The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Brags About Insane Plot to Screw Musk: Wolff

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to dissect the explosive feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump—two billionaires with their own media platforms and no off switch. Wolff recounts how Musk, cast out by Trump, has resurfaced with threats to bankroll a third party and destabilize GOP control. Trump, ever theatrical, responds by smearing Musk as a drug-addled foreigner, even suggesting deportation. But beneath the chaos lies a real threat: Musk’s billions could tip the Senate and House, risking everything for Trump. Wolff warns this isn’t just noise—it’s a blood feud. And in Trump’s world, dominance matters more than governance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you think Elon is crazy? I think he's crazy. I mean, all of these phones, he asks a question and then you respond, yes, of course. I think he's crazy. You agree with me. So he will now use everything to paint Elon as the bad guy. I'm Joanna Cole's chief content officer of The Daily Beast, and you are lying in the bath to walking your dog to ironing your clothes to or possibly cooking

scrambled eggs to the Daily Beast podcast. I am here with. none other than Michael Wolf today. And we are recording this on the morning after the Senate approved the big beautiful bill and sent it back to the House of Representatives for their comments, all to be done before the July the 4th holiday. So we have no time to waste. And of course, Michael's favorite person is back in the ring with Donald Trump.

All right. Michael Wolf is in the House. I am so excited. I'm also a little overwhelmed because we haven't spoken for. I want to say six days, since which the world has turned. We've gone in and out of the beautiful bill, and they're back. Your favourite person is back. Say those two words to me. Three words. Elon is back.

Elon is back. Elon. I thought you were going to elide them and just say Elon's back. Or he's back. Yeah, no, that's, I should have. Good editing. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. So. Let's remind everybody, because we have to remember.

Although this happened just days ago, it's necessary to remind, I think, everybody that Elon just recently was a whip dog. Trump had cast him out and Elon seemed to have been groveling back. Elon seemed to have be saying, yeah, I get it. You know, this is Trump and you can't go against it. Right. And he regretted the emails that he sent. He deleted the one about Epstein, which was the triggering email to the White House. But, as you've said, and I'm going to edit, he's back.

No, and it's, I think he's back in a really threatening way. Oh, my goodness. Do tell. Do tell. Well, you know, I mean, he is saying, I'm going to start a third party. And the media response seems to be, well, it's very hard to start a third party. That's not the point. The point is that in both in both the House and the Senate, Trump's majorities are incredibly precarious.

So, you know, $300 million here, $300 million there certainly is going to make, can make a difference. So it's a majority of three in both the Senate and the Congress, I think. And this is because Elon doesn't believe in the big, beautiful bill. he thinks it will add to the massive deficit that America is already dealing with, and it completely undermines what he was doing in Doge, which was to cut government spending. Yeah, and let's remember, in the contrast, and there are many contrasts between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Elon Musk is fundamentally a manager, a great manager, I mean, possibly a genius manager. And so what we have in this big, beautiful bill is non-management, anti-management.

We can just do whatever we want. Pay no mind to what this is going to cost. And, you know, I mean, from the Trump point of view, this is really let's pass this bill to show that I can pass this bill. Right. And it hasn't really even mattered to Trump. that the bill has changed significantly, both for better or worse, depending upon who you are. But for Trump, it's this is going to pass. It's going to pass because I have to have it passed because that is the proof of my dominance.

Right. And Trump is pushing it forward because it's momentum driven by the force of his personality. As you're always saying, administration of one. But what's interesting about the Elon of it all is that Elon is truly an interesting match for Donald Trump. And amazingly, I mean, again, you couldn't make this up. Christopher Nolan couldn't come up with this. They both have their own social media platforms. And though you're always saying, truth social, social media platform of one, nevertheless it allows him to amplify his message, Donald Trump, obviously.

And then Elon ketamine-fueled or not. There is some debate about that. In X, I got to say, has kind of become a platform of one. True, but we're all paying attention to both of them. Yeah, no, no. I think we do, but they are, you know, I mean, social media platforms, as we once conceive them, were the voices of multitudes. And now very clearly, certainly true social,

because literally there is only, it is a ghost town except for Donald Trump. Right, right. But then also X or formally Twitter, which Elon owns lockstock and barrel and dictates completely. Its message is the message that he wants. What I find fascinating is the way they're both going at it, the fact that Elon appeared to be a whipdog. By the way, just to throw in there, last time we were here, we were talking about Iran and had the nuclear facilities or nuclear facilities, as you say, been obliterated. and here we are talking about something completely different because the story is rattled on. Ron, what Iran.

Yeah, exactly. And who remembers the parade? Who remembers the tariffs? But what we have here is Elon saying that he is restraining himself. But now the bill is being tossed back to the house. When does he decide whether or not he's going to create this third party, do you think? Well, I think probably if the bill passes. I mean, I don't know.

Which he looks likely to do. Yeah, it does look. I mean, Trump will, it does, because it doesn't matter what's in the bill. Trump will make any compromise or approve any compromise just so long as there is a bill. He'll buy anyone off, you know, as we saw in the. Lisa McCursky in Alaska. Yeah, in the Senate. So he'll get that.

But even if, even were that bill to fail, I think Elon is, is. is pissed. I think it's a blood score now. I think on the part of both of them. I know I was tracking some Trump phone calls on Monday night. And it's sort of worth explaining here that over a long period of time, I've gotten to know and cultivated a lot of people who Trump regularly speaks to. I mean, these are some of these people I've known well before Trump. And the interesting, Trump speaks to them and then they speak to other people. They literally, you can see them. Trump calls and then they get on the phone.

You'll never guess what he said. So, I mean, this is part of how this administration works with its, you know, just, you could call it ultimate accessibility. Right. Or weird transparency, actually. Yeah, no. And, you know, in Trump, whoever he calls, he says the same thing to everybody. So you know exactly what is on his mind.

And the people he calls, they play their part. They agree with him because that's, well, you don't even have to, you just listen and go, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. But then they call because it's always so mind-boggling. And but at any rate. And it must still be something to get a call from the president of the United States when it's Donald Trump. Because it's still a weird disconnect that this man is in the White House as powerful as he is. Well, I have gotten the Donald Trump calls and it is incredibly weird because this is the president of the United States who you cannot get off the phone.

Right. So it's kind of like you feel I'm holding up the whole world because. I just can't get rid of him. Or you might be saving the whole world because he could be having a much more powerful conversation with someone else that triggers something. And there was, and there came, there have been several occasions where it's Donald Trump on the phone and he's on, in my house, on the speaker phone. And your children are running around in the background.

Well, no, they come to attention. Everybody is like, oh. It's like, yeah, or the car phone. Yeah, and you hear the voice. I mean, the voice really stops everybody dead in their tracks because it could be only one person. Right. Okay.

So talk me through. So let me do the month. So the phone calls. Okay. So what he's saying, so this is. So this is on Monday. We're recording this on Wednesday morning. Right.

And he's like, you know, calling him and say, do you think Elon is crazy? I think he's crazy. I mean, all of these. tones. He asks a question and then you respond, yes, of course. I think he's crazy. You agree with me. And then so he asks the question. He answers the question and then infers that you have agreed with him on this question. Or even that it's your thesis. So you think he's crazy. But his point underlying all this is that for this week in particular, he does think Elon is crazy. Yeah, no. And he was, he actually went in one of these phone calls.

or many of them. He was on about, you know, you know, you know how many drugs he takes. You know, he takes drugs all the time. You know that, don't you? You know, the New York Times wrote about it. They said he takes drugs. And then he went on to say, say, you know, actually, actually, we dropped a dime to the New York Times on Elon's drug taking.

He says that to people? So they were the source of the story in the New York Times about Elon's drug. Well, we have no idea. He is just claiming credit for that now. Right, because he senses. Right. He wants to be behind that particular. Well, he wants to be behind everything.

And that's a helpful, that's a helpful narrative to him. Right. And it kind of, then he went on and said, we investigated him. So this is that. So he will now use everything to paint Elon into as the bad guy. I mean, he's deporting Elon. Well, he's saying he might deport Elon, right? But Elon is also addressing it.

I mean, Elon sounded pretty defensive on X when he said, I'm not taking ketamine. I once took it. I'm not taking drugs. Well, I think that New York Times story, for instance, was pretty devastating. I mean, it basically said that he was high all the time and effectively dysfunctional because of it. Right. And disassociating. Yeah.

I mean, this is the most successful businessman of the era is dysfunctional. that's a dysfunction. Maybe we should all embrace. Yeah, true. Well, I'm sure we could get you some Ketterman for the next podcast if you would like it. In fact, I think we should try and do a podcast on Ketterman. But for now, Trump has responded to Elon's threat that he's going to start a third party by saying that they might set doge upon him. They might cut his grants and that they may deport him because he's an immigrant. Again, another example of Trump willing to say anything at any. time. So none of this makes any sense. You know, if the government, if the government can do

things, things to frustrate Elon, Elon can do things business-wise to frustrate the government. I mean, basically, NASA is now run by Elon Musk. So this is just social media talk, I suppose. But it's just the crazy of it. And the fact it's the richest man in the world once again, up against the most powerful man in the world. They both have their own social media platforms, and we're just the audience. This has always been an extraordinary match from the get-go because it is so asymmetrical.

I mean, these guys, other than one is the most of this and one is the most of that, they have nothing in common. I mean, even from a policy point of view, they have nothing in common. I mean, Elon has been this really staunch environmentalist. I mean, he has, what is he set out to do fundamentally, is to revolutionize the entire energy industry.

And Trump obviously has no interest in that. And Trump has, and he has always said it and just said this the other day. He always knew I was against EVs. Right, right. Despite the fact he had them on the lawn, got into a red one and said, wow, computer. It's still my favorite quote of everything he said that he got into a test and went, wow. None of this from any policy point of view made sense. So how did they get together?

Why did they get together? You know, my theory would be that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, Elon, and for all the ways you can criticize Elon, the one thing that you cannot do is say, the guy is not smart. Right, right. And so he, obviously, he had spent some time before with Trump. And this was in 2000, and he had spent time during the 2016 campaign and then after in the, during the first administration.

And I'm sure he decided this guy is a, you know, feeble mind. You know, of course he's going to take any help he can get from anybody with half a brain. Enter Elon, and also he's going to be impressed by Elon because Elon is so rich. So I think that Elon went in with that level of certainty. Obviously, he could have an impact on Donald Trump. and many, many, many people have felt that before. And it never turns out that way. You cannot have an impact on someone who has an absolute inability, among other things, to listen to anyone.

Michael, hold on. We're coming back to that point. Let's just take a couple of messages. And we're back with Michael Wolfe discussing who else but Donald Trump and Elon Musk. So you have always predicted that between between Elon and Donald Trump, Donald Trump would always win. Do you still think that? Do you think that Elon actually has the smarts to outwit Donald Trump

and cause him really grave damage now that, as you say, this is a blood school? Well, let me add another corollary to that. Donald Trump is self-destructive. So when Donald Trump loses, which is often, I mean, he lost. It's frequently, right? It's frequently, right? It is usually because of things that he has done. So right now he has just set himself up with this big, beautiful bill to lose everything.

I mean, he has by forcing Tom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, to decide he's going to. He's going to leave politics and he's partly doing that because Trump has gone after him. You know, here's a guy that said, you know, I'm going to vote against this bill. These are my reasons. So Trump steps out, again, social media, to demonize the guy, to vilify the guy to say, I am going to primary you. I'm going to destroy you. You know, I mean, again, this Trump language, it's always. It's vindictive.

It's either, you are the best. Right. Or you are the worst. Or the worst. And I'm going to destroy you. You know, right now, Elon, he's destroying Elon. You know, after so many months of Elon was the, you know, the smartest man in the world. So he went after Tillis.

And Tillis said life is too short, basically. I'm getting out of this. Thereby, creating an open seat in North Carolina, which is a very purple state. And it is a very possible that the Democrats will take that seat. And there are several other precarious races where the Democrats could easily prevail. Now, the likelihood is that the Democrats will prevail in the House. That's very close. That's in the midterms next year.

Yeah. And the opposition party, you know, almost invariably gains. gains seats. So the expectation has been that he will lose the House and that will create all kinds of problems for him, investigations, you know, impeachment. But if he loses the Senate, if he loses the Senate, that is his, you know, in the first administration, the Senate saved him on two occasions from conviction. So he was impeached, the Senate convicts. If there's a Democratic majority, in the Senate, you know, he's cooked. And also all it takes is two brave or independent Republican senators in the Senate to vote with the Democrats.

I mean, it was J.D. Vance's tiebreaker that got them over the edge for the big, beautiful bill to send it back to the House, right? Exactly. So it's super close and Donald Trump somehow can't rail himself in to, he just always, goes over the top, doesn't he? Just can't stop himself. So it's highly likely that he might self-implode. Yeah.

And let's, I think it's always important to understand what's going on on here. Why would he do this? I mean, you just look at this. Why would he do this? You know, he could have made nice to Tom Tillis and the bill still would have passed. Right, right. So why does he do this? He does this because he's a showman.

You know, it's always, you know, how is. do you, you got to make the stick bigger and bigger. That's what a showman does. He can't restrain himself. He doesn't want to restrain himself. I mean, this is, this is what he

does. This is, this may be, this may be why he's going down but this is also why he succeeds. Character is destiny. You know, during the campaign in those final months, everybody around around Trump was saying focus on the economy, focus on the economy, focus on immigration.

Stop going after Kamala and saying, you know, all this, you know, fundamentally racist stuff. Right, he didn't even realize she was black. When did it happen that she was black? They were begging him. Don't know. Donors were calling in begging him. And he said, forget it. You don't know what you're talking about.

All people. The reason people like me. The reason they pay. attention is that I attack. Goodness me. Okay. So we also had this news this week that Donald Trump and Paramount are near to settling. Which is, you know, I mean, nearly unbelievable. I mean, there are various unbelievable levels here. First thing that the president of the United States sues the media for libel. And over a very specific thing, which he argued that they had edited Carmelah Harris in an interview on Israel

that they had used a different clip in the trailer for the 60 Minutes interview than they actually used in the interview and they had somehow helped her, which makes no sense because she lost the election. On top of which all news shows do this all of the time. That is just a business as usual. And why shouldn't you be able to do that? It's your news show.

You know, there are other news shows. There's Fox. This is, this is the nature of, dare I say, a free press. Right. And everyone has always, that's, you know, presidents understand this. And there's also a fundamental premise that presidents can't be libeled. It just, it just doesn't happen. I mean, there are public figures.

This, again, part of the. part of what we understand to be the workings of a free press. You know, you take it. Well, and as we know, 60 Minutes is owned by CBS's flagship news and current affairs program. It's owned by Paramount. Paramount is in the middle of a merger deal with Skydance. And Donald Trump has the ability with Brendan Carr, head of the chairman of the FCC, to disrupt this. And this was the same.

circumstance with ABC, when ABC settled with because George Stephanopoulos had said something that... In an interview with Nancy Mace. Yes, that Trump decided was libelous to him. And then they settled for 15 million. Paramount was now settling for 16 million. And let us point out, this money, these settlements go to Donald Trump. It doesn't go to the United States government. It doesn't go to the Treasury. It goes to Donald Trump. This is...

Does it go into his library fund? Well, he says it's going to his library fund. Which I imagine just to be full of copies of the art of the deal and nothing else. But just think about what an incredible money-making racket this is. I'm the president in the United States. So I'm going to sue you for libel. And because I'm the president in the United States and can, can screw you, screw you with your business in so many ways, you're going to settle with me.

So I don't screw you in so many ways. And I'm going to pocket the dough. It's fantastic. Well, it also acts as a very effective break on news media too, because for the parent company, these companies become much less attractive to run. They get terrible press when they end up settling. It's not being good for Disney, the $50 million settlement over the George Stephanopoulist libel. And it makes companies much less likely to support independent media. No. And I think it's actually, you can read a broader trend here, which is that these companies, these entertainment companies, do not want to be in the news business. The news business is a legacy business for them. Remember, these networks have merged. They're all the function of,

of 100, even more mergers than that they've gotten these companies. Do they really want these companies, these news companies? Warner Brothers Discovery, for instance, is now spinning off its cable, all of its cable properties, including CNN, you know. And Comcast is spinning off Spinco, which has got MSNBC. Exactly. And, you know, the Roberts have always, you know, been hitting their heads. It's been MSNBC. Why do we have this? And Donald Trump is always going after Brian Roberts and saying he's a super weak guy, weak guy.

So Brian Roberts is now suddenly the target, which is not a great place for any CEO to want to be. Yeah. And why would you? You're not really interested in, you, you have no interest in news. You know, you, you know, this is a diversified entertainment company. Right. The news is just part of it, but it turns out it's the most volatile part of it in terms of the president. Right. So they don't want to be in the in the news business. And on top of that, the news business is hardly the news business anymore. It's these, it's these products. Let's call them that because that's what the executives in these companies, our news product. Nobody watches them anymore. So the business of news is challenged anyway. It is safe to say there will be more people.

who see us with our ability basically to say anything and not to have to be afraid of corporate overlords or Donald Trump, more people watch us than MSNBC, certainly more than CNN. That's a huge responsibility, Michael. Well, yes, but at the same time, remember that there's so many other people like us who they are watching. That's true. That's true. The Daily Beast is an independent media company, so we have the great freedom to be able to say, well, to call it as we as we see it, balls and strikes, I think is the term. I don't know what sport that refers to. Is it baseball? You know, I can, you know, field almost anything, except I always say sports.

Yeah. Okay. So the other thing that's coming for news is RFK juniors, a attempt to stifle pharmaceutical companies from advertising. They do a ton of advertising on news channels. When you switch on CNN, the ads I always get, I don't know if they're targeted, but they're on television for bladder leakage or Humera. I've seen so many ads for Humera and I still can't tell you what it does. Well, that's also another, another issue on news that it's only watched by old people whose bladders are leaking. It's definitely not good. All right. So, So we come back to Elon and Trump. If you were a betting man, by the time we do our next podcast, where do you think this all lands?

Have we moved on? Has he targeted someone else? Trump will move the spotlight. But I think that, I mean, the risk Trump has taken here. And again, this is back to the big, beautiful bill. You know, he has, that has been the thing that has finally pressed the Elon. button. And if Elon keeps going, as I say, this is a real danger to Trump, a real threat. This is, you know, it's just a couple of members in both the House and the Senate, which could

seal Donald Trump's fate. You know, Donald Trump, the existential question has always been, when will Donald Trump go to jail? And he has managed somehow, somehow, and we've now forgotten about that. But just months ago, it was, you know, was he going to be sentenced to prison? Well, it was your book, all or nothing. It's either he gets the White House or he goes to jail.

There's no middle ground. So again, we'll be back to that. the second half of the of the of the of the of the of the of the of the second term may well be back into that existential stew and there will be a lot of republicans who whether or not they do it publicly or they do it quietly will also be rooting for his demise in fact perhaps even more the well they yeah they they root for his demise but then they don't vote for it because they remain terrified of him terrified yes yes oh good good Watch this space. My prediction is that we're recording this after the Diddy verdicts. My prediction is Trump will pardon Did he say he's a great guy. He's a good guy. Okay. We'll hold you to that. Well, I'm not sure we anticipated Elon Musk being back so thoroughly on the stage, but here he is. And I just can't wait to see how it's all going to unfold over the next couple of months.

Big thanks to Michael Wolfe for joining us and don't forget to leave your comments on our YouTube page. I've noticed because I've been doing my homework that actually per percentage of viewers, we have one of the highest percentages of comments and they're all intelligent. I keep saying I love the threads. We read them all and they're very helpful to think about

how we think of what conversations to have next. Anyway, don't forget to be beast. subscribe to the Daily Beast just by going to our website, dailybeast.com. And this podcast was produced by Devin Rodgerino, Anna von Erson, and it was edited by Jesse Milwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh,

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