Elon Musk said in a social media post early Wednesday that he regretted some of his posts and comments about President Trump last week, which had led the president to disparage the tech billionaire, a feud that played out in real time on social media.
Mr. Musk said on his X platform that some of his posts about Mr. Trump “went too far.”
Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, was once among the president’s closest advisers, overseeing a major effort to slash spending and reduce the size of the federal work force. But he and Mr. Trump had a dramatic and public falling out after the Tesla chief executive left his role in the administration.
Both men traded barbs on social media, and Mr. Trump said last week that he had no interest in repairing the relationship.
Mr. Musk’s public expression of regret was another sign of a potential thaw in the standoff with the president. Even last week, Mr. Musk had agreed with a post on X suggesting the two men were “stronger together.” Mr. Musk has since deleted some of his most incendiary social media posts. Mr. Trump has also toned down some of his public criticisms of Mr. Musk.
The protests in Los Angeles also highlighted a key issue where the two men agree: immigration. In recent days, Mr. Musk has used his social media platform to echo Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about the protests and need for a strong government response.
Mr. Musk’s post on Wednesday underscores the complicated power dynamics between the two men. Mr. Musk, who poured roughly $275 million into Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, is the biggest donor in Republican politics. He also has more followers than anyone else on X, the social media platform he owns.
But Mr. Trump holds vast political power over Mr. Musk. The billionaire’s companies, especially Tesla and SpaceX, have received billions of dollars in federal contracts in recent years. As the two men sparred online last week, Mr. Trump threatened to cut them off as a way to “save money” in the federal budget.
Mr. Musk’s companies were promised $3 billion in federal contracts from 17 federal agencies in 2023 alone. A number of federal agencies are investigating or suing Musk’s companies.
Allies of the two men have been urging them to reconcile. The spat initially focused on Mr. Musk’s criticism of Mr. Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, which he condemned as a “disgusting abomination” because it will add substantially to the national debt. But the spat devolved quickly into petty and outlandish attacks.
Mr. Musk, for example, suggested that the Trump administration had not released its files on the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein because Mr. Trump was in them. Mr. Trump, at one point, asked why Mr. Musk had not covered up his black eye with makeup during an Oval Office appearance last week.
The social media fight came as Mr. Musk had pledged to step back from politics and his work at the Department of Government Efficiency, a federal government cost-cutting project, to refocus on his companies, which are facing important moments for their futures.
Tesla has seen its sales slump globally as Mr. Musk politics have become a strain for the car brand. In the United States, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and France, sales have fallen while other electric carmakers are gaining ground.
Tesla is facing a major test later this month, when the company is expected to introduce a new autonomous driving taxi fleet in Austin, Texas, called Robotaxi.
Mr. Musk’s space company, SpaceX, is also facing key challenges. The company is developing the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Test flights thus far have produced mixed results.