Musk and Trump Relationship Breaks Down, Splits Emerge Within Trump's Encryption Empire

In the early morning of June 6, the contradictions between Musk and Trump broke out publicly. Less than a week after Musk stepped down from his position as (DOGE) head of the "Ministry of Government Efficiency," the two took to the social media platform to blame each other and confront each other publicly. As a direct result of the conflict, Tesla's stock price plummeted by more than 15% in a single day, and the stock price of Trump Media (TMTG) also fell by 7.82%. And at the height of this political turmoil, there are also obvious cracks within Trump's cryptocurrency business system.

Public confrontation raises global attention

In the early hours of June 6, Musk suddenly posted on social media: "It's time to drop the real bomb: Trump appears in Epstein's documents. This is the real reason these documents have not been made public. Have a great day, DJT!"

The puzzling remark was actually Musk's latest attack amid a back-to-back altercation with Trump. Just a few hours ago, Trump said on his personal social media platform that Musk had "bored him" and wrote: "I let him go, I lifted the EV mandate that forced everyone to buy an electric car that no one wanted (he knew I was going to do it months ago!)" And then he went crazy! Trump then added: "The easiest way to save billions of dollars in our budget is to end government subsidies and contracts for companies like Elon Musk, and I've always been surprised that Biden didn't!" "

A series of remarks by Trump further infuriated Musk, who retaliated by saying: "Trump is so ungrateful; without me, Trump would lose the election, the Democrats would control the House of Representatives, and the Republican seats in the Senate would shrink from 51 to 49."

The beginning of this contradiction seems to stem from Trump's revocation of the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a close ally of Musk, to be NASA administrator. And the more critical turning point was Musk's public criticism of Trump's "Beautiful Act (One Big Beautiful Bill Act), calling it "disgusting" and bluntly saying that it was "a ridiculous congressional spending bill full of private goods, a disgusting disaster".

The "Beautiful Act" is a comprehensive legislative plan that covers multiple aspects such as government budgets, tax systems, debt management, and environmental policies. The bill promises to extend the expiring tax reduction policies passed during Trump's first term, provide funding for defense spending, and raise funds for a large-scale deportation plan for undocumented immigrants, seen as an important tool for advancing core policies after Trump's re-election.

Elon Musk warns that this bill will increase the U.S. fiscal deficit to $25 trillion, placing an unsustainable heavy debt burden on the American public. House member Thomas Massie also sided with Musk, pointing out that congressional members only learned of the bill's contents the night it was passed, and the speaker circumvented the House rule that required the bill to be published 72 hours prior to its passage through a "manager's amendment."

In fact, the rift between Musk and the Trump administration had already surfaced months ago. In April, Musk's argument with Besant in front of the White House sparked widespread discussion in American politics. Trump ultimately chose to support Besant's nomination proposal, which led the outside world to begin questioning whether the relationship between the two had deteriorated.

In response to Musk's strong criticism, White House officials said they felt caught off guard, but White House Press Secretary Levitt firmly responded at the press conference on June 3: "The President has long been aware of Musk's stance on this bill, and this will not change the President's view. This is a great and beautiful bill. He will stand by it."

The Trump family's internal strife over the "wallet" application

Similarly, in the early hours of June 6, another group of confidants around Trump also had a conflict. The Trump family's DeFi project WORLD LIBERTY FINANCIAL (abbreviated as WLFI) issued a cease and desist order to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC (the company behind the $TRUMP token). According to market news, this cease and desist order is related to the Trump wallet application that has sparked widespread discussion in the encryption market recently.

In the early hours of June 4th, an NFT trading platform announced a collaboration with $TRUMP to launch the Trump Wallet. Following the announcement, the platform's token market value quickly surged nearly 30% within two hours, rising from $850 million to $1.1 billion. However, Trump's eldest son, second son Eric, and youngest son Barron all subsequently denied any association with the announcement.

Despite the opposition from WLFI members, both the official TrumpMeme account and members of the trading platform team confirmed the partnership, making it difficult for the outside world to understand the truth. It is worth noting that Trump Wallet's social media accounts have been banned by the platform officials several times, and according to the official website, the wallet's privacy policy, terms and conditions, and promotions are all in charge of the Slingshot Finance project that the trading platform acquired two months ago.

! Trump's Backyard Fire: Close Ally Musk Turns Back, Behind the Crypto Company Splits

Factional Struggle in Trump's Encryption System

The unstable state of Trump's team is not a new phenomenon. During his previous presidential term, there were frequent struggles among different factions within the Trump administration and a high turnover of personnel, with resignations being quite common. Trump's encryption currency empire also seems to carry on this characteristic, having long sown the seeds of division.

Interestingly, it can be seen from the social media of Jack, the CEO of the trading platform, that he recently attended a $TRUMP dinner event with the acquired founder of Slingshot, which was also retweeted by the official $TRUMP meme account. And on June 3, TRUMP Meme officially said that it airdropped 3 different Solana NFTs to users' wallets for users who participated in the "Dinner with Trump" event, and now it seems that this is some kind of warm-up activity for the "Trump Wallet App".

The planner of the $TRUMP dinner in Washington, D.C., in May 2025, is none other than Bill Zanker, a longtime friend of Trump. Zanker is the licensor of Fight Fight LLC, the company behind the implementation of the $TRUMP token, which together with CIC Digital LLC owns an 80% token share of Trump's $TRUMP meme coin, worth billions of dollars.

Bill's collaboration with Trump dates back to 2007, when the two co-authored the book "Think Big and Kick ASS in Business and Life." In 2013, they also co-founded FundAnything, a $1 million crowdfunding site founded by Zanker, but Trump distanced himself from the project a year later, citing "too much time and effort to raise the money," and the project fell apart. It wasn't until 2022 that Bill Zanker came up with the business concept of a "trump NFT" that the two collaborated again in the cryptocurrency space.

CIC Digital LLC was founded in 2021 by Trump's lawyer John Marion and former advisor Nick Luna as a subsidiary of the Trump Organization, operating the $TRUMP token website in collaboration with Fight Fight Fight LLC and generating trading revenue from it. CIC Digital LLC is responsible for licensing Trump's name and likeness for NFT projects such as Trump Digital Trading Cards.

In addition to Bill Zanker, the main promoters of the $TRUMP are also considered by the community to include the chairman of the crypto committee, David Sacks. Known as one of the founders of PayPal, Sacks later rose to prominence by founding Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In cryptocurrency circles, David Sacks is most importantly an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a staunch supporter of Solana.

It is worth mentioning that shortly after the release of $TRUMP, Trump's wife Melania's eponymous $MELANIA was also released. Ryan Selkis, founder of industry analyst firm Messari, issued an article calling on Trump to fire the people who recommended the $MELANIA project, pointing out that "the project team lacked professional competence, could cause significant financial losses and goodwill damage, and the project decisions did not fully consider Trump's interests."

Compared to $TRUMP, the $MELANIA was released in a significantly more hasty manner, with incomplete front-end code, uncompressed images, a website built the day before the project was launched, and a lack of rigor in legal text. MANY NETIZENS SPECULATED THAT $MELANIA AND $TRUMP OPERATE DIFFERENTLY AND MAY NOT BE OPERATED BY THE SAME TEAM.

Similar to the previous "collision" with $TRUMP and $MELANIA, after the trading platform announced a collaboration with $TRUMP to launch an encryption wallet, Trump's eldest son stated that WLFI will also launch its own official wallet. However, applications like the "Trump wallet" are different from meme coins, as only one official version can exist, which has led to the current chaotic situation of "true and false Monkey King."

Eric Trump escalated the dispute further by sending a series of text messages to The New York Times, saying the Trump family would file a legal challenge against the "$TRUMP Wallet," even though it was promoted on social media by the account of Bill Zanker, who is linked to the Trump interest group. "No agreement has been reached for this product," Eric Trump wrote, "and it has not yet been approved."

WLFI was established on September 16, 2024, when then-elected president Donald Trump announced a foray into the social media platform X. The company was founded by real estate magnate Steve Witkoff and his son Zach Witkoff, with Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald J Trump Jr also participating as team members in the project.

Zach Witkoff, Witkoff's son and co-founder of crypto firm World Liberty Financial, announced at a conference in Dubai that the company had reached an agreement with Tahnoon's enterprises to buy $2 billion of the stablecoin USD1 issued by World Liberty. The Trump family owns a 60 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, from which the Witkoffs and the Trump family expect to receive tens of millions of dollars in annual profits.

Since last autumn, the Trump family has launched several different encryption projects, including American Bitcoin, $TRUMP, $MELANIA, World Liberty Financial, and Trump Media & Technology Group. Recently, Trump’s social platform Truth Social submitted a Bitcoin ETF application, and Mrs. Trump’s official meme coin $MELANIA has reached a liquidity provision agreement with market makers. WLFI has also airdropped 47 USD1 stablecoins to its token purchasers, indicating that its stablecoin business has also been put on the right track.

At this point in time, it seems that the market has exhausted its bullish sentiment, and it's difficult for the $TRUMP and Trump NFT backing team to continue drawing liquidity from the market, appearing to gradually distance themselves from the core circle of the "Trump Group."