Tech billionaire, Elon Musk changed his cellphone number and stopped replying to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s texts following a dramatic fallout over the costs buried in the Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill, Johnson disclosed on the latest episode of Pod Force One, released Wednesday, July 16.
“I sent him a long text message, and then his phone number changed after the blow-up,” Johnson told The Post’s Miranda Devine, explaining how he realized too late that he was sending messages “into the ether.”
“I look forward to meeting with him in person. We got to make that right,” the speaker added.
Johnson admitted that despite Musk ghosting him, he still tried multiple times to reach out through intermediaries — and even held out hope that Musk and Trump might eventually patch things up.
The high-profile rift erupted in late May, when Musk split from the Trump administration and then railed against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, blasting it as “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination” over its impact on the deficit. The tech mogul, who had made deficit reduction a top priority while influencing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was furious the bill didn’t go far enough.
Still, Republicans pushed it through Congress, and Trump signed it into law on July 4.
A day later, Musk announced plans to launch a new centrist “America Party,” calling for an alternative to the entrenched two-party system. Trump quickly dismissed the idea as “ridiculous.”
“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump lamented on Truth Social.
Speaker Johnson said there were “a multitude of factors” behind the Trump-Musk bust-up, and noted Musk’s frustration over the bill’s handling of electric vehicles and Biden-era green mandates.
“He generally knew what we were doing, we talked about it for months,” Johnson said. “The final product maybe didn’t meet all of his expectations … but look, I let other people judge that. I’ve got to keep my eyes on the prize.”
Johnson, who praised Musk as a “genius,” insisted he still respects the billionaire and wants him to better understand the Republicans’ long game on tackling the debt.
“We can’t fix this stuff overnight, but we have a plan. I think that’s going to be pleasing to everybody who’s worried about our deficit and our debt,” he said.
Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles also weighed in on the once-close Trump-Musk relationship during last week’s episode.
“The president was very, very kind to him, and Elon had so much to offer us,” Wiles told Devine. “It was a great thing when it was a great thing — and had a very troublesome ending.”
