President-elect Donald Trump sent a cryptic message to his billionaire tech friend Elon Musk on Friday after a brutal social media debate over immigration blew up in his face.
‘Where are you?’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe’, Mar-a-Lago.”
Trump also claimed that Musk’s billionaire rival Bill Gates asked him to visit him on Friday evening.
‘We miss you and x!’ Trump wrote, presumably referring to Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii, better known as X. “New Year’s Eve is going to be AWESOME!!! D.J.T.’
The public post, which was apparently aimed at Musk, led to speculation that it was intended as a direct private message to the billionaire.
Musk has been a frequent guest of Trump at Mar-a-Lago since the election, but he did not attend the Trump family’s Christmas festivities.
He was last seen with Trump at the Army-Navy football game in Maryland on December 14.
Musk has since blown up a proposed Republican spending deal by criticizing it on X, sparking an uproar in the House of Representatives and nearly shutting down the government.
Democrats responded by publicly claiming that Musk was the “real” president who controlled Trump and Republicans in Congress.
President-elect Donald Trump sent a cryptic message to his billionaire tech friend Elon Musk on Friday
Trump appeared to troll his friend Elon Musk on Friday
Trump joked about the controversy at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest.
“No, he’s not going to be president, I can tell you that,” Trump said of Musk. ‘And I’m safe. Do you know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.’
Musk was born in South Africa.
Trump’s latest social media message to Musk came after the billionaire had a heated conversation about importing skilled foreign technology workers on H1-B visas, claiming it was essential for growing tech companies.
“The number of people who are super-talented engineers AND super-motivated in the US is far too low,” Musk wrote, warning of the “critical shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.”
Musk shared several posts on X defending the need for skilled foreign workers.
Elon Musk was not with Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the Christmas holidays
Elon Musk and his son
Trump is joined by Tesla and SpaceX CEO and proposed DOGE committee co-chairman Elon Musk at the Army-Navy game
‘There is a permanent shortage of excellent technical talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,” he wrote.
Musk asked his followers to view American companies trying to recruit the best talent for their organizations as if they were a sports team.
“If you force the best talent in the world to play for the other side, America will LOSE. End of story,” he wrote.
The public post, which was apparently aimed at Musk, led to speculation that it was intended as a direct private message to the billionaire.
But Musk’s critics argued that H1-B visas were being abused by American companies to bring in foreign workers instead of hiring qualified American workers.
Both Trump and his running mate JD Vance have campaigned on the idea of reforming the H1-b visa program to prioritize American workers.
‘I know the H1-b very well, it is something that I use and that should not be allowed, we should not have it. Very, very bad for workers… it’s very bad for our workers and very unfair to our workers and we have to put an end to it,” Trump said in 2016.