Trump asserted that his A team is "doing a great job". While the president did not take any names, it is not unknown that he crafted his go-to crew in a way that gave a place to his backers and campaign donors.
However, in just a year, the president fell out with many of his advisors. Here are four of Trump's trusted allies who have no space in his core team anymore:
Elon Musk
The partnership between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, which peaked during the 2024 election, suffered a major public collapse in June 2025. The trigger was Trump’s "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB), a massive tax and spending package. Musk, fresh off a 130-day stint leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), blasted the bill on X as a "pork-filled abomination" that would bankrupt the country.
Trump fired back from the Oval Office on June 5, saying he was "disappointed" and claiming Musk was only angry because the bill cut electric vehicle subsidies. This sparked a wild social media war: Musk claimed Trump would have lost the election without him, labelled Trump's behaviour as "ingratitude," and even suggested the President was implicated in the Epstein files.
The feud turned nuclear when Trump threatened to cancel SpaceX’s government contracts. Musk briefly threatened to decommission the Dragon spacecraft, NASA's only way to get astronauts to the ISS, before cooling off. By the end of 2025, Musk had even floated a third party, the "America Party," signalling a permanent fracture in the "bromance of the century."
Vivek Ramaswamy
Once running as a contender to Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy quickly gained importance from the president. The stage was all set to induct Ramaswamy as the co-chair of Doge along with Musk, but just a day after Trump took office, the White House announced that the Indian-origin entrepreneur would no longer lead the agency.
"It was my honor to help support the creation of DOGE. I'm confident that Elon & team will succeed in streamlining government. I'll have more to say very soon about my future plans in Ohio. Most importantly, we're all-in to help President Trump make America great again," Ramaswamy said in a post after White House's announcement.
A spokesperson for Doge later said that since Ramaswamy intended to run for the governor of Ohio, he could not become a part of Doge, and thanked "him immensely for his contributions over the last two months and expect him to play a vital role in making America great again."
Mike Waltz
Mike Waltz, the former national security advisor, ran into trouble last year after a group chat between him, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discussing plans to attack Yemen, leaked.
The group's private chat leaked after The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to the thread. Following Goldberg’s exposé, Mike Waltz took "full responsibility" for the blunder.
The fallout rocked Trump’s national security circle, with both Waltz and Pete Hegseth facing intense scrutiny and immediate calls for resignation from Democratic lawmakers.
Waltz was later removed from the NSA position by Trump, who said that he would be nominating him to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations.
Joe Kasper
The relationship between Donald Trump and Joe Kasper, the former Pentagon Chief of Staff, soured in April 2025 following a series of chaotic internal power struggles. Kasper, a top aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was accused by colleagues of orchestrating a "vanguard purge" of senior Pentagon officials under the guise of a leak investigation.
The fallout intensified after reports surfaced of Kasper's erratic leadership style and his alleged role in the Signal group chat scandal, where sensitive military details were leaked to a journalist. While Trump initially praised the defence team’s efficiency, the mounting reports of "shouting matches" and administrative dysfunction at the Pentagon eventually led to Kasper being stripped of his Chief of Staff title.
