When Elon Musk spectacularly torched his relationship with Donald Trump, it seemed the Big, Beautiful Bill was to blame.

But privately his issues with the president ran deeper than concerns over the ballooning public debt.

He was pushed to the brink when his NASA nominee, billionaire payments entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, was axed by Trump in a late-night Truth Social post.

Until then, Musk's criticisms of the president had been confined to relatively measured arguments against the deficit.

On Tuesday, he branded the bill a 'disgusting abomination.' Then he went nuclear on Thursday, invoking the Epstein files and calling for Trump's impeachment.

'Elon crossed the Rubicon,' Steve Bannon told the Daily Mail.

The MAGA big beast has been stoking tensions between Trump and Musk for months.

Now, he triumphantly declares that Isaacman - who was once sued by Trump's Taj Mahal casino - is a 'f***ing liberal' who helped collapse the house of cards.

Donald Trump stands in front of Taj Mahal Casino Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1990

While Musk made waves at DOGE, his deeper ambition lay with NASA - and his dream of colonizing Mars. SpaceX currently holds around $22 billion in government contracts, with potential payouts rising to nearly $90 billion.

Isaacman was widely viewed as the candidate who would cement Musk's bold plans for deep space travel.

The self-styled 'commercial astronaut' bankrolled and flew on two SpaceX missions - the first all-civilian orbital flight in 2021, and the first private spacewalk in 2024.

He is financially bound to SpaceX, reporting more than $5 million in capital gains from its shares in a recent filing. His company, Shift4 Payments, also does business with Musk's.

Before launching into space, Isaacman explored a different galaxy entirely: Atlantic City. By his mid-20s, the payments whiz-kid had money to burn - and under the neon constellations of the Boardwalk, he had his first brush with Trump.

In 2009, the Trump Taj Mahal sued Isaacman over four bad checks totaling $1 million. The case settled in 2011 for $650,000.

Other lawsuits followed. Trump Plaza on the Boardwalk also sued him. Mohegan Sun in Connecticut alleged he had written four bad checks totaling $1 million. That case was eventually resolved and withdrawn, court records show.

In 2010, he was arrested at the Canada border on fraud charges. In a press release titled, 'Nevada Fugitive Captured', US Customs and Border Protection announced it had arrested Isaacman at the Washington state line.

Isaacman told Congress that the arrest stemmed from a dispute with the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas over a travel reimbursement. The matter was resolved within 24 hours and charges were dismissed. The court records were sealed.

In a written question submitted after his April 9 nomination hearing, Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell asked Isaacman about the arrest and four casino lawsuits between 2008 and 2010.

'In my early 20s, I was fortunate to experience business success at a young age, and I spent time in casinos as an immature hobby,' Isaacman answered. 'The legal matters referenced were, in fact, forms of negotiation and were all resolved promptly.'

Isaacman assured senators his gambling days were behind him.

Yet, while orbiting the Earth in a Musk-made capsule in 2021, he placed the first ever sports bet from space.

'He's nothing but a conman,' Bannon said.

Jared Isaacman and his wife Monica

The Inspiration4 crew of Chris Sembroski, Sian Proctor, Jared Isaacman and Hayley Arceneaux sits while suited up in this picture obtained by Reuters on September 15, 2021

It is unclear whether Trump was aware of his own previous court battle against Isaacman. But the White House said it was Isaacman's loyalty to the president that was in question.

Since 2009, Isaacman has donated $272,000 to Democratic candidates, PACs, and organizations. In the same period, he gave $8,500 to the Republican Party.

It was previously reported that these donations had been disclosed during the presidential transition in 2024 and that Isaacman discussed them with Trump in a meeting weeks after the election.

But Bannon said that the president had only been made aware recently that Isaacman funneled cash to 'the most Trump-hating Democrats.'

Another White House insider said that donations to the likes of Chuck Schumer and Josh Shapiro, including a raft of payments to Democrats in the last election cycle, would be unconscionable to Trump. 

'This isn't like Howard Lutnick, who donated a few thousand dollars to Schumer, he's a New York businessman,' she said.

In contrast to Lutnick's pragmatic offerings to Schumer, Isaacman bestowed $100,000 upon the senator in 2021. She said there was 'no way Trump would have allowed Isaacman's confirmation if he'd known.'

Sergio Gor, a baby-faced Maltese immigrant who serves as one of Trump's most loyal henchman, gleefully brought the incriminating evidence to the president after clashing with Musk for months.

The timing was aimed for maximum humiliation. Trump was handed the dossier on Isaacman just moments before a televised send-off for Musk in the Oval Office.

The president tempered his rage through the farewell but when the press were gone, he confronted the SpaceX boss.

He began reading some of the donations aloud, shaking his head. 

'This is not good,' Trump told him.

Trump was handed the dossier on the donations just moments before a televised send-off for Musk in the Oval Office (pictured)

The world's richest man begged the world's most powerful to reconsider.

But the president, by now growing suspicious of the deficit hawk DOGE chief, wouldn't hear it.

'I don't care, this guy is gone,' Trump said.

Some in Musk’s circle have tried to cast Gor as the scapegoat for the presidential bromance break-up. But Bannon warned that blaming Trump's loyal aide would backfire.

'Sergio is bulletproof,' he said.

Isaacman said he was blindsided when Trump pulled his nomination.

'I got a call Friday of last week [May 30] that the president decided to go in a different direction,' he said on the All-In podcast on Thursday.

Isaacman heavily implied that his ties to Musk were to blame.

'There were some people that had some axes to grind, I guess, and I was a good, visible target,' he said, adding that 'the timing was no coincidence.'

Sergio Gor, Director, White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent walk on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on Sunday, April 6

Isaacman's nomination was publicly rescinded on May 31, the day after Musk's Oval Office goodbye ceremony.

Trump pointedly addressed the decision during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last Thursday as Musk's attacks on X spiraled out of control.

'I didn't think it was appropriate,' Trump told reporters at the White House. 'He happened to be a Democrat, like, totally Democrat. And I say, you know, look, we won. We get certain privileges. And one of the privileges is we don't have to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important.'

Isaacman dismissed that explanation.

He noted the donations had already been disclosed to the Senate months earlier. Instead, he suggested he was knifed.

An 'influential adviser came in and said "Look, here's the facts, I think we should kill this guy"', he said.

'I don't fault the president at all,' he added. 'He's got to make a thousand decisions a day with seconds of information.'

The Daily Mail has contacted Isaacman for comment.