Long-simmering tensions between Elon Musk and other members of the Trump administration exploded into physical violence in mid-April, with Musk aggressively shouldering Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Bessent battling back, according to a second-hand account from Trump political advisor and Musk-despiser Steve Bannon. First reported by the Washington Post on Saturday, Bannon's tale comes amid a raging battle between Trump and Musk that's left Trump saying he has no desire to patch things up and assumes their relationship -- which by all accounts played a decisive role in Trump's return to power -- is over.  

Citing what he'd been told by others, Bannon said the two rivals had been with Trump in the Oval Office to pitching their respective preferred picks for the role of acting IRS commissioner. According to earlier reporting by the New York Times, Bessent was irate that Musk had managed to go around him and install Gary Shapley in the role, despite the fact that the IRS reports to the Treasury Department. Bessent told Trump he wanted Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender in the slot -- and Trump agreed, capping a chaotic spectacle that saw the IRS overseen by three different acting commissioners in a single week. 

As they left the office and headed down a West Wing hallway, Bessent and Musk started insulting each other, Bannon said, with Bessent ridiculing Musk for claiming he would identify over a trillion dollars in government waste, fraud and abuse, with Bessent apparently claiming Musk was coming nowhere close: "You’re a fraud. You’re a total fraud!" 

That line of attack allegedly prompted Musk to slam his shoulder into Bessent's ribs, hitting him hard "like a rugby player," said Bannon. The Treasury secretary physically retaliated in some manner, before multiple bystanders outside the national security adviser's office intervened to break up the fight. Musk was then supposedly escorted from the West Wing. “President Trump heard about it and said, ‘This is too much’,” Bannon said. In the following days, Musk announced that he would start easing back from his role in the administration to give more attention to his many businesses.  

Bannon's gossipy, second-hand account in the Washington Post's decidedly Musk-hostile report came two days after the told the New York Times that he was pushing to have Musk deported. “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,” Bannon said, adding that he also told Trump to pursue a narcotics investigation against Musk. 

According to the Post, the Musk-Bessent fight was just one of many manifestations of friction between the world's richest man and others in the administration who resented his "move fast and break things" approach and the influence he wielded not as a Senate-confirmed cabinet member but as a mere "special government employee." Musk was seen as failing to stay in his ill-defined lane, with no better example than his bypassing of cabinet members by issuing direct, emailed commands to nearly every employee in the federal government: 

The first signs of trouble emerged in February, when an email landed in inboxes throughout the government directing federal employees to describe their five accomplishments over the past week. Cabinet officials and other agency leaders weren’t given advance notice of the memo, causing consternation at the highest levels of Trump’s administration.

This week's massive meltdown in the Trump-Musk relationship started when Musk lashed out against the "Big Beautiful Bill," calling Trump's cornerstone legislation a "disgusting abomination" and heaping scorn on House members who voted for it (Kentucky's Thomas Massie and Ohio's Warren Davidson were the sole GOP "no" votes).   

Things quickly went downhill, with Trump threatening to kill Musk's SpaceX and Starlink contracts, only to have Musk announce he was immediately decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which NASA relies on to transport supplies and crew members to the International Space Station (he later eased back on that threat.) Musk also backed a suggestion that Trump be impeached, and said "the real reason [the Epstein files] have not been made public" is that Trump is in them. 

For now, the outright hostilities have eased, but there's little reason to think the Trump-Musk relationship will be meaningfully restored. As an unnamed administration ally close to the Trump and Musk camps told the Post, "There’s hope that there’s going to be a reconciliation. But it’ll never be the same.”