Days after the very public breakup between President Trump and his former advisor Elon Musk, the latter appears to be doing damage control.
“I’m sorry for some of my posts about President [Trump] last week,” Musk posted on X, his social media platform, shortly after 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday. “They went too far.”
Trump has been active on social media early Wednesday but has not publicly responded to Musk’s apology.
However, in a previously recorded podcast interview for the New York Post that aired Wednesday morning, Trump said he held no “rancor” toward Musk.
“I don’t blame him for anything, but I was a little disappointed,” Trump said, adding that he hadn’t “thought much about him lately.”
When asked if he could forgive Musk, Trump said “I think so,” but that “my only job now is to put this country back to a higher level than ever.”
The president told NBC News on Saturday that he has no desire to mend his relationship with Musk, saying he assumes it’s over.
“I’m too busy with other things,” Trump said, adding: “I have no intention of talking to him.”
Trump was critical of Musk in that interview, saying the tech billionaire had been “disrespectful to the office of the president.”
But Trump also seemed to soften some of his positions. He said he had given no further thought to his previous threat to cancel federal contracts for Musk’s companies or to investigate Musk’s immigration status, as Trump’s ally Steve Bannon publicly suggested.
Meanwhile, Musk quietly deleted some of his most inflammatory posts from the previous week, including posts endorsing a call for Trump’s impeachment, linking Trump to the files of the late sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, and saying Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession this year.
Trump said on Monday that he has no plans to discontinue Musk’s Starlink satellite internet system, which was installed at the White House despite security concerns — though he may move his Tesla, which he bought in March, off the premises. And he told reporters he wouldn’t have a problem if Musk called.
“We had a good relationship, and I only wish him well — very well, actually,” Trump said. A clip of the exchange was posted on X, where Musk responded with a heart emoji.
Source: www.npr.org