Elon Musk Called Trump a ‘Stone-Cold Loser,’ According to NYT Report on Billionaire’s Rocky Relationship With Ex-President

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

The New York Times reported on Thursday that billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk described former President Donald Trump as a “stone-cold loser” in 2020 and criticized his character.

According to the Times , which cited an unnamed source close to Musk, the billionaire told his associates in 2016 that Trump’s victory in election against Hillary Clinton “was proof that they were living in a simulation.”

The Times also reported that in 2020, “in a private conversation with another associate,” Musk called Trump a “stone-cold loser” and “predicted that Mr. Trump’s days as a political force were finished.”

Musk went on to support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, before eventually endorsing Trump this week with a sizable donation.

“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” wrote Musk on Saturday following the failed assassination attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania.

Trump and Musk have had a complicated relationship since 2016, and it has been reported that the Tesla and SpaceX founder has a “deep disdain” for the former president.

Following Trump’s inauguration in 2016, and just weeks after Musk said Trump was “not the right man for the job,” Musk was appointed to the president’s tech advisory council.

In 2022, however, Trump attacked Musk in a post to Truth Social:

When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless and tell me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, “drop to your knees and beg,” and he would have done it.

Musk was mocked by California Gov. Gavin Newsom for bending “the knee” this week after he donated to a pro-Trump PAC mere months after he vowed not to donate to “either candidate.”