Jim Watson / AFP
Donald Trump still lets himself up against Elon Musk and does not exclude to expel him from the United States. (Illustration image during a press conference on February 11, 2025)
United States-After their ultra-mediatized rupture, Donald Trump and Elon Musk continue to set off by interposed declarations. The dispute between the two former allies even seems to go always further. After having criticized him again on Tuesday, July 1, Donald Trump said he did not exclude to expel the country the boss of Tesla, a naturalized American in 2002, and send him back to his country of origin: South Africa.
“We will have to think about it”said the tenant of the White House, interviewed by a journalist on the subject. He also mentioned the possibility that the Commission for Government Effectiveness (DOGE)-created by and for Elon Musk in order to reduce federal spending-could turn against his ex-director and question the public funds invested in his companies, especially in the space.
“We may have to launch the Doge on the case of Elon”said Donald Trump duringAn interview that you can see below. “Do you know what Doge is?” The monster that might have to reverse and devour Elon. Wouldn’t it be terrible? He receives a lot of subsidies ”, threatened the Republican. In a message published earlier this Tuesday on his social social platform, he accused Tesla’s boss of being “By far” the one who had received “More subsidies than any other individual in history”.
Later in the morning, the American president had renewed his warnings. “Doge will look at Musk” side “had he warned before adding, always more threatening: “I don’t think he should play this little game with me”in reference to the campaign led by Elon Musk against the « BBB » or « big beautiful bill » (the “Large and beautiful law”), a megaproject of budgetary law darling by Trump but whose boss of SpaceX says that he will worsen the American debt.
Musk threatens to create his own party if the “BBB” is adopted
The two conservatives, in full « bromance » During the start of the mandate, had a thunderous dispute on June 5. Very reassembled against the « BBB » that he had described as“Repagnant abomination”Elon Musk accused Donald Trump of« ingratitude »going so far as to say that he was one of the « dossiers Epstein »named after the millionaire in the heart of a pedocriminal scandal that killed himself in prison.
The Tech Conservative magnate had finally returned on June 11, regretting “Have gone too far”. But his opposition to the “Large and beautiful law” held over Monday, June 30, when he published a series of tweets on X to expand the project. “It is obvious, given the breathtaking spending of the text – which records in record the debt ceiling by $ 5,000 billion – that we live in a country with the single party: the Party of pigs who eat”vociferated the tech billionaire.
“If this crazy law is adopted, the party of America will be created the next day”he warned in another message, describing it as a “Democratic-republican transpartisan party so that the people really have a voice”. A threat to which is added that of funding the campaign to the republican primaries of candidates opposed to elected officials who would have voted the budgetary law. “They will lose their primary next year”wrote Elon Musk.
A threat of expulsion not so unrealistic as that
Unsurprisingly, all these attacks did not please Donald Trump and his entourage who dropped dogs. Steve Bannon, ex-advisor of the president and cantor of the American far right, had asked for the expulsion of the boss of Tesla from June 5, in a telephone interview New York Times. A threat now taken up by the tenant of the White House … and which could well be applicable, as the media pointed out Newsweek.
Because before receiving American nationality in 2002, Elon Musk has lived in the United States since 1992, when he came to study at the University of Pennsylvania. Its naturalization was allowed after several years to live and work on American territory. But a small problem arises: according to a survey of Washington Post Released in October 2024, the tech giant would have founded a company in 1995 when he owned a student visa … and he never signed up at the University of Stanford as he was committed to it. An obstacle to American law which could cost it very much 30 years later.
Legislation across the Atlantic provides that naturalization can be revoked if it has been “Obtained by the concealment of a material fact or by a false deliberate declaration”, recall Newsweek. A sanction that could apply to Elon Musk “On purely legal bases”according to Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, an expert in immigration laws questioned by Wired. Same story with Amanda Frost, a law professor also questioned by the online media. Now it remains to be seen if Donald Trump really decides to put his threat of expulsion on execution.
