Elon Musk, who served as a close adviser and confidant to President Donald Trump until a bitter public falling-out last week, issued his strongest sign of contrition yet over how he handled the rupture.

“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” he said on his social-media platform, X. “They went too far.”

The dispute — which was triggered by Musk’s opposition to the tax-cut bill Trump is pushing through Congress — posed a threat to Musk’s wealth when the president raised the prospect of retaliating by cutting off his government contracts. That would have battered SpaceX, his rocket company.

“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” Trump said in a brief interview with the New York Post, without elaborating on whether he would fully let go of the feud.

The stock price of Musk’s Tesla Inc. tumbled Thursday after the spat, before recovering most of the loss. On Wednesday after his latest post, shares rose 1.6% at 11:12 a.m.

The stock has slid almost 18% so far this year as investors weighed up the damage from his previous embrace of Trump, which turned off car buyers across the U.S., Europe and other markets, as well as the subsequent risks caused by his messy falling-out with the president.

Musk, the world’s richest person, was first to stand down from what had been an escalating spat, responding to advice from those online to de-escalate after it rapidly veered out of control. He had riled Trump by claiming credit for his election victory, endorsing his impeachment and even suggesting the president was implicated in the sex crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

It remains unclear how much Musk’s expressions of regret will do much to repair his relationship with Trump, who is known for carrying grudges and has been using the power of the federal government to lash out at those who have crossed him. That would seem to pose particular peril for Musk, given SpaceX holds a large amount of federal contracts and many of his businesses are subject to federal regulatory oversight.

Trump has signaled little willingness to mend fences with Musk but told reporters that he felt they had once had a good relationship and “I wish him well.” The president said in an NBC News interview Saturday that he had no interest in repairing the relationship.

The scale of the blow-up had already cast significant doubt on whether the two will ever resume the close friendship they had during the first several months of Trump’s second term, when Musk was a nearly ubiquitous presence in the White House.

Musk had led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which sought to slash spending, shutter agencies and cut the federal workforce. The department aimed to generate $1 trillion of savings for the government but fell far short of that goal, producing just $180 billion by its own unverified accounting.

Even that would be erased by Trump’s tax bill, which would add $2.4 trillion to the government’s budget deficits over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That caused Musk to lobby against its passage, calling it a “disgusting abomination.”

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—With assistance from Eric Pfanner and Shelly Banjo.

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