Musk had -- he used the past as this was earlier today -- had a good relationship, and now I'm on Musk's X page, and they're just, the posts are coming and coming very quickly with President Trump firing back as well.

We've got Hadas Gold and Brian Stelter here with us to talk through some of this. Hadas, let's start first with you.

Set the scene for everyone. I have to tell you, here in Washington, I'm hearing, everyone seems to be monitoring this right now. I'm getting so many texts from people who are like, can you believe what he just said? Can you believe this?

This is really spilling out into public view, a fight between these two people at a time when President Trump is trying very hard to get his legislation over the finish line before that July 4th deadline.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, from the very beginning of Elon Musk joining forces with President Trump, there was a sense amongst people who know them, people in Washington, people in Silicon Valley, listen, these are two people with really big egos, and there is inevitably going to be a time where they clash and where things blow up.

But I don't think that anybody imagined that it was going to blow up in the way, in the speed and in the fashion that we're seeing it right now. I have Elon Musk's posts on X on an alert on my phone, so they get pushed to me. And I can't even keep up with the amount that he is posting. He has completely turned on President Trump.

Just a few months ago, he posted that he cannot -- you know, he loves President Trump as much as anybody can love another man.

And now he is posting just incredible accusations. He's also accusing President Trump of lying about him. He has completely changed at him. He's suggesting creating a new political party. This is a man who spent more than $250 million on electing President Trump, on electing Republicans.

And just how long has it been? Four days, five days ago, he received a golden key to the White House. You know, it's incredible to see the turn of what has happened in just those last few days. Not only Elon Musk towards President Trump, but President Trump towards Elon Musk.

And I am very curious to hear how President Trump will react to these latest series of posts we're seeing on X. I think he is potentially in a lunch right now with the German chancellor, so I expect some fireworks to come, potentially even in the next few minutes.

SCIUTTO: You know, Brian Stelzer, we can be guilty at times of talking about things that are big stories inside the Washington bubble, but perhaps not big stories outside it. Are we safe saying that given Elon Musk is someone who is -- has a following far outside the Washington bubble? He has 220 million followers on Twitter, and again, Twitter is not the real world, but that's a lot of people, and there was a lot of talk in this most recent election about how Elon Musk was able to reach folks that aren't typically reached, right, in the political conversation.

Young people, young voters, that that may have made a difference --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes.

SCIUTTO: -- for Trump and other Republicans. So to see this break up so publicly, that's more than a Washington story?

STELTER: Absolutely it is. I live in one of those purple congressional districts that Elon Musk was trying to swing toward the Republicans, and it succeeded. I remember the dozens and dozens of mailers stuffed in my mailbox, all from America pack.

It was so successful last fall, all of Musk's injection of capital into the race. We can debate exactly how much it helped, but it helped a lot, and Musk is right to take a lot of credit, and to feel now, as he says, like Trump is being ungrateful.

This reminds me of that slogan back well before social media, when newspaper publishers had all the power, there was a saying, is they never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel.

Well, now that saying applies to the social media realm, and it is tech CEOs like Elon Musk that have all the power. We're seeing Musk use that power minute by minute, using X and the algorithm to push his anti-Trump messaging. You know, I was wondering, you know, at what point is Musk going to come out and call for a third party? Will it be Friday or next week?

He's already done it, you know, in the last hour --

DEAN: And he's (INAUDIBLE).

STELTER: -- so he's escalating this so quickly, and frankly, Trump is escalating it so quickly too.

DEAN: Yes, I know, I was just looking, he's put it right up there at the top.

Hadas, we're also getting information, the Tesla shares have plummeted 15 percent this afternoon.

GOLD: Yes.

[15:35:00]

DEAN: This has implications on his business, which, sensibly, he was leaving the government to go focus on a business that the investors have been begging him to come back and pay attention to because it has a lot of problems.

GOLD: I can only imagine the groans of Tesla investors right now as they're watching what's happening, because not only has Elon Musk spent the last few months alienating so much of the base, you know, of the liberals who cared about climate change who were probably buying Tesla, and now he's alienating, potentially, a lot of President Donald Trump's fans and all of those MAGA people who were so proud and showing off Tesla. I mean, just a few weeks ago, we're seeing those images now, President Trump essentially did an infomercial for Tesla on the White House lawn.

Now, what will happen to Elon Musk's brand? Who is his audience now? Who is the audience? Who is the consumer who wants to be associated with Tesla and with Elon Musk?

I think this is also just a huge test of Donald Trump's brand, because how much will Donald Trump's brand potentially be damaged by Elon Musk going against him? Jessica, you brought up that post from Elon Musk saying, President Trump is only going to be president for another three and a half years. I'm going to be around for 40 plus years. That is a very clear threat to President Donald Trump's brand and his base.

SCIUTTO: And you know what, Brian? It's not just branding, right? There is and could be a very real political effect to this in that Elon Musk wrote a check for $290 million for President Trump's campaign in the last cycle.

And beyond President Trump himself, lawmakers counting on Musk's money in midterm elections. Now, we don't know what he's going to do with his money. Maybe he changes his mind.

But if he does follow through on a third party, this has enormous consequences for Republican lawmakers, perhaps for the Republican majority. STELTER: And I'm not here claiming he's going to go out and create a third party for real. But let's just play this out for a second. Musk does have unique power in American politics. And that is why so many Republican congressmen have to take these threats seriously.

You know, Musk is charging Trump with hypocrisy, and he's hitting Trump where it hurts by bringing up Trump's own words from the past, his own tweets, actually pointing out that Trump used to argue for a balanced budget, used to argue against deficits.

You know, earlier this afternoon, Musk tweeted out, where is that man? Where was that guy I used to like? Was he replaced by a body double? By the way, that's a Biden conspiracy theory, an anti-Biden conspiracy theory.

So literally, Musk comparing Trump to Biden. I mean, that's how vicious it's become just in the past couple of hours. You know, we have Trump saying Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave.

Sure would love to hear more reporting about that, right? The idea that Trump asked Musk to leave, that's incredibly hard to believe.

But we do know that Musk was a drag on Trump and on the Republican brand for the past few months. We know that Musk was being used by Democrats in campaign ads, for example. It reminds me of that line, never wrestle with a pig because you'll get dirty and the pig likes it.

Well, everybody in this situation is dirty now.

DEAN: That is, yep, that's it.

SCIUTTO: We won't ask you to identify the pig in that metaphor.

DEAN: Brian and Hadas, I want you to stay with us. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: Welcome back to Breaking News Coverage. We're watching an absolute back-and-forth breakup, very emotional breakup spill out into public view over -- between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump when just, what, less than a week ago we saw them in the Oval Office together.

There they are. President Trump giving Elon Musk a golden key to the White House. And now, this is spilling out into public view. We're seeing it. Musk posting a tremendous amount of posts on X. Among them, the President wouldn't be President without him. He wouldn't have won.

Donald Trump threatening to cancel Elon Musk's company's governmental contracts and more.

SCIUTTO: See, you know, you could look at it as just personal, but it's not because it has so -- and I was just writing down, I was writing down little bubbles here of all the things this breakup touches on. There's the political aspect, right?

Trump standing with Musk's money, but also Musk voters, you know, any damage there. He's talking about starting a third party. Does Musk write checks for GOP candidates in the midterm elections or does he try to run against them with third-party candidates? There's the fate of the Big, Beautiful Bill, right? Because Musk is now openly --

DEAN: Which is what this all started about.

SCIUTTO: -- lobbying against it. Impact on Tesla, whose shares are down 17 percent now. Impact on SpaceX. Trump is threatening to cancel contracts. Not clear how he does that because there's no clear replacement for SpaceX. Starlink as well.

Again, you know, this is not just a personal Twitter battle. It has potential consequences in a number of spaces.

DEAN: Well, this is the man running -- the president, obviously, and then Elon, who was helping run the United States, the United States government.

I want to bring in Jeff Zeleny. And Jeff, you know, I keep going back to just not that long ago when they were in the Oval Office together. And I think we were talking earlier. It was almost as if the Trump administration kind of breathed a sigh of relief. OK, maybe we get out of this without some spectacular breakup. Everyone can peacefully go their own ways. And that is not what is happening.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It is not what is happening. And in fact, a few times along the way, as I think back, there have been a few small bumps along the road. The White House officials always push back on any tension and friction.

And there really hasn't been like this. But let's go back to, it's about a year ago last summer when Elon Musk got involved with Donald Trump. He was not a longtime fan of Donald Trump.

I mean, he was more of a Democrat over the years, but he decided that he was going to back Donald Trump, largely because he was annoyed at the Biden administration for not involving him more in electric vehicles and things.

But anyway, Elon Musk became a fixture on the Trump campaign trail.

[15:45:00]

$275 million in Pennsylvania. It helped him get elected, no doubt. But right after that, Elon Musk was a central figure at Mar-a-Lago. He helped form this cabinet.

DEAN: Yes.

ZELENY: He stayed in the Lincoln bedroom. There is no one who's closer to Donald Trump other than a family member, other than Elon Musk. That's why this is so extraordinary.

And for him now to be talking about the Epstein files and other matters, we do not know where this is going to escalate from. But again, what impact does it have on legislation? I still think we don't know the answer to that because Trump still controls the MAGA base.

I think most senators are still going to vote for the Trump policy bill, but we shall see.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we'll see. You know, the other thing I didn't have on my initial list, getting longer by the minute, DOGE.

DEAN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I mean, he was the spirit and the leader behind DOGE with the chainsaw, et cetera. Its work had already slowed down. Is DOGE done now? If Musk is, you know, expelled, voted off the island?

ZELENY: I think the idea of it being sort of a big piece is done, but the work is not done. And here's why. There's still so many people who are now embedded into these various agencies who came in as DOGE employees. And they are working --

SCIUTTO: Yes, but does Trump trust those? If they're Musk people, does he trust having Musk people inside agencies?

ZELENY: Well, we'll see. I mean, like these are fairly like mid-level people who have really, they have changed how government has worked. But the whole idea of DOGE writ large, largely was not a success.

I mean, don't forget he was saying $2 trillion in savings, then $1 trillion. It's been nowhere near that. But a lot of damage has been done and maybe it's just the beginning of that as well.

DEAN: Yes, And you make it such a good point, which is no one was closer to him than a family member. And when that much emotion and closeness is involved, things can get very ugly.

ZELENY: And he is sure that he's not afraid of Donald Trump. And that is also a rarity in this town in terms of Republicans.

DEAN: That's true. All right, Jeff, thank you so much. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: As we are tracking this fight between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, one of his companies, Tesla's stock, is seeing a dive, down about 14 percent today.

CNN's Matt Egan is joining us now. And Matt, we should note, we may be seeing the president at about 4 p.m. We're waiting and tracking that to see if he says anything. But in the meantime, this is having a real world impact on a business -- Tesla. MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Jessica, that's right. I mean, we are witnessing a very public and very ugly breakup between two of the most powerful people on the planet. And on the one hand, this was entirely predictable.

And yet, it is still shocking to see and to see it just spill out into public view. And this is something that is unnerving investors, particularly Tesla investors. As you mentioned, the stock is down 15 percent on the day.

This sell-off is wiping off about $150 billion in value from Tesla shares. The stock opened down today, but the selling just escalated as the battle between President Trump and Elon Musk continued. And selling really hit a crescendo when the president put out that True Social post earlier this afternoon, where he kind of went after Elon Musk's business empire, or at least threatened to.

He said the easiest way to save money in our budget, billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts. So a not-so-subtle reference there to how the president could fire back at Elon Musk.

And look, this is something that is concerning analysts that I'm talking to. Veteran tech analyst Dan Ives said that, you know, you don't want to get on Trump's bad side. You also don't want to alienate your customers, right? And in some ways, Elon Musk already did that, right?

His very public embrace of Trump, helping to get him to the White House and then becoming one of the faces of his administration, that already alienated a big segment of Tesla's customers. Now he could be alienating another big segment, right? These are Trump supporters who are not going to be very happy with the fact that Elon Musk is battling the president here.

So this was already a very messy situation for Tesla and for Elon Musk, but it just got a lot messier.

SCIUTTO: And other Musk companies, of course, with potential implications, Starlink and SpaceX among them.

DEAN: Indeed. Matt Egan, thanks so much for that. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Just a matter of minutes at the top of the hour, President Trump is scheduled to appear at the White House. This was a previously scheduled event, but we will be watching to see if he now responds, adds to -- adds to the ongoing attacks between him and Elon Musk that is now exploding online, and it is covering everything from Musk now claiming he won Trump, the 2024 election, to Trump threatening to cancel Musk's federal contracts. DEAN: It is ever escalating, and I, you know, I would assume we have not heard from Donald Trump since he threatened to cancel Musk's contracts, so there is probably more to come.

But what you're looking at is Friday, not even a week ago, when these two stood next to each other and said very nice things, and Elon Musk was given a golden key to the White House, so things have unraveled --

SCIUTTO: That's past.

DEAN: -- quite quickly.

SCIUTTO: That moment is past.

DEAN: And look, Trump's legislation, a lot of things, as you've noted, hang in the balance, but for Republicans right now, it's that legislation on The Hill that certainly is getting a lot of attention. So we're going to keep an eye on all of that.

In the meantime, the highly anticipated testimony from a key accuser in the Sean Diddy Combs criminal trial is now underway.

This woman who's testifying under the pseudonym Jane says she was in an open relationship with Combs for about three years.

SCIUTTO: Former Florida state attorney Dave Aronberg is here. Dave Ehrenberg, thanks so much for joining. Earlier, as we noted in this broadcast, the judge threatened to throw Combs out of the courtroom entirely.

How often have you seen something like that in your experience?

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Jim, good to be with you. You sometimes see this with defendants who represent themselves, but he is well-represented, so his lawyers must be very frustrated that he's engaging in these histrionics. You're not supposed to communicate with a jury.

There's another thing here. If Combs wanted to communicate with a jury, there's an easy way to do it. He could just take the stand, but he's not going to do that.

So you can't have it both ways. You can't remain silent, which is your right, and at the same time talk to the jury through your eyes and other expressions. That's not fair, and the judge is not going to put up with it.

DEAN: And we should note the jury didn't hear this warning to Combs. They weren't in there when this was given. So, Dave, that being said, though, how might this play in the courtroom?

I mean, obviously, if he does do this again and get bounced, that's a very big deal that he's not sitting there. But how might this affect what's going on in the courtroom today?

ARONBERG: Well, the judge could issue a curative instruction, and that would be embarrassing in front of the jury to tell the jury disregard the defendant's actions and reactions. That would be bad for him. But right now the jury is kept away from this, so it shouldn't affect the trial, but it is very interesting because it shows you the sense of privilege that Combs has to do things that other defendants don't get a chance to do.

He thinks he's above the law. That's why he's on trial, and you can see that in the courtroom to this day.

SCIUTTO: Turning now, if we can, to the testimony from the latest witness going purely by the pseudonym Jane, what does the prosecution need from her testimony, specifically on what has been one of the biggest challenges, it seems, for the prosecution, which is proving the racketeering charge?

ARONBERG: Right, well, it's corroboration, really. This is to corroborate Cassie's testimony. Cassie was the most important witness. She connects all the dots. But the prosecution needs more corroboration, and Jane provides corroboration. I mean, she's saying that she dated Combs, like Cassie did, and she was terrorized and abused by Diddy, just like Cassie was.

So this helps with the human trafficking count because for human trafficking you need to show force, fraud, or coercion, and that is what Jane is testifying to.

As for racketeering, she'd need to show that Combs' employees were part of this ongoing criminal enterprise to commit crimes, and I don't think she moves a needle as far on that charge as the human trafficking charge, which is still very powerful against the defendant.

DEAN: We just have about 30 seconds or so left, but I do want to ask you, Jane is the second witness to testify under a pseudonym. Does the jury read anything into that or no?

ARONBERG: Absolutely, Jessica, because the jury is probably wondering why is she using a fake name? Is she really scared of this guy? Is this guy really that bad? Does he have associates who would do harm to her? Are they like the mafia? And you know who gets prosecuted for racketeering?

The mafia. So yes, the jury is paying attention to it all.

DEAN: Wow.

[16:00:00]

SCIUTTO: Dave Aronberg, thanks so much.

And goodness, in a day that started with the primary confrontation being a phone call between the Chinese president and Donald Trump became one of a quite public breakup between Trump and his ally, Elon Musk.

DEAN: It certainly did, as a day in 2025 can be. We go from one thing swing wildly to the next, so we're going to continue to monitor all of this. Thanks so much for being here with us.

END