Months after his relation with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk turned sour, US President Donald Trump defended him when asked during a press conference about a new Gallup poll showing Musk as the “most unpopular public figure in America.”
Trump said, “He [Musk] had a bad moment” but remains “a good person.”
A new poll suggested that Elon Musk’s image has tanked so badly that he is now the public figure that Americans dislike the most.
According to the Daily Beast, Gallup asked Americans between July 7 and July 21 what they thought of 14 well-known US and global figures, with 61 percent of respondents having an unfavorable opinion of the Tesla billionaire.
Six percent said they had no opinion of Musk, while just 33 percent reported a positive view, the report added.
Elon Musk bankrolled President Trump’s march to the White House, splurging almost $300 million backing his campaign, the Daily Beast reported.
He grew close to the MAGA leader, becoming known as his “first buddy”. Musk went on to head Trump’s cost-cutting task force, the “Department of Government Efficiency.”
However, the relationship soured as quickly as it blossomed, and Musk was sent packing from Trump’s administration with little to show for it.
The dramatic rupture between the US president and the world’s richest man began with Musk’s public criticism of Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, which has now become an Act after necessary approvals.
Trump and Musk even began trading bitterly personal attacks on social media. Musk had warned that the bill will increase the federal deficit and called it a “disgusting abomination.”
Trump criticized Musk in the Oval Office, and before long, he and , sending the White House and GOP congressional leaders scrambling to assess the fallout.