The public row between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has escalated significantly, with Musk calling for Trump to be impeached and the Tesla boss' net worth dropping by $34billion.

In a series of fiery exchanges on their respective social media platforms, the two former allies took aim at each other.

Musk accused Trump of withholding the Epstein files because he featured in them, and Trump branded Musk "crazy", suggesting his government contracts and subsidies will be cancelled.

Simmering tensions erupted, The TImes reports, when Trump said he was "very disappointed" with Musk, his former advisor, who last week left his position heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Musk - who claims to be responsible for Trump's election win after pouring as much as $300million into his campaign - has been a vocal critic of Trump's flagship economic plans dubbed the "big, beautiful bill".

During a meeting with the German chancellor on Thursday, Trump said: “Elon and I had a great relationship, I don’t know if we will anymore. Elon knew the inner workings of this bill. He never had a problem until right after he left … I’m very disappointed in Elon.

“I think he misses the place."

Responding on X, Musk posted: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!” 

Trump hit back at Musk - who accused the president of "ingratitude" for his role in the election campaign - saying: “Elon was wearing thin, I asked him to leave, I took away his [electric vehicle] mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!"

As the row spiralled out of control, Musk posted: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

And not content with that, Musk responded to another user who had suggested Trump should be impeached by saying "yes".

In the wake of the explosive exchange, Tesla shares fell 14%, wiping more than $100billion off the company's value.

The share drop also wiped close to $34billion from Musk's personal net worth, leaving his fortune - according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index - at a mere $335billion.

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