Vice President JD Vance and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles spoke by phone with Elon Musk on Friday, during which the three discussed the feud between President Donald Trump and the tech billionaire, two sources familiar with the discussion told CNN.
Musk ultimately backed off from his attacks following the phone call, deleting his most critical social media posts about the president — including the one relating to Jeffrey Epstein and another agreeing with the suggestion that Trump should be impeached. On Wednesday, Musk went further, writing on X that he regrets some of his posts about Trump, adding, “They went too far.”
CNN has reached out to a spokesperson for Musk.
The call, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, came after Vance had asked the president last week how he wanted him to publicly handle the feud, especially given Vance was slated to do an interview with conservative podcast host Theo Von hours later, one of the sources told CNN.
Trump urged Vance to be diplomatic, the source said.
The sources familiar with the discussion told CNN that by the time Wiles and Vance got on the phone with Musk, it appeared Trump and the Tesla founder had already begun to deescalate their feud.
“Musk appeared to already be backing off at that point, and the president wasn’t as pissed by then as he was the day before,” one of the sources said.
White House officials have since left the door open to the possibility the two men will eventually repair their relationship. While at first it appeared Musk’s attacks may have been an irrevocable break in their alliance, the president has internally not been as harsh toward Musk in recent days as some had previously expected, they said.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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