Trump has said he will not “destroy Elon Musk’s companies”

President Donald Trump on Thursday pushed back on claims that he intends to harm Elon Musk’s companies, amid scrutiny over whether he supports federal agencies partnering with the Tesla CEO’s ventures.

“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the U.S. Government. This is not so!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE — in fact, THRIVE like never before!” he continued. “The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us. We are setting records every day, and I want to keep it that way!”

The comments follow remarks from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said Wednesday that she did not believe Trump supports federal agencies contracting with Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, xAI.

When asked whether Trump would seek to cancel a newly announced Department of Defense contract with xAI, Leavitt said she would need to discuss the matter with the president.

xAI was awarded a contract worth up to $200 million by the Pentagon last week, alongside AI developers Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. This week, xAI also rolled out a new product line tailored for U.S. government use, branded as “Grok for Government.”

Trump has previously signaled he might cut federal support to Musk’s companies. In June, he said, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”

The evolving relationship between the two high-profile figures has been contentious. Their feud began in late May, around the time Musk’s role as a special government advisor ended and he began publicly criticizing the administration’s tax and spending policies.