Simmering policy disagreements between President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk devolved into open conflict on Thursday.
|
|
|
| “Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.” |
| |
|
-
Simmering policy disagreements between President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk devolved into open conflict on Thursday.
-
Musk said that SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft, which are the backbone of NASA’s spacefaring efforts, after President Trump appeared to call for the termination of all of the government’s subsidies and contracts with the SpaceX CEO.
-
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new COVID-19 vaccine, but it is not recommending that people receive it, the agency’s top vaccine officials said.
-
China experts say it’s time for the United States to counter the regime’s unrestricted warfare by exposing the forced organ harvesting.
-
🍵 Health: Increasing potassium intake relative to sodium may be a more effective way to lower blood pressure than just cutting back on sodium.
|
☀️ Good morning! It’s Friday. Thank you for reading the Morning Brief, an exclusive newsletter for Epoch Times subscribers. 👋 New to Morning Brief? Subscribe.
🎧 Prefer to listen? Get the podcast. |
|
|
| Ivan Pentchoukov
National Editor |
|
|
Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 30, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) |
Simmering policy disagreements between President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk devolved into open conflict on Thursday after Trump criticized his former ally from the Oval Office.
Responding to a question about Musk’s criticism of Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, the president told reporters that he was disappointed with the Tesla CEO, alleging that his attacks were driven by the bill’s rollback of clean energy tax credits. Musk quickly shot back on his social media platform X, posting a flurry of responses and raising the prospect of abandoning the GOP entirely in favor of a new third party. Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, threatening to cancel government contracts with Musk’s companies.
The conflict escalated rapidly online, with both leveling harsh criticism at the other. The public rupture comes just days after Musk left the administration as a special adviser for the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump and Musk had praised each other in an Oval Office event marking the occasion. The once-close relationship between the two, which began in 2024 after Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, appeared to have been strained in recent weeks by disagreements over the House-passed budget bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The Republican legislation would fund and implement Trump’s agenda, but has been condemned by Musk and some other Republicans for its potential impact on the federal deficit. (💬 Comment) More Politics |
- Shares of Tesla Motors plummeted as the feud between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump intensified.
-
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment by not granting a Catholic charity an exemption from paying unemployment tax.
-
The nation’s highest court also ruled that gun companies should not face a lawsuit in which the Mexican government was trying to hold them liable for cartel-related violence involving firearms from the United States.
-
The Transportation Security Administration will abolish the Quiet Skies program that targets some travelers for additional screening when boarding flights that depart from the United States.
-
The Trump administration is reworking deals made with semiconductor makers under the Biden-era CHIPS Act to secure better terms that would bring more investment to the United States, according to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
-
Harvard University filed a legal claim against the Trump administration, asking a federal judge to block the president’s proclamation barring foreign student enrollment at the Ivy League institution.
|
Decades ago, many Americans lived on farms and in small towns, and grew and raised the food that they consumed. After an age of reliance on store-bought items, many Americans are returning to those roots. Two gatherings in Ohio this month represent an emerging trend of events focused on teaching a more self-sufficient lifestyle.
Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is regarded by many as one of the nation’s foremost experts on regenerative farming. Salatin has authored more than a dozen books on the topic and travels the world speaking at conferences and serving as a paid consultant.
He will speak and conduct classes at the Food Independence Summit in Walnut Creek on June 18 and June 19.
“There is a homesteading tsunami because there is a deep intuitive understanding that society is heading in a way where it is better to be in the country than in the city,” Salatin told The Epoch Times. (More) More U.S. News |
- New employment data sent mixed signals about the health of the U.S. labor market, as more workers filed for unemployment benefits last week and employers slowed their planned layoffs in May.
-
Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer goods company, announced a plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs and exit select brands and product categories as it navigates a challenging global environment marked by consumer uncertainty and volatile trade conditions.
-
A crowded field of nine Democrats took to the debate stage on Wednesday to vie for their party’s nomination to lead New York City as mayor. Here are the takeaways from the night.
-
Texas will no longer offer in-state tuition to college students without legal immigration status, following a federal lawsuit and a swift ruling that struck down the policy.
-
The U.S. Department of Justice said that Wisconsin officials have failed to comply with an election-related requirement in federal law and should thus not receive any additional federal funding.
|
News Analysis
The United States and China are locked in a war, experts are saying. It’s not a war of bullets, but rather an “unrestricted war” in almost every other strategic domain, including the economy, cyberspace, culture, and information. In many ways, the information war is key. It determines what people know, which then sets what they think. That, in turn, determines their actions in all other areas of the conflict.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wages its information war on many levels, from seeding grand overarching narratives to tarring individual critics. In some areas, however, the regime lacks a counterargument. Some of its actions are so gruesome, the only option is to suppress the information, experts say. It’s exactly these areas where the United States could mount severe, potentially fatal pressure on the regime—if willing to pursue them, several China experts told The Epoch Times.
“The darkest crime they’re doing right now is organ harvesting,” said Sean Lin, former U.S. Army microbiologist and Epoch Times contributor. He is also a member of the independent group, Committee on the Present Danger: China.
“Maybe there are even darker crimes, more vicious, darker than organ harvesting. We don’t know. And so the CCP is very afraid of this being further exposed, further recognized by the international community,” he added.
The fact that the CCP was killing prisoners of conscience for their organs was first reported in 2006 by The Epoch Times based on whistleblower testimony. Since then, evidence of the crime has snowballed, resulting in an independent tribunal in the United Kingdom confirming it in 2019 beyond a reasonable doubt. Organs for China’s lucrative transplant industry have largely come from imprisoned practitioners of the Falun Gong, a faith group persecuted by the CCP, as well as other dissidents, the tribunal concluded.
Still, to this day, no government has published the results of a formal investigation into the issue.
“Western governments did not take all this information seriously. They were still wishfully thinking that if we bring economic freedom to China, then eventually China will change its political system,” said Nan Su, a China commentator and senior editor with the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times.
Three factors have changed that situation, he said. The COVID-19 pandemic showed China as irresponsible and malicious, blocking critical information that would have aided other countries in facing the disease. The undercutting of Hong Kong’s independence in 2022 showed that China wouldn’t honor its promise to preserve the island’s separate political and legal system for 50 years. And finally, the CCP’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war shows China siding with adversaries of the United States and Europe. (More)
More World News |
- President Donald Trump confirmed on Truth Social that he spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, announcing that the issue of China’s export restrictions on rare earths has been resolved.
-
Activists held a memorial vigil on the evening of June 4 to pay tribute to pro-democracy protesters who died at China’s Tiananmen Square 36 years ago, while urging the world to hold the regime behind the killings to account.
-
Europe’s main auto supplier association said that China’s export restrictions on rare earth elements have led to the shutdown of several production lines and plants across the continent.
-
As Greenland comes into geopolitical focus, the past looms over the future of the world’s largest island.
-
The Israeli military has recovered the bodies of a Canadian Israeli and an Israeli American who had been held hostage by Hamas for 608 days following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that launched the war in Gaza.
-
Six men went on trial in London on June 4 over an arson attack on a business that supplied Starlink satellite equipment to Ukraine, in a case that prosecutors say is linked to Russia’s Wagner mercenary group.
|
📷 Photo of the Day: Peter, a dog with the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), poses during a photo session during the 80th anniversary of the National Canine Training Center of the Gendarmerie in Gramat, France, on June 5, 2025. (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images) |
🇺🇲 American Thought Leaders: Jacob Howland shares lessons for today drawn from the wisdom of Athens and Jerusalem. (Watch)
✍️ Opinion: Where Did All My Sweet, Shy Chinese Students Go? by Lucia Dunn (Read)
🎙️ Podcast: Megabill Feud, Supreme Court Major Decisions, ICE Crackdowns and Drone Dangers—join our Epoch Times reporters on Constitution Avenue as they give a roundup of the major stories in the U.S. government. (Listen)
🎵 Music: Antonin Dvořák - Violin Concerto (Listen)
🏆 In case you missed it, the most-read article in yesterday’s newsletter was on the five takeaways from the escalating fallout from Ukraine’s drone attack on Russia’s nuclear bombers. … and don’t forget:
♥️ Follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, or Truth Social
📫 Forward this email to a friend and tell them to subscribe. (Here)
☕ Love coffee, mugs, stickers, and clothes? Check out our shop.
💬 Feedback? Reply to this email or write to ivanmb@epochtimes.nyc |
Q: What happened to Trump's promise of no taxes on overtime? Did that make it into the Big Beautiful Bill? A: Yes, the provision is part of the House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Its fate will be decided in the Senate, which is gearing up to make changes to the legislation. Unlike the no-tax-on-tips provision, which features a $25,000 cap on deductions, there is no upper limit for how much overtime income taxpayers can deduct.
👉 Do you have a question we can address here? Submit one using this form.
|
While it’s well-known that too much sodium can raise blood pressure, the benefits of potassium are often overlooked. Increasing potassium intake relative to sodium may be a more effective way to lower blood pressure than just cutting back on sodium. Potassium-rich foods help maintain healthy blood vessels and reduce sodium’s negative effects. Melissa Stadt, a researcher who studied potassium-to-sodium intake and recently published a study, told The Epoch Times that early humans ate plenty of fruits and vegetables, so the body’s regulatory systems function best on a high-potassium, low-sodium diet.
“Today, Western diets tend to be much higher in sodium and lower in potassium. That may explain why high blood pressure is found mainly in industrialized societies, not in isolated societies,” she said. The sodium-to-potassium ratio in the diet is a better predictor of blood pressure, heart disease risk, and even overall mortality than sodium or potassium alone. High sodium intake can cause the body to retain fluid, which increases blood volume and puts extra pressure on blood vessel walls—leading to elevated blood pressure and increased strain on the heart.
Sodium and potassium levels are tightly regulated by the kidneys. When you eat a potassium-rich meal, the kidneys initially reabsorb less sodium, allowing more sodium to flow downstream. This shift in kidney function promotes the excretion of sodium in the urine, affecting water movement and blood volume, which lowers blood pressure.
Recent findings presented at a meeting of the American Physiological Society in Baltimore further supported this mechanism, showing that potassium can counteract the effects of a high-sodium diet by encouraging sodium excretion. (More)
|
|
|
Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful day. |
—Ivan Pentchoukov, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li. |
|
|
Copyright © 2025 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is: The Epoch Times. 229 W. 28 St. Fl. 7 New York, NY 10001 | Contact Us
Our Morning Brief newsletter is one of the best ways to receive the most up-to-date information. Manage your email preferences here or unsubscribe from Morning Brief here.
|
|
|
|
