On June 5, 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump and tech mogul and former Department of Government Efficiency figurehead Elon Musk traded blows online, a claim (archived) circulated across social media that Trump posted on Truth Social that the "easiest way to save money" in the federal budget was to "terminate" Musk's government subsidies and contracts.
(X user @RonFilipkowski)
Ron Filipkowski, editor of the left-leaning news site Meidas Touch, posted a screenshot of the alleged Truth Social post on X, commenting "I got no popcorn left at this point."
The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived).
The post is correctly attributed to Trump and appeared on his Truth Social feed (archived) on June 5, 2025.
The full post read: "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!"
Though Trump's post was authentic, it was unclear at the time of this writing whether the claim within it — that the "easiest" way to recoup government funds was through canceling Musk's government contracts and subsidies — was true.
Snopes previously reported on claims Musk made $8 million per day from federal contracts. Our reporting found that his Tesla and SpaceX alone received $3.1 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2023 but could not independently verify the $8 million per day claim or establish how much Musk's government contracts, grants, subsidies and loans were worth.
A New York Times report in 2024 found Tesla and SpaceX accounted for at least $15.4 billion in government contracts since 2014. Snopes has not independently verified these figures.
Musk quickly snapped back at Trump on X, writing (archived): "In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately."
NASA uses the Dragon spacecraft, produced by Musk's SpaceX, to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station. The Dragon spacecraft notably returned NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the ISS in March 2024 after a monthslong overstay.
Musk also posted on his X account the allegation that Trump appeared in unreleased government files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the claim that Trump wouldn't have won reelection without him.