California Republicans definitively choose Trump over Musk

In just 90 minutes last week, the storied bromance between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk imploded in a barrage of X posts, Truth Social rants, and public jabs, shattering their so-called Co-Presidency into a bitter feud.

Unlike the discreet power breakups of yesteryear, this was a table-flipping Real Housewives of DC episode, streamed live for a gawking nation.

In Capitol Weekly polling, conducted Thursday night and Friday morning after the June 5, 2025, blowup, 872 California Republicans were surveyed about their views on Trump, Musk, a sampling of their public statements, and where loyalties lie. The survey also tested Republican support of DOGE, Speaker Mike Johnson, Jan 6^th pardons, and more. The polling summary can be found here and crosstabs for key questions can be found here.

Awareness was near-universal with 91% of respondents knowing of the feud, even though the poll was conducted just hours after the fight had begun.

The strongest jabs appear to be Elon Musk’s hits on the “Big Beautiful Bill” that President Trump has been championing. When presented with each of the social media posts between the two men, the highest performing was “Congress is spending America into Bankruptcy” with 89% of Republicans agreeing with that statement, with 68% saying they “Strongly Agree with Musk.” The second ranked was “The Big Ugly Bill will INCREASE the deficit to $2.5 trillion!” with a majority “strongly agreeing,” and over 80% agreeing in total.

While these hits on the President’s most important legislative goal were impactful, Musk’s attacks directly on Trump fell flat among Republicans, with only 17% agreeing with his post “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate” and 18% agreeing with the post “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

While Musk’s personal attacks directed at the President did not resonate, Trump’s jabs back at Musk did, with 68% agreeing with Trump’s post which began with “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, 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!” and 71% agreeing with “The easiest way to save money in our budget, Billions and Billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

In an open-ended section, the most common word used to describe the clash was “childish” (used 53 times, along with 11 uses of “child” and 23 uses of “children”) with 73% of the more than 450 written responses being negative – many hitting both Trump and Musk equally. You can see the full set of responses with demographics here.

Overall, 32% of Republicans found the exchange left them more supportive of Trump, with only 9% saying they felt more supportive of Musk.

Do these comments make you feel more or less supportive of President Trump?

• More Supportive: 32%
• Unchanged: 56%
• Less Supportive: 12 %

Do these comments make you feel more or less supportive of Elon Musk?

• More Supportive: 9%
• Unchanged: 59%
• Less Supportive: 32%

And when asked if they would generally support Musk or Trump in this feud, they clearly sided with the President.

In general, who do you support more in a disagreement between President Trump and Elon Musk?

• Donald Trump: 78%
• Elon Musk: 12%
• Neither / Not Sure: 10%

In the crosstabs for these questions we can see a slightly improved set of numbers for Musk among Women, younger voters and Black and Asian voters. In those subgroups, Trump’s support is 5-10 points lower, and Musk’s is slightly higher – except for the support of DOGE question, in which these groups are less supportive than the average Republican voter.

The impact of this fight can also be seen in the Favorable/Unfavorable ratings for each. In the last Capitol Weekly polling, among 995 California Republicans, Trump had a net 70-point favorable rating (85% favorable/15% unfavorable) and in this new survey his numbers are even stronger with a net 84-point favorability (92% favorable, 8% unfavorable).  Musk’s numbers during this time dropped from net 64-points (82% favorable / 18% unfavorable) to a still strong, but diminished 46-points (73% favorable/ 27% unfavorable). Musk’s work at DOGE appears to parallel his personal rating, with a net 66-point favorable rating for his work at DOGE (80% approve, 14% disapprove).

Digging in deeper to the base support for Trump, when asked if “the actions of President Donald Trump in this second term show he cares about the needs and problems of people like you?” nearly 70% responded “a lot” with 21% responding “some,” and only 10% responding negatively with a “not much” or “not at all.” Over 80% say that he has the temperament to be an effective president.  Only in foreign affairs do these numbers begin to slip, with 76% saying they are confident in his ability to deal wisely with an international crisis, and 24% saying they are uneasy.

Yet Republicans, while standing with Trump in this feud, didn’t go as far as Steve Bannon who called for a national takeover of Space X after the spat. Fewer than a quarter of Republicans want to have a government takeover in response to his posts.

Steve Bannon has called on President Trump to immediately use federal powers to take Space X from Elon Musk so his network of satellites cannot be used against the US Government. Would you support a move like this from President Trump?

• No: 68%
• Yes: 23%
• Not sure: 9%