Back on Inauguration Day, few in Washington would have believed that the highly publicized friendship between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk would implode before the year’s end.

No political partnership burned brighter or fizzled faster than Trump and Musk’s in 2025. What began as a joint crusade to cut federal spending through the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency quickly devolved into a public falling out that unfolded in a full-blown social media feud.

As 2025 comes to a close, here’s a look back at the biggest political breakup of the year.

October 2024 — First public appearance together

The 2024 presidential campaign was the driving force for the high-profile partnership that ensued.

After the first Trump assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, Musk endorsed Trump in an X post. Musk went on to donate more than $200 million to Trump’s presidential campaign through his super PAC, America PAC.

While the two appeared together for a virtual town hall that August, the X owner and Tesla CEO made his first public appearance with Trump on Oct. 5, as the soon-to-be president returned to Butler three months after the shooting and one month before Election Day.

Musk was jumping for joy as he joined Trump on stage.

November 2024 — Musk appointed to lead DOGE

After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Musk was appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.

On stage in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, after winning the election, Trump said of Musk, ‘A star is born!’

Two weeks after the election, Trump and his family attended the SpaceX ‘Starship’ launch with Musk.

January 2025 — Inauguration Day

Trump made DOGE official on Inauguration Day by signing an executive order to cut waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government with a mandate to modernize ‘Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.’

Musk joined fellow tech moguls Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg for Trump’s inauguration.

Early 2025 — DOGE cleans house

As the Trump administration got settled, DOGE got to work pursuing Musk’s ambitious goal of cutting up to $2 trillion from the federal budget.

As of October 2025, DOGE has saved approximately $214 billion through a combination of asset sales, contract or lease cancellations, fraud and improper payment deletions, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings and workforce reductions, according to the DOGE website.

When tens of thousands of federal workers were laid off, protests began erupting across the United States, rejecting Musk’s leadership and Trump’s sweeping, second-term agenda.

March 2025 — Trump buys a Tesla 

Amid growing discontent directed at Musk and DOGE, Tesla stocks began seeing a drop earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Musk’s political involvement prompted push back from protesters. Tesla vehicles, charging stations and dealerships were targeted in a string of vandalism attacks.

In a show of support for Musk, Trump turned the White House South Lawn into a Tesla showroom and bought a red Tesla Model S.

‘He’s built this great company, and he shouldn’t be penalized, because he’s a patriot,’ Trump said.

May 2025 — Musk departs DOGE

By May, Musk began paring back his hours leading the controversial agency.

According to the Office of Government Ethics, ‘special government employees’ like Musk can work for the federal government no more than 130 days a year, which in Musk’s case was May 30.

On his last day at DOGE, Musk joined Trump in the Oval Office for a press conference celebrating the billionaire’s legacy.

June 2025 — Musk torches OBBB

Soon after Musk left the White House, Trump and Musk had their ‘big, beautiful’ breakup, fueled by congressional negotiations for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,’ Musk said in a post on June 3. ‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’

Trump’s megabill included tax cuts, green energy spending cuts and Medicaid reform, but fiscal conservatives, like Musk, argued it didn’t do enough to reduce the nation’s $38 trillion debt crisis.

Trump told reporters he was ‘very disappointed’ in Musk’s criticism of his marquee megabill.

‘Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,’ Trump said.

Musk then fired back on X, arguing that, ‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.’

The Tesla CEO urged Trump to ‘keep the EV/solar incentives cuts in the bill.’

After Musk fired off several posts on X, Trump started firing back on his own social media platform, writing on Truth Social that Musk was ‘wearing thin’ and claiming that he asked Musk to leave the White House.

‘I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!’ Trump said.

The president then threatened to ‘terminate Elon’s Government Subsidies and Contracts.’

Musk fired back with a ‘really big bomb,’ accusing Trump of being ‘in the Epstein files.’

‘This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted. The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in response.

July 2025 — Fall-out fireworks

Congress narrowly passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act by a self-imposed July 4 deadline.

Ahead of its final passage, Musk renewed his criticism of the reconciliation bill on social media.

In response, Trump threatened to use DOGE to investigate Musk’s government subsidies for his companies.

September 2025 — Brought together at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service

Months later, Trump and Musk reunited to honor the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated during a Turing Point USA event in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 10.

Trump and Musk were spotted shaking hands at Kirk’s memorial service in a box at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

‘For Charlie,’ Musk later responded to the photo on X.

October 2025 — Trump offers kind words

Aboard Air Force One on Oct. 27, Trump seemed to bury the hatchet when asked about Musk.

‘During Charlie’s beautiful tribute, Elon came over. It’s good with Elon. I like Elon. I have always liked Elon. Elon’s good,’ Trump said.

When asked if he had spoken to Musk since Kirk’s memorial, Trump said the two have spoken ‘on and off, a little bit, very little, nothing much.’

‘Look, he’s a nice guy, and he’s a very capable guy. I have always liked him. He had a bad spell. He had a bad period. He had a bad moment. Stupid moment in his life. Very stupid. I’m sure he’d tell you that, but I like Elon, and I suspect I will always like him,’ Trump added.

November 2025 — Musk back at the White House

On Nov. 18, Musk attended a White House dinner as Trump hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

December 2025 — Moving forward

The dust seemed to settle on Trump and Musk’s ‘big, beautiful’ breakup as 2025 came to a close. 

FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence asked Trump during a cabinet meeting on Dec. 2 whether Musk was ‘back in [his] circle of friends’ after their falling-out.

‘Well, I really don’t know. I mean, I like Elon a lot,’ Trump responded. 

Musk did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s comment request.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

The Senate will return to a fast-approaching government funding deadline, but this time both sides appear ready to avoid another shutdown.

When lawmakers in the upper chamber return Monday, they will have three working weeks to fund the government. That process fizzled out before they left town earlier in December, but lawmakers are hopeful that both parties can come together to ward off a repeat of September’s funding deadline.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters before leaving the Capitol that Democrats’ goal was to have the remaining slate of appropriations bills completed by the Jan. 30 deadline. It takes 12 spending bills to fund the government, and so far, neither chamber has come close to hitting that mark.

‘We want to get through the process and get the appropriations bills done,’ Schumer said.

It’s a stark departure from his and Democrats’ earlier position, given that they shut the government down for a record 43 days in a bid to bring expiring Obamacare subsidies to the forefront of discussions.

Congressional Democrats also have been leery of working with their Republican counterparts after President Donald Trump’s roughly $9 billion clawback package, which cut funding to already agreed-to programs and priorities, passed on a partisan vote over the summer.

A similar issue played out just as the Senate was on the cusp of advancing a five-bill spending package before skipping town.

Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., held up the process over the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. 

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought had just announced that same day that the facility would be put under a microscope, and charged that the NCAR was ‘one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.’

For now, the duo appear entrenched in their position.

‘This holiday season, hundreds of NCAR employees face uncertainty about their jobs and communities across the state are worried they won’t get the support they need to rebuild their lives after historic flooding and wildfires,’ Bennett said in a statement. ‘Colorado deserves better, and I am doing everything in my power to fight back and protect our state from the President’s vindictive chaos.’

There’s also the issue of dealing with the Obamacare subsidies, which will have expired by the time lawmakers return to Washington, D.C. A group of bipartisan senators are working on a possible solution, and there are plans in the House — one from the GOP that already passed and another bipartisan effort that is expected to get a vote early January — that could make their way onto the Senate floor.

And Congressional Democrats are likely to use the healthcare issue as leverage during the impending spending fight.

Exactly how lawmakers avoid another shutdown is still in the air. The Senate is determined to advance its five bill package, which includes legislation to fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Commerce, Justice, Interior, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.

But in order for those bills to make it to Trump’s desk, the House has to agree. So far, the lower chamber has only passed a handful of spending bills, and has not brought any appropriations bills to the floor for months.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., already is gaming out a ‘a contingency plan.’

‘We got to fund the government by the end of the month,’ Thune said. ‘And so we’re looking at, you know, determining what that looks like, obviously, if we can pass the five bill package, and if we can’t, then what that looks like.’

‘So there’s a lot of thought being given and just to make sure that we don’t end up in a, you know, posture at the end of the month where we’re looking at, staring at a shutdown again,’ he continued.

Tatiana Schlossberg, the environmental journalist and author who was the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, has died at the age of 35, her family announced.

‘Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,’ the family said in a statement shared via the JFK Library Foundation’s Instagram account Tuesday.

Born and raised in New York City, Schlossberg was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and the granddaughter of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the former president.

She built a career as a voice on climate and environmental issues. In 2023, Schlossberg was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and after she had given birth to her second child.

Schlossberg shared her experience publicly in a personal essay for The New Yorker in November 2025.

‘My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half,’ she wrote at the time.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Escalating claims by Russia that Ukraine tried to hit a residence used by President Vladimir Putin with drones have been dismissed by a top military drone expert, who called the alleged attack ‘hard to fathom’ and tactically implausible.

Cameron Chell’s comments came as Moscow doubled down on accusations Kyiv has flatly denied, with the drone industry leader arguing the alleged strike announced Monday runs counter to Ukraine’s drone tactics.

Chell, the CEO and co-founder of Draganfly, a drone manufacturer that supplies to the U.S. Department of Defense and allied militaries, including Ukraine, said Russia’s claims lack credibility.

‘What really makes things usually very signature about Ukraine is that they’re always incredibly clever about how they use drones,’ Chell told Fox News Digital.

‘They are clever from a cost perspective — let’s call it an efficiency perspective — but also very clever in their tactics,’ he added.

‘I find it hard to fathom that this drone attack even happened on Putin’s residence or that it was something that Ukraine orchestrated for a number of reasons,’ Chell said.

‘To get over the top of Putin’s residence, for one, the drones would not have been launched from a very long distance away,’ he added.

Chell’s comments came as Russia doubled down Tuesday on accusations that Ukraine attempted to strike a presidential palace in the Novgorod region using drones, allegedly to disrupt peace efforts.

Kyiv dismissed the allegation, with the timing also raising questions given the upbeat tone of a recent meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Florida.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed late Monday that 91 drones were intercepted en route to Putin’s residence on the shores of Lake Valdai.

His statement appeared to contradict earlier Defense Ministry tallies, which said 89 drones were shot down over eight regions, including 18 over Novgorod, later adding another 23.

Only after Lavrov spoke did the ministry allege that 49 drones intercepted over Bryansk, nearly 300 miles away, were also targeting Valdai.

Asked about wreckage, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was ‘a matter for our military,’ while calling Zelenskyy’s denial and Western skepticism ‘completely insane.’

Peskov said Russia’s diplomatic stance would be toughened, and Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin vowed there could be ‘no forgiveness’ for Zelenskyy.

Chell said the story simply does not add up. ‘To attack Putin’s residence, you need long-range, very fast-moving drones,’ he said.

He added that for drones that small to reach such a site, they would have had to be launched from a much closer location, likely inside Russia itself.

‘They would have to be within about 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] — or maybe, at most, 30 kilometers — of Putin’s residence,’ Chell said.

‘That facility where Putin lives would also be incredibly secure, and so to have a number of lower-cost, slower-moving drones coming in on that facility would be very un-Ukrainian,’ Chell said.

‘Ukraine also doesn’t announce when they’re going to show up,’ he added.

Chell also noted that night operations would rule out GPS- or AI-based navigation due to jamming and visibility limits, making the launch of dozens of drones even less plausible.

‘Apparently the thing was at night, so that’s very difficult for machine vision or AI mapping software,’ he said. ‘So, you know, it definitely wasn’t using GPS, because it would have been jammed. There are just a bunch of things that don’t add up.’

Politically, Chell argued, Ukraine has nothing to gain. ‘They’re bold, but right in the middle of peace talks — when they need Trump on side — it makes no sense,’ he said. ‘Ukraine is just politically too smart to have done that.’

Zelenskyy on Monday also called the claim a complete fabrication, accusing Moscow of laying the groundwork for further attacks. 

Lavrov warned of retaliation but said Russia would continue talks with Washington.

Trump also said he learned of the alleged attack directly from Putin and was ‘very angry about it.’ Asked whether there was evidence, Trump replied, ‘We’ll find out.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Kremlin for comment.

Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.V., believed that Republicans had accomplished numerous feats in 2025, but he and his party had fallen woefully short of truly understanding what the everyday American thinks.

‘We, as Republicans, and I have said this so many times, we’re lousy,’ Justice told Fox News Digital. ‘We’re great at doing the good things, but we’re lousy at really knowing what Toby and Edith are thinking. And that causes a lot of problems.’

‘Toby’ and ‘Edith’ are the names Justice gives to the average voter, a group he said that he knows well from his time as West Virginia’s governor for eight years before joining the Senate after scoring an easy victory in the 2024 election.

Justice’s frustration came as Congress was readying to leave Washington, D.C., until the new year. Lawmakers had failed to tackle one last remaining issue after scores of legislative victories in the upper chamber: extending, or replacing, expiring Obamacare premium subsidies.

Those tax credits are set to lapse Wednesday, and tens of millions of Americans will see their out-of-pocket costs for healthcare double, triple and in some cases skyrocket by more than 300%.

Justice said that, as governor, there was understanding the credits would expire, given that Democrats under former President Joe Biden both enhanced the subsidies and set an expiration date for the end of the year. 

But to Toby and Edith, the political machinations and fights that dominated the latter part of the year mattered little. It’s the end result that they’re paying attention to, Justice said.

‘They’re thinking, ‘Well, you know, I know [former President Barack] Obama started all this stuff, and I know it didn’t work, and everything, but the Republicans are pretty much in charge right now,’’ Justice said. ‘‘So, you know, if they’re in charge, why don’t they fix it?’’

Effectively, he said, the extra money that people had to work with thanks to the subsidies would vanish, putting families and the Tobys and Ediths in the country under more financial strain.

‘That’s how they think, you know,’ Justice said. ‘And so what I would say to you is, if Republicans aren’t concerned about that, they’re making a bad move on the chessboard.’

What a fix could look like is in the air, for now. Senate Republicans’ plan to convert the subsidies into health savings accounts failed. So did Senate Democrats’ push for a three-year extension.

There are options bubbling from the House, including the GOP’s package that doesn’t address the subsidies, and a bipartisan plan that, similar to Senate Democrats’ proposal, would extend the subsidies for three years. The latter is expected to get a vote in early January.

Justice lauded President Donald Trump and Republicans’ work throughout the year, arguing that the GOP trifecta had ‘almost pitched nine perfect games,’ but the healthcare issue was one that would sting, politically and on the ground.

‘I think just an extension doesn’t work,’ Justice said. ‘We need to fix it. We need to fix it all. And I think that’s what President Trump is really trying to do. He’s trying to get the money in their hands, instead of the money to insurance companies. All that’s great and everything, but I’m telling you, our messaging is, as Republicans, is not great in my book.’

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to produce documents related to its decision to investigate and bring criminal charges against Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia while he was detained at a maximum-security prison in El Salvador earlier this year – signaling what is sure to be an action-packed evidentiary hearing in Nashville next month. 

The order, filed by U.S. Judge Waverly Crenshaw earlier this month and released to the public Tuesday afternoon, requires the Justice Department to produce all relevant documents to defense lawyers pertaining to its decision earlier this year to open an investigation and seek criminal charges against Abrego Garcia for conduct stemming from a 2022 traffic stop. 

The Justice Department opened the criminal investigation and presented the case to a grand jury earlier this year, when Abrego Garcia was detained at CECOT, and at the same time as lawyers for the Trump administration officials were telling a separate federal judge in Maryland that they were powerless to bring him back from Salvadoran custody. 

The new order stops short of compelling any government witnesses to testify for next month’s hearing, including testimony from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose remarks – for months – have been at the center of the vindictive prosecution effort pursued by Abrego Garcia’s defense team in Tennessee.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have argued Blanche played ‘a leading role’ in the decision to prosecute him, a notion Blanche’s office has vehemently dismissed.

They had also honed in on the involvement of Blanche’s associate, Aakash Singh. 

‘The cornerstone of Abrego’s motion to dismiss is that the decision to prosecute him was in retaliation for his success in the Maryland District Court,’ Crenshaw said in the newly unsealed ruling. 

‘Indeed, at the time of Abrego’s arrest, Blanche linked Abrego’s criminal charges to his successful civil lawsuit in Maryland. Specifically, some of the documents suggest not only that McGuire was not a solitary decision-maker, but he, in fact, reported to others in DOJ and the decision to prosecute Abrego may have been a joint decision, with others who may or may not have acted with improper motivation.’ 

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw had ruled in October that Abrego Garcia had established a ‘reasonable likelihood’ that the criminal case against him was the result of vindictive prosecution by the Justice Department, a determination that shifted the burden to the government to rebut ahead of the criminal trial, and ordered the Trump administration to produce for the court internal documents and government witnesses to testify about its decision to bring the case. 

Lawyers for the Justice Department fiercely resisted efforts to produce government witnesses or documents, arguing that the documents should be protected by attorney-client privilege and work-product privilege, among other things. 

The evidentiary hearing is slated to take place on Jan. 28.

Crenshaw separately canceled the criminal trial date for Abrego Garcia, though the update is likely more a procedural one than a reflection of the status of the case.

Abrego Garcia’s status has been at the center of a legal and political maelstrom for nearly 11 months, after he was arrested and deported to his home country of El Salvador, in violation of a 2019 withholding of removal order. 

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Protests spread across Iran on Tuesday after President Donald Trump and other administration officials voiced support for demonstrators. Speaking Monday, Trump pointed to Iran’s economic collapse and long-standing public discontent while stopping short of calling for regime change.

Inside Iran, demonstrations entered a third consecutive day, expanding beyond the capital’s commercial center. The exiled opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported widespread strikes and student protests across Tehran and multiple provincial cities, describing clashes with security forces and anti-government chants. A video obtained by the NCRI appears to show protesters pushing back security forces, forcing them to leave the scene on Tehran’s Jomhouri Street. 

Iran International reported that universities emerged as major protest hubs, with rallies at Tehran University, Sharif University of Technology, Shahid Beheshti University, Elm-o-Sanat University and Khajeh Nasir University. Security forces tightened entry controls at campuses and reinforced offices linked to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Strikes spread across Tehran’s Shoush and Molavi districts and into Isfahan’s Naqsh-e Jahan Square, while parts of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and the gold market shut down. Mobile phone traders gathered outside major shopping centers after closing their stores. Protests turned violent in several locations, with tear gas fired in Tehran and Malard and reports of live fire in Hamadan. Nighttime demonstrations were reported from Qeshm Island in the south to Zanjan and Hamadan in the north, with videos showing chants of ‘death to the dictator.’

Speaking at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump said he was ‘not going to talk about overthrow of a regime.’ Instead, he focused on Iran’s deteriorating economy and the state’s violent response to protests. ‘They’ve got tremendous inflation. Their economy is busted, the economy is no good,’ Trump said. 

He said that when Iranians gather to protest, the regime responds with lethal force.

‘Every time they have a riot or somebody forms a group, little or big, they start shooting people,’ Trump said. ‘You know, they kill people. All of a sudden people start getting shot and that group disbanded pretty quickly.’

Trump said he has watched the unrest build for years, describing Iran’s leadership as brutal.

‘I’ve watched this for years — there is tremendous discontent,’ he said. ‘I’ve watched it for years, and vicious, vicious people.’ His remarks came as protests intensified following the collapse of Iran’s currency to historic lows. The rial fell to roughly 1.45 million per U.S. dollar on the open market, triggering strikes and demonstrations centered on Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and spreading to other major cities, according to Iran International’s live reporting. Videos and eyewitness accounts described heavy security deployments, clashes with demonstrators and the use of tear gas as unrest widened.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz issued a direct message of support. ‘The people of Iran want freedom,’ Waltz wrote on X. ‘We stand with Iranians in the streets of Tehran and across the country as they protest a radical regime that has brought them nothing but economic downturn and war.’ 

A parallel statement from the U.S. government’s Persian-language account, @USAbehFarsi, said Washington supports the Iranian people’s efforts ‘to make their voices heard,’ urging the Islamic Republic to respect fundamental rights rather than suppress protests.

Iranian officials acknowledged the unrest but defended the government’s approach. Reuters reported that government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said Tehran recognizes protests and that officials would set up a mechanism to engage with protest leaders. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian directed his interior minister to address protesters’ ‘legitimate demands’ and engage in dialogue with their representatives.

Independent analysts warned the unrest reflects deeper structural strains. The OSINT research group SpecialEurasia said in an assessment on Tuesday that Iran’s internal stability has reached a ‘critical threshold,’ citing the convergence of currency collapse, renewed international sanctions and chronic water and energy shortages. The group noted that the participation of bazaar merchants, traditionally a pillar of regime support, signals declining confidence in the state’s economic management and raises the risk of prolonged unrest.

NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi said the protests reflect the anger of ‘tens of millions’ driven to the breaking point by inflation, corruption and clerical rule. NCRI’s claims reflect opposition reporting and cannot be independently verified due to restrictions on access inside Iran.

Cameron Khansarinia, vice president of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, said the latest demonstrations underscore a growing shift in public sentiment. ‘Iranians have once again taken to the streets.’ Citing President Donald Trump’s remarks this week, he added that ‘each time they do, the regime tries to crush it,’ but argued that ‘Iranians’ desire to be free is increasingly becoming greater than their fear of the regime.’ Khansarinia claimed that chants in support of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi have been growing in the protests, saying the protesters showed ‘remarkable bravery.’ 

As protests continue, verification of casualties and arrests remains limited, but the scale and spread of the unrest underscore mounting pressure on Iran’s leadership amid economic free fall and growing public defiance.