In a Classic Authoritarian Move, Trump Threatens to Crush Musk if the Tech Tycoon Funds Democrats Now

Jun 08, 2025

The political break between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has had its predictable outcome. Where the administration once used government power to drum up business for Musk’s companies, now Trump is threatening to cut off his government contracts as retaliation for switching sides.

NBC News reports:

President Donald Trump on Saturday said there would be “serious consequences” if tech mogul Elon Musk funds Democratic candidates to run against Republicans who vote in favor of the GOP’s sweeping budget bill.
“If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview, but declined to share what those consequences would be. …
“I think it’s a very bad thing, because he’s very disrespectful. You could not disrespect the office of the President,” he added. …
He also wrote on Thursday, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” referring to federal contracts with SpaceX.

Every authoritarian leader has wealthy and politically connected allies whose support he uses during his rise, only to turn against them once he gets into power. He turns on his old allies precisely because he once needed them—which makes them unacceptable competitors for power and influence.

These are the rules of the authoritarian system Trump is attempting to impose, in which government power in all its forms will be used to punish political opponents.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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