TRUMP AND ELON BREAK UP

THE White House power couple of President Donald Trump and SA-born billionaire Elon Musk has broken up. 

The bots erupted on Thursday after simmering tensions over Trump’s new government spending bill.

While the bill is set to gut popular healthcare programmes and give America’s richest mense a moerse tax cut, Musk got the short end of the stick, with subsidies for his electric car company Tesla being gesny with environmental protections. 

Musk last week called the bill “an abomination”. 

The row then went nuclear on Thursday night with Musk slinging insults at Trump and accusing him without evidence of covering up FBI files linking him to late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump hit back with the power of the US government behind him, saying he could cancel the SpaceX boss's multi-billion-dollar rocket and satellite contracts.

Trump struck a milder tone late Friday when asked how seriously he is considering cutting Musk's contracts.

Trump said: “It's a lot of money, it's a lot of subsidy, so we'll take a look -- only if it's fair. Only if it's to be fair for him and the country.”

US President Donald Trump said that Elon Musk had "lost his mind" but insisted he wanted to move on from the fiery split with his billionaire former ally.

Trump had scrapped the idea of a call with Musk and was even thinking of ditching the red Tesla he bought at the height of their bromance, White House officials told AFP.

But the 78-year-old Republican could not stop himself from taking aim at his South African-born friend-turned-enemy.

"You mean the man who has lost his mind?" Trump said in a call with ABC when asked about Musk, adding that he was “not particularly” interested in talking to the tech tycoon.

The lelike public break-up between the world's richest person and the world's most powerful is fraught with political and economic risks all around.

Tesla stocks tanked more than 14 percent on Thursday amid the row, losing some $100 billion of the company's market value, but recovered partly on Friday.

Meanwhile, as Musk made the Epstein allegations on Friday, Trump’s FBI director Kash Patel was on the Joe Rogan Experience and refused to comment on the claims.