It was nice while it lasted, but the relationship between President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seems to have gone up in flames faster than a vandalized Tesla dealership.

On Thursday afternoon, Musk appeared to back a call from right-wing writer Ian Miles Cheong to impeach Trump and replace him with Vice President J.D. Vance.

"Yes!" Musk replied after Cheong posted, “President vs Elon. Who wins? My money’s on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him."

Musk spent months heading up DOGE and trying to cut spending in the bloated and overgrown federal government.

Betrayed

He now feels betrayed by Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which asks for a $5 million debt ceiling increase and expects to spend at least $2 trillion more than the government will bring in during the next year.

Musk called the bill an "abomination" and signaled an end to his support for Trump after hanging out with him at Mar-A-Lago and in the White House almost nightly at the beginning of Trump's term.

Musk also donated large sums of money to Trump and other Republicans, and appeared at rallies in support of Trump, but now, predictably, seems disillusioned with the way politics in Washington works.

It's almost whiplash-inducing, the speed with which Musk has turned on Trump.

"Disappointed"

For his part, Trump is defending the bill and said he is "disappointed" that Musk has been so vocal against it.

“I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill,” Trump told reporters Thursday in the Oval Office while meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.”

The brawl has turned ugly, with Trump suggesting that the U.S. could freeze out Musk's business interests in the U.S. and Musk alleging that Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk said on X. “[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

“Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,” Musk said in a later post.

Bound to happen

After Musk made the allegations, Trump said, “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago," and continued to tout his "big beautiful bill" as a fix to the previous administration's failures.

It's understandable that someone who is outside the political arena would become rapidly disillusioned with how Washington works. These two brash and explosive personalities were bound to cause an explosion sooner or later.