Trump and Musk feud over who deserves credit score for 2024 election victory

[ad_1] NEW Now you can take heed to Fox Information articles!

Because the once-strong alliance between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk quickly disintegrates, the 2 titans should not solely buying and selling fireplace over the president's "massive, stunning" tax cuts and spending invoice.

Trump and Musk, who spent the primary 4 months of the president's second administration as a particular White Home advisor steering the not too long ago created Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), are additionally blasting one another over which considered one of them ought to get the credit score for Trump's decisive 2024 election victory.

The president, talking with reporters Thursday, argued, "I believe I'd have gained" even with out Musk's assistance on the marketing campaign path final yr.

Musk, the world's richest particular person and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, went all in for Trump final summer time and autumn.

MUSK UNLEASHES EPSTEIN CLAIM AGAINST TRUMP AFTER BEING BOOTED FROM DOGE

Elon Musk receives a golden key from President Donald Trump within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, D.C., Could 30, 2025, on his final day as a particular advisor to the president. (Reuters/Nathan Howard)

He endorsed the GOP presidential nominee in July proper after the assassination try towards Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Musk grew to become the highest donor of the 2024 election cycle, allotting practically $300 million in help of Trump's bid by America PAC, a Trump-aligned tremendous PAC. A lot of the cash was used for get-out-the-vote efforts and adverts within the essential battleground states as Trump and Kamala Harris confronted off for the presidency.

TRUMP SAYS HE'S ‘VERY DISAPPOINTED IN MUSK FOR OPPOSING ’BIGGEST TAX CUTS IN HISTORY'

Musk concentrated a lot of his efforts on Pennsylvania.

He joined Trump for the primary time on the marketing campaign path at an Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, then held 5 city halls within the Keystone State later in October.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk jumps on stage Oct. 5, 2024, as he joins Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump throughout a marketing campaign rally on the web site of an assassination try on Trump in Butler, Pa. (Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photos)

And Musk arrange a struggle room of types in Pittsburgh.

Trump, mentioning how Musk campaigned for him in Pennsylvania, pointed to his White Home chief of workers Susie Wiles, who was co-chair of Trump's 2024 marketing campaign.

The president famous that "Susie would say I'd have gained Pennsylvania simply anyway."

Musk, apparently watching Trump's feedback in actual time, shortly fired again on X, which Musk renamed after shopping for Twitter.

"With out me, Trump would have misplaced the election, Dems would management the Home and the Republicans could be 51-49 within the Senate," Musk wrote. "Such ingratitude."

MUSK-TRUMP 'BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL FEUD SPIRALS OUT OF CONTROL

Tom Eddy, the GOP chairman in Erie County, a longtime essential swing county in northwestern Pennsylvania, informed Fox Information that Musk "helped Trump considerably. I actually suppose so. He had cash and he had a reputation."

However Eddy added that "my intestine feeling could be that Trump is mainly saying, ‘Look. I gained the election. These folks helped me, however I gained.’ That is what he is attempting to deliver throughout."

Veteran Republican strategist John Brabender, who served as a media marketing consultant to the 2024 Trump marketing campaign, informed Fox Information Digital that "Elon and lots of others performed an essential position in serving to the president win states all throughout America."

"However the backside line is there’s just one fixed and one one that is most accountable, by far, and that’s President Trump. That’s who folks voted for," Brabender added.

Longtime Republican marketing consultant Dave Carney, a veteran of quite a few GOP presidential campaigns over the previous few many years, stated the president and Musk are each proper.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Carney, who steered Protect America, one other top-spending Trump-aligned tremendous PAC, informed Fox Information that Trump "might need gained with out the assistance, however you possibly can't underestimate how essential that assist was."

Pointing to Protect America, Musk's America PAC and MAGA Inc, which was the primary Trump-aligned tremendous PAC, Carney stated all of them deserved "an incredible quantity of credit score" and "simply made it simpler" for Trump to brush all seven battleground states and win the White Home.

Carney additionally highlighted the Musk-aligned tremendous PAC's "unprecedented discipline effort, mail and different communications … to end up these low-propensity Trump voters."

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter primarily based within the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the marketing campaign path from coast to coast."