During an Oval Office press availability with Germany’s newly installed chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Donald Trump frequently ignored his guest and spent a considerable amount of time lashing at at Elon Musk.
With Musk leaving his spot advising the president and almost immediately criticizing the budget bill that tailored to Trump's expectations, Trump in a rambling tirade littered with digressions and non-sequiturs, claimed he was "disappointed" with the billionaire.
He then noted that multiple advisers and aides who previously left his employ had also turned "hostile" once they departed.
"I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people," Trump told the assembled reporters. "He knew everything about it, he had no problem with it [and] all of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that's billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair."
After moving on to talking about cars, he turned back to Musk and complained, "He [Musk] became a little bit different and I can understand that. But he knew every aspect of this bill, he knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape, he said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that will be next. But I'm very disappointed in Elon, I've helped Elon a lot."
"He's not the first; people leave my administration, and they love us. And then at some point, they miss it so badly," he later stated. "And some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is; it's sort of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I guess they call it."
"But we have it with others too," he claimed. "They leave and they wake up in the morning and the glamor is gone. The whole world is different and they become hostile."
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