Billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday ratcheted up his public spat with Donald Trump, saying the US president would have lost the election without his support.

"Without me, Trump would have lost the election," Musk said on X. "Such ingratitude."

He also described as an “obvious lie” the president’s claim that he asked Musk to leave because “Elon was ‘wearing thin’ and that the easiest way to save money is  “to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”

"Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill. In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this! Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way."

Musk, whose other companies include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX and its satellite unit Starlink, spent nearly $300 million in the 2024 election in support of Trump and other Republican candidates.

Starting on Tuesday (June 3), the tech executive unleashed a series of blistering attacks against what Trump calls his "big, beautiful bill."

Musk called it a "disgusting abomination" that would deepen the federal deficit, amplifying a rift within the Republican Party that could threaten the bill's prospects in the Senate.

On Thursday he denied Trump’s claim that he knew the inner workings of the US president's tax and spending mega-bill.

“False. This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it,” he said on X.

He also claimed the bill would increase the deficit to $2.5 trillion. With reports by Agence France-Presse and Reuters