CNN —

Elon Musk said Thursday that President Donald Trump couldn’t have won a second term without his help, a claim that can’t be easily proven or disproven. What’s clear is Trump’s campaign relied on him heavily.

Last year, Trump tapped Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, to essentially lead his campaign’s ground operation in key battleground states like Pennsylvania. The more than $290 million that the multibillionaire plowed into the 2024 election to boost both Trump and congressional Republicans made him the largest publicly disclosed donor in federal contests last year.

Thursday’s war of words between the two billionaires marked the implosion of a candidate-donor relationship with no precedent in American politics. And it renewed a debate about whether Musk really was as

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