Musk was Trump’s top financial backer in 2024 but this year threatened to launch a third party. REUTERS Trump had yanked Isaacman, a billionaire payments-processing and aerospace entrepreneur, at Gor’s urging on May 31 due to his past donations to Democrats, even though a number of prominent former Democrats serve in Trump’s Cabinet. Isaacman, renominated on Nov. 4, had been one of the few picks requested by Musk, who slammed Gor as “a snake” for allegedly undermining his friend out of revenge for Musk for embarrassing him in front of Trump over his pace of administration hiring. Gor was given a Nov. 10 Oval Office sendoff ahead of his move to India to serve as ambassador, in what his critics view as a soft landing after jeopardizing Trump’s political agenda out of personal grievance. Trump’s warming relationship with Musk, who poured $290 million into Republican campaigns last year to boost Trump’s comeback, is remarkable given the depth of the vitriolic clash. The dramatic feud broke loose after Musk had expressed concern about spending contained in Trump’s ultimately successful One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which contained signature campaign pledges to cut taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments. Musk also attended a Tuesday night dinner at the White House, where Trump warmly tapped his arm. REUTERS A staggering escalation came on June 5, with the president threatening to end federal funds flowing to Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla and Musk claiming the president was incriminated in files pertaining to pedophile sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. After a detente, including the ex-DOGE chief deleting his post about Epstein, Musk announced on July 5 that he was forming a third party called the America Party “to give you back your freedom” — which threatened to siphon votes from Republicans. “There needed to be some cooling off time, and [Wiles] appreciated that,” the first source said. “The truth is Susie’s role has always been a behind-the-scenes operator where she identifies problems and tries to solve them,” the insider said. Wiles “has always played a role mending fences where there is mutual interest” and “Susie and JD have both been people that Elon is comfortable going directly to when he has something that he wants to discuss.”