Did Musk unfollow Scott Bessent over IRS commissioner firing? What we know
Scott Bessent and Elon Musk's apparent feud has sparked several speculations, one of them being the billionaire ‘unfollowing’ the Trump official on X
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Elon Musk's apparent feud has sparked several speculations, one of them being the billionaire ‘unfollowing’ the Trump official on X, platform formerly known as Twitter. This comes after Bessent appointed his deputy, Michael Faulkender, as the next acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and let go of Musk-backed Gary Shapley.
“Trust must be brought back to the IRS,” Bessent said in a post to X on Friday. He further described Faulkender as ‘the right man for the moment’. The move came hours after The New York Times reported that Bessent approached President Trump to complain that Musk had gone around him to get Shapley appointed.
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Now, social media users claim that Musk has unfollowed Bessent on X. The Hindustan Times is unable to verify these claims as we are unable to get access to Elon Musk and Scott Bessent's X follower list.
“Elon stopped following Scott Bessent. Not a good sign? Or reading too much into it? What do you think?” one person wrote on X, attaching screenshots of Musk and Bessent's profiles.
“After reports this morning revealed that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was frustrated that Elon Musk’s DOGE installed an acting IRS commissioner without consulting with him, it appears that Musk has unfollowed Bessent,” another person tweeted.
On Thursday, Elon Musk shared an X post from conservative influencer Laura Loomer, which criticized certain administration officials for a lack of loyalty to Trump, a Republican.
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Loomer accused Bessent of inviting a ‘Trump hater’ to work with him. “I am going to personally tell President Trump and personally show him these receipts,” Loomer wrote, adding ‘shame on’ Bessent.
Neither Musk nor Bessent has responded to these claims.
Trump, meanwhile, said he doesn't ‘know what’s going on, but when you see how badly they’ve acted and in other ways also, so we’ll, we’ll be looking at it very strongly, on the tax-exempt status subject’.
The recent switch means that the IRS will get its fifth acting commissioner since Trump took office in January. The agency’s previous head, Melanie Krause, had resigned.
