White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt disagreed with the characterization of a fight between former Trump adviser Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
During a stop by “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News, Leavitt pushed back against reports that Musk “body-checked” Bessent. Host Maria Bartiromo asked Leavitt “how rough this got,” teeing up the presidential spox to hand-wave away a scrap just outside the Oval Office.
“I certainly wouldn’t describe it as a fistfight, Maria. It was definitely a disagreement,” Leavitt said. “I was not there. I didn’t witness it with my own eyes. I heard about it through secondhand reporting. But again, we’ve moved on from that. The president has moved on from that.”
Bartiromo: Did Musk actually get physical? Was there a fistfight that he body checked the treasury secretary?
Leavitt: I certainly wouldn't describe it as a fistfight, Maria. It was definitely a disagreement… we’ve moved on from it. pic.twitter.com/tw5GqLpWRg
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 8, 2025
Musk’s rage at the Trump administration hasn’t been contained to his Cabinet. Since leaving his post at the Department of Government Efficiency, the tech billionaire has railed against the president and Republicans in Congress over their support of a massive spending bill.
The feud between Donald Trump and Musk escalated to the point that Trump is reportedly planning to sell a Tesla he purchased from the automaker earlier this year. That quick turnaround came after Musk accused Trump of being an associate of alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in a since-deleted post to social media. Musk’s call-out was less a revelation and more of a reiteration of publicly known facts, but it was clearly enough to get the president’s attention.
The tiff with Trump has done severe damage to Musk’s net worth, as the value of shares in Musk-owned companies has plummeted with each new volley of insults.
