Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has returned over $878 million to the government following a meeting with Elon Musk, despite his ongoing feud with President Trump. His office has informed the US Treasury that they will be returning $878,112,000 that he says he had been trying to hand back for the last few years. The governor said the move to hand over the funds came after a meeting with Musk and his DOGE team. Writing on X on Friday, DeSantis said: '“For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn’t even figure out how to accept it. 'Today, I met with Elon Musk and the DOGE team, and we got this done in the same day.' The GOP governor, who was once Trump's 2024 rival turned backer, also urged other states to work alongside DOGE. Musk then replied to the governor's post on X, writing: 'Almost a billion dollars of your taxpayer money saved.' The move to return the funds comes amid an ongoing move by Trump to have DeSantis ousted from office. Trump has already endorsed a formidable GOP primary opponent in Florida Rep. Byron Donalds. That move that could be interpreted as another way to take revenge on DeSantis who dared to compete against Trump in the 2024 Republican primary. In Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power, journalist Alex Isenstadt details what he says was the Trump campaign's plot to derail DeSantis' 2024 primary bid in the most vicious way possible. 'Trump didn't just want to stop DeSantis from winning the Republican nomination,' Isenstadt wrote, in excerpts obtained by DailyMail.com. 'He wanted to destroy him and make it impossible for him to run for anything ever again.' The president was incensed that DeSantis wouldn't wait his turn - and run in 2028 instead - after Trump endorsed him over another Republican during the governor's 2018 gubernatorial bid, effectively handing him the nomination. Several months ahead of DeSantis' May 2023 entry into the race 'Trump's high command had huddled in the campaign's West Palm Beach headquarters, with one purpose: figure out how to make Ron DeSantis look weird.' 'The group exchanged alleged tales portraying the governor in an unflattering light - like the time DeSantis shoved chicken fingers in his jacket pocket, the time he clipped his toenails in the back of a security vehicle, and the time he had a bathroom mishap aboard an airplane,' Isenstadt wrote. There was even an odd anecdote about Casey. 'There was the story of how DeSantis supposedly drove a golf cart behind his wife Casey, as she ran around the neighborhood so she would lose weight,' Isenstadt continued. 'Or how, when he was a congressman, he allegedly stockpiled dirty underwear in his gym locker,' the Axios reporter added. The attack that would really stick came after operatives at the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. found out the Daily Beast was about to publish a story detailing DeSantis' weird eating habits. MAGA Inc.'s Taylor Budowich, who now serves as a White House deputy chief of staff, received an email from a colleague entitled 'Pudding Fingers.' 'Oh my God,' Budowich texted a member of his team. 'What the f*** is this?' The Daily Beast had uncovered that DeSantis once ate a plastic tub of chocolate pudding using three of his fingers. MAGA Inc. was working on a commercial 'based on the forthcoming article and feature a DeSantis look-alike using his fingers to scoop chocolate pudding out of a container and then sucking on them.' 'The commercial reinforced Trump's broader case against the governor: that he was, well strange,' Isenstadt wrote. Budowich eventually pulled the trigger 'after editing out some zoomed-in shots of the DeSantis look-alike flopping his pudding-lathered tongue around, which he thought was too much to stomach.' The Trump aide only paid $100,000 to air the spot for one day, knowing it would go viral without much help. The Florida governor, who had tried to fashion himself as the person who could deliver 'Trumpism without the turmoil,' looked aloof and awkward before officially entering the race. In the end, DeSantis only made it through one primary contest - the Iowa caucuses - in which he came in a distant second place - with Trump earning 51 percent of the vote share to the governor's 21 percent. He suspended his campaign less than a week later. DeSantis has more recently spoke out against Congressman Donalds following Trump's endorsement. 'My view is, is Donald Trump just got into office. I want these congressmen focused on enacting his agenda. They haven't done very much yet,' DeSantis said. Donalds, who has served in Congress since 2021, said he appreciated the support from the president, but there was 'a lot of different things' he was thinking through. DeSantis, however, appears to have other plans as he continues to talk up his wife Casey for governor amid chatter about her planning to launch her own bid after having served as Florida's first lady.